SIRĀT Official Trailer: Oliver Laxe's 'Meditative And Loudly Disorienting Journey' in Cinemas February

A father and his son arrive at a rave deep in the mountains of southern Morocco. They are searching for Mar — daughter and sister — who vanished months ago at one of these endless, sleepless parties. Surrounded by electronic music and a raw, unfamiliar sense of freedom, they hand out her photo again and again. Hope is fading, but they push through and follow a group of ravers heading to one last party in the desert. As they venture deeper into the burning wilderness, the journey forces them to confront their own limits.

The enigmatic title refering to a bridge that spans the chasm of hell, connecting the world to paradise. Said to be "thinner than a strand of hair and as sharp as the sharpest sword," the bridge is associated with the Day of Judgment.

 

This allusion is introduced at the beginning of the film, which may initially feel dissonant, as the first act contains little that overtly evokes eschatological or religious themes. Yet as the film progresses, Laxe gradually amplifies not only the intensity of the sonic landscape but also other stakes, culminating in one of the most shocking moments in recent cinema.

 

Sirât offers a possible answer to what might emerge from crossing Mad Max with Andrei Tarkovsky. Yet Laxe’s latest work extends well beyond such an aesthetic exercise. It is an apocalyptic and dystopian film rendered in an implicitly lyrical register, at times verging on the trance-like.