Review: Raving on the road to hell in ‘Sirāt’
2026 / Dir. Óliver Laxe
Rating: 4/5
Watch if you like: the crushing feeling of living in the modern world where society feels like it could totally collapse at any second, and if Tarkovsky had remade The Wages of Fear and was also really into Skrillex.
A group of weathered men sets up a wall of beat-up old speakers in the Moroccan desert. Subterranean bass pulsates as a mixed group of Europeans shuffle around in the dust. Slowly, director Óliver Laxe establishes our characters in the midst of this desert rave, including Luis (Sergi López, the bad guy in Pan’s Labyrinth) and his son Esteban (Bruno Núñez Arjona), who are trying to find Luis’s daughter, whom he hasn’t heard from in months.
When the Moroccan army breaks up the rave and orders any Europeans to mysteriously evacuate, Luis breaks off with a group of older ravers who are going to cross the desert to go to another rave. They warn Luis not to follow—the journey is very dangerous—but they go anyway in hopes that this will be the rave where they find his daughter. On the radio, news reports allude to eruptions of global armed conflict.
Get ready for one of the most unexpectedly tense and horrifying cinematic journeys in recent memory. What starts with Luis having difficulty crossing a river with help from the experienced ravers—who sort of feel like what Burning Man attendees were like before it was taken over by celebrities and the ultra-rich—escalates into an ever-growing series of trials and tribulations. The film’s title refers to a thin bridge that people must cross to reach paradise or fall into hell below, according to Islamic belief. As the days go by, you start to wonder if there even is a rave the group is trying to reach, or if they really are on a literal road to hell.
Even the most seasoned arthouse cinema fans may find Sirāt’s post-New French Extremity provocations utterly meaningless, as Laxe’s film raises many issues and questions while resisting any clear interpretation. I found myself, instead, wrestling with and puzzling over the ideas of colonialism, chosen family, and the decisions we may be forced to make if society breaks down. Putting aside the different lenses through which to view the film, I was haunted by what I watched on the screen for days after.