Film review: “SIRAT” by Nick Gardener from ‘Built For Speed’
Hypnotic, atmospheric, inventive, visually striking and at times gut wrenching, Spanish/ French co-produced psychological drama Sirat should prove one of the year’s most memorable films.
Sirat, sees despondent middle aged dad Luis (Sergi Lopez) and his young son Estaban (Bruno Núñez Arjona) in the unusual environment of a desert rave party in Morocco where Louis hopes to find his estranged missing daughter. Anxiously asking the zonked out ravers if they’ve seen her, Louis and Estaban attach themselves to a group of French and Spanish partygoers heading to another rave in Mauritania. As the group hurtle through the unforgiving desert in their trucks they soon find simply surviving this brutal environment and a surrounding military conflict becomes their number one priority.
With its vast, rugged, all-consuming desert setting, the film occasionally recalls movies like Walkabout and even Mad Max Fury Road. Also, the gruelling, nerve wracking and at times perilous journey this convoy undertakes brings to mind Henri-Georges Clouzot’s classic The Wages of Fear.
As it charts the characters’ strange odyssey, the film touches on a range of themes including grief, North African conflict and culture clashes not only between the west and the Islamic world but between young and old and within families.
With Sirat, director Oliver Laxe has conjured a film that is often highly seductive much like the alternate world of writhing bodies at the rave parties but also contains some remarkable tonal shifts that will shock audiences. It also has one of the most agonisingly tense sequences we’ve seen in films for some time.
As well as being visually stunning, the film makes remarkable use of sound with synth music that brings to mind the way Jean Michel Jarre’s work was used in Gallipoli as well as the pulsating, reality distorting rhythms of the rave tunes.
While not every character is a well developed as we might have liked most are sufficiently real that we care about what happens to them. Sergi Lopez in particular has a rugged, world-weary humanity that many will find affecting.
Sirat reveals in Oliver Laxe a director capable of matching remarkable style with compelling substance.
Nick’s rating: ****1/2
Genre: Drama.
Classification: M.
Director(s): Óliver Laxe.
Release date: 26th Feb 2026.
Running time: 114 mins.
Reviewer: Nick Gardener can be heard on “Built For Speed” every Friday night from 8-10pm on 88.3 Southern FM.