It is easy to see why Oliver Laxe’s Sirât took home the Cannes Competition Jury Prize. Breathtaking, gut-wrenching, and visceral, it’s one of the best choices you could make at TIFF.
Luis (Sergi López) is desperate to find his missing adult daughter, Marina. With his young son Esteban (Bruno Núñez Arjona) and their dog, Pipa, he arrives at a rave in the heart of the Moroccan desert. Canvassing partygoers, Luis learns of another gathering that might draw Marina. Joining a convoy of ravers — all portrayed by non-actors — the hunt for the next desert party begins.
To say it is a treacherous journey – both emotionally and physically – is an understatement. Opening with a pulsating and vibrating soundtrack by Berlin techno king Kangding Ray, Sirât never lets up the intensity. Even in the quieter moments of the road trip, there is a simmering undercurrent of tension. They aren’t quite sure of their direction, and neither is the audience. Twists and turns in the road and the plot are exciting, brash, shocking, and explosive. Sirât is so much more than what its simple synopsis suggests, as a brief moment mid-way through the film changes the narrative direction entirely.
Middle-class family man Luis and Esteban represent the establishment that the ravers left behind. As their journey through the desert unfolds, though, they find connection and support in one another. López is phenomenal, carrying an aura of resigned sadness about his every move. He is a man adrift in a desert of grief, anchoring the heart of the story and brilliantly playing opposite a cadre of non-professional actors. Jade Oukid, Joshua Liam Henderson, Stefania Gadda, Tonin Janvier, and Richard “Bigui” Bellamy are superb as the makeshift raver family. Each of them delivers an astonishing performance that belies their experience. They dance freely and unabashedly to the thumping music. Dance is a balm to soothe in times of trouble as much as it is to celebrate in times of joy.
Sirât defies easy categorization. It will draw comparisons to Wages of Fear and Sorcerer or Mad Max: Fury Road in its thrills, but at the same time, it has elements of a comedy, a road trip, and a family drama. Visually transformative, the wide open desert spaces captured on Super 16mm film by cinematographer Mauro Herce leave room to wander in thought in the silence that punctuates Laxe and co-writer Santiago Fillol’s script. Much of Laxe’s focus is on the wide open spaces that are integral to the story without being a distraction. There is as much emphasis on the desert mountains as there is on his characters.
By its final chapter, the film has travelled miles from where it began. What starts as a taut narrative unfurls into something looser, stranger, and more open to interpretation. Like Luis and Esteban, the audience has been on a journey and is left to contemplate the path that led them here. That word carries weight: in Arabic, “sirât” translates to “path.” By the time the credits roll, Laxe has transformed a search for a daughter into an odyssey of survival, friendship, and transcendence.
As they say, it’s not the destination, it’s the journey, and Sirât is definitely a rewarding one. The film should expect to be a major player this awards season and viewers should take advantage of seeing these vast landscapes on the biggest screen possible and the booming score on the loudest speakers possible.
Sirât screened as part of the 2025 Toronto International Film Festival. It arrives in select theatres on February 13.
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