An outdoor rave in the desert. The music pounds, distorting the speakers, and the desert sun beats down. These people dance like the damned. Some like they're asking questions; others like they’re answering them. Some seem furious; others ecstatic. They all look exhausted, old, like they’ve been dancing non-stop for 25 years. Some have lost limbs. Think Burning Man, but more like Burnt Man: the embers of the ’90s dance scene.
Among them wanders Luis (Sergi López) and his young son, Esteban, handing out fliers as they search for his daughter who is rumoured to be in the area. When an international crisis causes the military to start rounding up foreign nationals, a ragtag caravan of ravers breakaway from the convoy and head to the mountains seeking out another rave. Luis and Esteban follow. Wherever they think they’re going, they’re in for a surprise. The same can be said for us.
All you need to know is that the twists and turns of French-Spanish director Oliver Laxe’s film are as dangerous as a mountain road. For some, the vertigo they cause will be too much.
It’s The Wages of Fear meets The Vanishing on shrooms
At first, the film plays as a fish-out-of-water comedy as the resolutely middle class Luis finds himself forced to ally himself to the tattooed, drug-fuelled crusties who can show him the way. The sweetness of Luis and Esteban’s relationship is matched by the makeshift family of outcasts and wanderers, played almost exclusively by first-timers. Relationships are not always clear, but Stefania Gadda is the matriarch of the group and Jade Oukid is the fixer who repairs the speakers, enjoying their distorted sound which dominates Berlin electronic producer Kangding Ray’s all-enveloping soundtrack.
Having made his second film, Mimosas, in Morocco, Laxe has an eye for the unworldly beauty of the desert and mountain landscapes. Cinematographer Mauro Herce’s camera imbues the film with a feel that is part western – The Searchers, perhaps – and part science fiction, with more than a hint of Mad Max: Fury Road. There’s also the political background which the characters are ignoring to their peril. Apocalypse is often simply third world conditions imposed on white people and so it proves here.
Much will depend on how far you’re willing to go with the wild swings the film takes in its second half, but if you’re down for a trip, Sirat is The Wages of Fear meets The Vanishing on shrooms; startlingly original, jarringly hilarious and deeply disturbing.
Sirât premiered at the Cannes Film Festival.