If ringing the changes is the big challenge of genre cinema, Sirât pulls it off brilliantly. Occasionally the workings of writer/director Óliver Laxe’s mind are visible – how can I catch the audience off guard? Mostly they’re not. And that’s probably down to the people and the places – both unusual.
It’s two genres in one, really. In one, a father and son are trying to track down a missing daughter/sister in Morocco – a road movie. In the other the father/son brush up against a contingent of old ravers, the ones who didn’t go home when the party finished, and end up hooking up with them, certain that they will lead them to the missing girl – a rave thriller.
To start with Laxe gives us atmosphere in abundance. The North African desert, big speakers being plugged in, people arriving from miles away on dusty old vehicles, the party getting started, the drugs being taken, the trancified vibe taking hold, the dancing going on possibly for days. And then he introduces his players: a man in what was once a smart blue shirt and his son, working the crowd, handing out pictures of the missing girl. From the way they move and the semi-resigned looks on their faces, this duo have been doing this for a while.
The desert shimmers, the music swirls and it could go on for ever, but eventually the rave is broken up by the army. The convoy, undeterred, splinters, knowing that there are other raves already planned. Everyone will meet up down the road somewhere. But for now, Luis (Sergi López) and son Esteban (Bruno Núñez Arjona) are all at sea. And so they tag along behind the lorries of Bigui, Tonin, Jade, Josh and Steffi – real names, real ravers – who have the sort of wind-aged skin that speaks of being out in the sun too long with scant regard for SPF protection.
That’s it – middle class Luis and son, and the ravers, not entirely happy about some strange duo bringing up the rear in their suburban people carrier (unsuitable in this terrain). Will each group learn something from the other? Will there be adventures on the way? Those are the sort of questions you expect a road movie to answer and to an extent that’s exactly what Laxe does. But he also throws in thriller plot grenades, with “I did not see that coming” moments designed to stop things getting too cosy, or cosy at all.
The non-actors are spectacularly good and fit their roles not just because they are the real deal but also because they’re fearless in front of the camera. Arjona is also a total find as Luis’s son, and Sergi López adds another fascinating role to a CV full of them – from Pan’s Labyrinth and Dirty Pretty Things to less well known stuff like Western, The Monk, Pacifiction and Happy as Lazzaro, if you see López’s name attached to something, there’s often something worthwhile going on.
Here, that includes majestic mountain scenery, perilous traverses along precipitous roads, the shocking beauty of bright desert expanses. There is a travelogue quality to everything, with hallucinogens thrown in to add an extra dimension of jangly paranoia.
Why is the father so keen to find the daughter? Has she run away from him because he’s a bad man? On the other side, none of the ravers is that young any more. Why do they keep on doing it? Aren’t they getting bored with this life? Don’t they have homes to go to?
If Laxe asks the questions, he does it in a whisper. He’s happy to let his genre frameworks do most of the work. Stuff definitely happens. There are bumps and bangs and omigod moments, including one that is so left field it feels like a weird bad joke. Bad-acid plotting is what gives this movie its zing.
Sirât – Watch it/buy it at Amazon
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© Steve Morrissey 2026
