Review: 'Sirāt' is an intense movie experience, a life-or-death drama set to the beat of rave culture

French director Oliver Laxe’s existential thriller “Sirāt” has qualities in common with the rave music that serves as its soundtrack: It’s hypnotic, energetic, propulsive and raises the tension to almost unbearable levels. 

The action starts at a rave somewhere in northern Africa. It seems less like a commercial concert than a communal group happening. People set up a wall of speakers, then dance and gyrate together in a shared ecstasy of togetherness. If you don’t go to Burning Man regularly, the opening minutes of this movie may be the closest you get to feeling that.

Luis (played by the Spanish actor Sergi López) is not there for the music. With his young son, Esteban (Bruno Núñez), in tow, Luis is searching high and low for his missing daughter, Mar. Luis meets one group of ravers who travel from one event to another, who tell him they might have met Mar — and that she might be at the event where they’re going next. Luis decides to follow this group, even dodging military police to get there.

On the road, Luis and Esteban are soon accepted into the family of oddballs — a group all played by nonprofessionals chosen in street-casting by costume designer Nadia Acimi, who is a former raver (and Laxe’s ex). But the route becomes more treacherous, and something happens (no spoiler here) that turns the trip into something darker and more tragic.

Laxe, who co-wrote with Santiago Fillol, takes us deep into the world of rave culture, then takes that world and plunges it into the desert of Northern Africa — a place where life and death are close companions, and danger is a constant. Luis and these nomadic ravers experience that danger, and it both bonds them and divides them. 

It’s hard to be more specific about the plot, because this is a movie that rewards those who don’t know too much when the lights go down. “Sirāt” is an intense, gripping movie about the end of the line, and the choices that have to be made when these people get there.

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‘Sirāt’

★★★1/2

Opens Friday, March 13, at the Broadway Centre Cinemas (Salt Lake City). Rated R for language, some violent content and drug use. Running time: 114 minutes, in Spanish, French and Arabic, with subtitles.