Sirāt (2026) Review: Shock Therapy in the Desert

As the Rolling Stones said: Life doesn’t give you what you want, life gives you what you need. Director Óliver Laxe describes the film as a kind of “shock therapy,” a jolt designed to awaken hope and rekindle faith in humanity when the world feels at its darkest

For Laxe, what’s truly moving is the ravers’ lucid acceptance of “the world as it is”- a stark counterpoint to Luis (Sergi López), who arrives with his young son Esteban (Bruno Núñez Arjona) in a frantic search for his missing daughter, Mar, somewhere in southern Morocco. When a smaller group of ravers mentions another gathering deeper in the desert, where Mar might have been seen, Luis and Esteban choose to follow them into the vast and unforgiving expanse.

All around them, war smolders on the horizon. The ravers, Stef (Stefania Gadda), Jade (Jade Oukid), Tonin (Tonin Janvier), Bigui (Richard Bellamy), and Josh (Joshua Liam Henderson)- try to dissuade the father and son, but their warnings go unheeded. Midway through the journey, a tragic incident claims one of the group’s most beloved members. The loss binds the remaining travelers more tightly together, yet as they move closer to Mauritania, the setbacks only multiply. This relentless escalation is what gives the film its “shock therapy” quality: each blow arriving just as the last one settles.

The irony peaks in a late scene when Jade, hoping to lift the group’s spirits, suggests taking a psychoactive drug and stages an impromptu rave in the desert, powered by two battered speakers. Lost in a trance, dancing wildly, she cries out, “Blow it up”. And in the very next instant, another jolt hits, as if the desert itself answers back with a surge of electricity. You can feel the heat of the desert through the screen.

In Sirāt, the scars of five wandering ravers are laid bare: missing limbs and teeth, weathered skin etched with scars and desert dust, and pasts shaped by profound loss. For writer and director Óliver Laxe, these marks are precisely what make them beautiful. As he shared in our interview, the ravers are not actors but real members of that world, a choice that lends the film a striking authenticity and a near documentary sense of truth. Laxe invokes the 13th century mystic poet Rumi, who wrote, “The wound is the place where the light enters you,” to capture what draws him to these characters. Their bruises and fractures are not flaws but openings. Like the film itself, they were born from the ravers he encountered while traveling alongside Europe’s free party movement, shaped by the raw, untamed spirit of that underground world.

Another triumph of the film is its Oscar shortlisted score by the French composer Kanding Ray. For sixty-two unbroken minutes, the soundtrack surges and shimmers in a relentless current of electronic music that moves from pulse pounding euphoria to something almost transcendent, even spiritual. It does not simply accompany the film, it possesses it.

The first time I saw it, I found myself swaying in my seat, caught in its hypnotic rhythm, long before I realized it. The beat lingers long after the credits roll. It is not just memorable, it is magnetic. And honestly, so is the film. It is without question one of my favorite films of last year and clearly, I am not alone in that view. Cannes, TIFF, the Golden Globes, and even the Oscars have all recognized its impact. It is startling, unapologetic, and at times overwhelming, and that very intensity is what makes it irresistible. That said, if you have a heart condition, you might want to approach with caution.