Movies: Sirât (2025) by Oliver Laxe: Crossing the Razor-Thin Bridge of Hope and Hell
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An Existential Road Odyssey Sirât (Original title: María) is a Spanish-French co-production that blends drama, mystery, thriller, and existential road movie genres. Directed by Oliver Laxe (known for Fire Will Come), the film has a runtime of 1 hour and 55 minutes. The story follows a Spanish father, Luis (Sergi López), and his young son, Esteban (Bruno Núñez Arjona), as they journey into the harsh Moroccan desert in search of Luis’s missing daughter, Mar. They join a band of nomadic ravers heading to an elusive techno party, leading the group on a treacherous, trance-like odyssey where the line between paradise (rave euphoria) and hell (societal collapse and the unforgiving desert) blurs. The film's title refers to the mythical Islamic bridge between heaven and hell.
Why to watch this movie: A Visionary and Audacious Cinematic Experience
A Journey that Blurs Myth and Reality: The film transforms a simple missing-person thriller into a mythic descent, evolving into something dreamlike and uncanny by the third act. It revives the ancient structure of the hero's odyssey for a modern, apocalyptic setting.
Masterful Aesthetic and Sound Design: Sirât is lauded for its mesmerizing visuals, thanks to the collaboration with cinematographer Mauro Herce, which captures the desert with breathtaking, menacing beauty. This is anchored by a pulsating, bass-driven techno score that acts as the film's heartbeat.
A True Auteur's Bold Vision: This is director Oliver Laxe's "boldest and most evolved work," showcasing his confident control over space, rhythm, and tension. His daring mid-film genre shift—from road drama to existential horror—is a powerful narrative gamble that shocks and recontextualizes prior events.
A Strong Festival Pedigree: The film is an international success, having been a Jury Prize Winner at the Cannes Film Festival 2025 and Spain's official candidate for the Best International Feature Film at the 98th Academy Awards in 2026.
Where to watch: https://www.justwatch.com/es/pelicula/sirat (Spain)
Link IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt32298285/
What Trend is followed?: The Global Arthouse Road Movie Sirât exemplifies the "global arthouse road movie" trend, which uses the journey format to explore profound social, political, and existential themes with high aesthetic quality and international co-production funding.
Existential Journey: The film utilizes the road-movie structure as a framework for an existential quest for meaning and belonging in a collapsing world, moving beyond a literal search for a person to a search for human dignity.
Liminal Spaces and Landscapes: The film follows a trend of directors who use vast, natural, and sometimes hostile landscapes (like the Moroccan desert) as liminal spaces—physical boundaries that reflect the characters' internal and spiritual state, often blurring the line between paradise and barbarism.
Non-Professional Casting: Laxe continues a neorealist trend by using non-professional actors who often share their characters' names, which lends an impressive air of "sun-scorched, marginalized resilience" and authenticity to the ensemble.
Director's Vision: Poetic Realism and Existential Dread
Trance-like Immersion: Oliver Laxe's vision is to create a "trance-like odyssey" that immerses the viewer in a techno-soaked atmosphere through patient, detail-oriented framing. He lulls the audience with the rave euphoria while building a creeping sense of unease and dread.
Allegory and Social Commentary: Laxe has described Sirât as his most "politically radical work," using the apocalyptic warnings and the group's perilous journey as an allegory for modern global instability, the refugee crisis, and the collapse of societal structures.
A Focus on Humanity in Extremis: The film’s violence and chaos are used to deconstruct the human condition, confronting the question: What remains when we lose everything? The director ruthlessly explores themes of human violence, survival instinct, and the urgent need for humility.
Themes: Hope, Despair, and Civilizational Collapse
The Sirât Bridge: The film uses the bridge between paradise and hell as its central metaphor, representing the constant, perilous tightrope walk the characters must navigate between hope and despair, sanity and madness, and civilization and barbarism.
The Fragility of the Human Condition: The narrative serves as a quiet, powerful "wake-up call," challenging the Western illusion of safety and stability and showing how easily life's structures can be shattered by randomness and violence.
Collectivism vs. Chaos: The ravers embody a fragile, post-apocalyptic micro-utopia built on the communal joy of music and shared freedom. This is set against the external chaos of war and the internal chaos of human madness.
Key success factors: Festival Acclaim and Sensory Power
Cannes Jury Prize and Oscar Bid: Winning the Jury Prize at Cannes and being selected as Spain's official Oscar entry immediately established the film's critical and international profile.
Outstanding Technical Collaboration: The exceptional collaboration between cinematographer Mauro Herce and composer Kangding Ray (who won the Best Soundtrack award at Cannes) creates an immersive, memorable sensory experience that critics have hailed as a technical and visual triumph.
Veteran Lead Performance: Veteran actor Sergi López (from Pan's Labyrinth) anchors the film with quiet intensity and a "physically expressive, quietly commanding turn" that carries the emotional weight of the search.
Awards and Nominations: A Major Festival Success The film has received 4 wins & 5 nominations total, making it a highly acclaimed feature on the festival circuit. Key awards include the Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival 2025 and Best Soundtrack for Kangding Ray, also at Cannes. It is also Spain's official submission for the 98th Academy Awards.
Critics reception: A Well-Crafted, Divisive Epic Sirât has been met with widespread critical acclaim for its ambitious vision and stunning visuals, achieving an impressive Metascore of 82 and a high rating from critics, who call it a "profoundly existential journey." However, the film's radical shift in tone has proven divisive for some.
The Hollywood Reporter: David Rooney notes that while it is a "lavish epic," it ultimately delivers on its promise of a unique cinematic experience.
YoungCriticMovies (IMDb Featured Review): Praises the film's "trance-like odyssey" that revives the ancient mythic descent but notes that the radical genre shift may leave some viewers feeling "betrayed" by the narrative's abandonment of its initial thriller promises.
Mehdi-Salehi (Film Critic): Hails it as Laxe's "boldest and most evolved work to date," demonstrating masterful control of space and tension, despite noting the "Third-Act Disjointedness" and potentially "unsatisfying closure" for mainstream audiences.
Reviews: A Mix of Enthusiasm and Critique User reviews are largely positive, praising the film's mesmerizing atmosphere, though some found the lack of a conventional plot frustrating.
IMDb Users (7.1/10): Users describe the film as "An intense drama about a relentless search" that is "poetic" and a "profound meditation." Reviewers praise the film for being an enjoyable and intense adventure that is worth seeing.
User Criticisms: Some users found the movie to be a "Boring movie with no plot," arguing that the setup for suspense and emotional depth "suddenly derails into nonsensical filmography" with no clear resolution.
What Movie Trend film is following: Transnational Arthouse Epic The film follows the trend of the "transnational arthouse epic," a genre that leverages co-production between European countries (Spain/France) to fund large-scale, visually stunning films set in exotic locations (Moroccan desert). This allows directors to tackle grand, existential themes with high production value while maintaining a challenging, non-commercial narrative structure.
What Big Social Trend is following: Post-Apocalyptic Existentialism The film taps into the social trend of post-apocalyptic existentialism by setting its core human drama against a backdrop of global war and societal collapse. The group's perilous journey and struggle for survival in the vast, unforgiving desert is an allegory for the real-world crises of climate, migration, and political instability, forcing the audience to confront the fragility of human civilization.
Final Verdict: A Hypnotic and Uncompromising Vision Sirât is a hypnotic, uncompromising, and highly artistic film that is essential viewing for fans of visionary cinema. Director Oliver Laxe has crafted a stunning road odyssey that uses sound, visuals, and raw performances to transform a missing-person case into a profound existential quest. While its purposeful ambiguity and radical shift from plot to allegory may frustrate viewers seeking a conventional ending, its immense technical skill and powerful emotional resonance make it a masterful, enduring work of art that will haunt audiences long after the credits roll.