SIRĀT

Sometimes it’s best to go into a movie completely cold. So feel free to stop reading now. Suffice it to say that Sirāt is an experience. The elevator pitch could be “The Wages of Fear meets Burning Man,” but that hardly does justice to this heady journey into the heart of darkness. Stunningly photographed on Super 16mm in the awe-inspiring Rambla de Barrachina in Spain, the film has a sense of scale and a raw power that demands to be seen on a big screen while surrounded by an audience. Sirāt features not one but two of the most jaw-dropping moments in recent film memory that are sure to send shock waves through the theater. The film won the prestigious Jury Prize (and the Palm Dog for canines Pipa and Lupita) at Cannes this year. What starts out as the story of a man, accompanied by his young son, looking for his estranged and presumed missing daughter, shifts gears at a decisive moment. They join a group of damaged ravers searching for the next party in the Moroccan desert. As they head for an unknown destination somewhere along the border with Mauritania, the convoy stays vigilant to avoid detection by local armed forces. Vague radio reports indicate that WWIII has started. Kangding Ray’s hypnotic ambient-trance soundtrack draws you deeper and deeper beyond the point of no return. And Laxe sustains and modulates the tension masterfully until it inevitably snaps. ~OO