Sirāt Review: Oliver Laxe's Desert Rave Becomes a Grief Odyssey

Should you see Sirāt?

If you tolerate slow cinema and loud music as spiritual practice, yes — Sirāt is a 92% critic phenomenon with Metascore 86 placement on midyear arthouse rankings. Sirāt is Oliver Laxe’s follow-up wavelength to Fire Will Come: less narrative, more trance. Sergi López plays a father chasing rumors of an underground rave that may connect to his daughter’s death — or to his own need for oblivion.

What makes Sirāt distinctive?

Laxe treats the desert as both cathedral and nightclub — dust, grief, and sub-bass as one sensory language. The 115-minute runtime is not “plot” in the Hollywood sense; it is forward motion through landscape and sound. Ana Rujas and Mohamed Bounzi support a film that asks you to feel before you understand. Letterboxd’s 3.9 and IMDb 7.5 suggest cult endurance; the 70% audience score warns casual streamers.

Spain on the 2026 map

Sirāt gives Spain a 2026 festival anchor alongside Linklater’s French cinephile entry and Mendonça Filho’s Brazilian thriller. Stack it on /best/2026/ country sections with Nouvelle Vague for a European arthouse double. Compare pacing extremes: /compare/sirat-2026/vs/dhurandhar-the-revenge/ — Priya Sharma’s Indian blockbuster review covers the opposite pole.

Verdict

Sirāt is not for everyone; it is for viewers who want cinema to alter their heartbeat. Critics are right to rank it near the top of non-English 2026 theatricals; audiences are honest that it demands surrender. On Celluloid, that split is a feature — see Best Movies of 2026 for how festival titles now share the midyear table with box-office juggernauts.