Sirat is one of the most unique experimental films I’ve seen in years. Writer director Oliver Laxe grafts an art house movie onto a Mad Max inspired action thriller, and the results are simultaneously thrilling and harrowing. While my other favorites from 2025 stand out for their engrossing plot or vibrant character arcs, Sirat is all about vibes: rattling techno sub-bass that put in me a trance, stunning shots of vans blasting across the desert, and explosive, emotionally shocking twists.
(Major spoilers ahead. Sirat just premiered in limited release, with a wider rollout in later February. For those intrigued by the premise, I’d recommend watching the film before reading more.)
Most of Sirat plays out like a bleak, minimalist drama. Laxe swaps out dialogue and character development for raw visuals, sound, and music that wash over the audience. We get long sequences of characters dancing in a rave, ultra wide angle shots of tiny vehicles driving through massive desert landscapes, and a shell shocked man walking through wind and sand to an unknown destination. The sequences carry parallels to other wordless, music heavy passages from Gaspar Noe’s Climax, Lars Von Trier’s Melancolia, and Gus Van Sant’s Gerry.
Yet a solid third of Sirat feels more like an action thriller. Mad Max: Fury Road is the obvious comparison point, though the film never ramps up to the scale of George Miller’s classic. In both films, a rag tag group of heroes brave natural disasters, bond, and strategize to reach their destination. In Sirat characters negotiate for fuel, push through vehicular mishaps, and race to escape a platoon of soldiers.
There are also multiple moments that feel heavily indebted to The Wages of Fear and Sorcerer. Vans get stuck in a river bed and drive precariously near cliffs. Characters desperately attempt to escape a minefield on foot.
Sirat’s unique character stems from how it repeatedly jumps between these genres, a large reason the film’s tragic events deliver such an emotional wallop. Laxe leans on long experimental passages to lull the audience into a more reflective, trance-like mood. But the harsh realities of situation are laid bare by the thriller setpieces to come.
No other moment better illustrates Sirat’s interplay with genre than the sudden death of two characters midway through the film. Up to this point in the story, a family — father Luis, son Esteban, and their dog Pipa — have been on the road with a group of ravers in pursuit of Luis’s daughter. There are clear signs of danger with repeated vehicular mishaps, but also lighter fish-out-of-water moments as the family trio share food and bond with the comparatively exotic ravers. Given the primary aesthetic up to this point is more EDM-filled tone piece than action drama, the overall mood is more mystical than bleak.
But then during a mountain pass crossing, one of the convoy vans gets stuck in a rut. The group manages to free the vehicle, but Luis’s van accidentally rolls backward off a cliff, killing Esteban and Pipa. When I watched this moment with a festival audience, the crowd reacted like they were sucker punched in the throat. There were audible screams and gasps. A glance at others revealed signs of shock: mouths agape, eyes wide, and multiple people jolting up in their seats.
Notably, Laxe backs away from the thriller action atmosphere almost immediately. A few minutes after the van falls off the cliff, the film slow dissolves to a heartbroken and grieving Luis in a van. Soon afterwards, the camera tracks the remaining convey continuing their journey over a seemingly endless landscape. Other than Luis’s anguished cries there’s very little dialogue during these moments. Most diegetic sounds fade away as a ambient techno track swells in the background.
Sirat’s swerve back into art house territory forces the audience to reflect on the tragedy that just unfolded. There’s no humor or onscreen excitement to provide an easy emotional escape. As arpeggiated synths blasted out of the theater’s sound system, I felt waves of emotion over Luis’s loss. The lack of backstory made the tragedy feel more primal and universal.
Granted, that’s just one personal reaction. Other voices online have argued Sirat’s sudden character deaths feel like misery porn, a cheap shock under an otherwise underdeveloped, thin screenplay. While I disagree with this critique, as does the general critical consensus (Sirat won the jury prize at Cannes), I understand where it’s coming from.
But I’d argue the film’s primary dividing line aren’t with its character deaths, but instead its many music-heavy experimental passages. Some will find them nonsensical and tedious. With this mindset, practically any traditional plot progression, tragic or otherwise, will be greeted with skepticism.
Yet divisiveness is practically inevitable with Sirat’s bold structure. I wouldn’t want it any other way — Laxe’s uncompromising vision is its strength. The film is a bold shock to the system that forces its audience to confront tragedy head on. Part Sorcerer-like thriller, EDM rave, and existential tone piece, there’s nothing else quite like it.