Sirât, the latest work by Oliver Laxe, presents a bifurcated narrative full of ruptures in meaning—a film that begins in realism but gradually shifts toward the surreal and allegorical. The first half is crafted in an observational, realist style: a simple father and his son wander through the desert in search of the missing daughter. The strong visual composition, authentic environmental details, and slow rhythm all contribute to an immersive sense of reality.
However, from the very outset, the film signals its intention to deviate from a strictly linear, realist narrative. A bizarre desert gathering—a rave pulsating with electronic music and heavy bass—clearly establishes that sound, rather than image, will dominate the story. The music does not merely accompany the visuals; it overwhelms them, dictating the mood and drawing everyone into its trance-like rhythm. It is as if the daughter is lost not in the physical world but within the realm of sound and rhythm itself. The father’s decision to enter this space conveys not a logical action but confusion and irresponsibility, a contradiction that deepens the emotional complexity of his character.
The film’s shocking midpoint dismantles the linear structure entirely. The search for the daughter fades into the background as the camera shifts to side characters and peripheral events. This marks a fragmentation of narrative cohesion, plunging the film into a nightmarish, mythic space—a realm that mirrors the father’s inner psychological journey. The father’s performance in these moments is remarkable: his silences, his gaze, and the weight of his presence communicate the crushing burden of loss and helplessness. His penetrating look at his son—whose hair is being braided—suggests subconscious resistance to changes he cannot control, changes that may have also drawn his daughter to the desert. It is as if he sees the desert’s pull reflected in the cropped strands of his son’s hair.
The film then presents a striking image: a vast, white, endless expanse resembling a dried salt lake. The father steps onto it fearlessly, as though diving into water where no water exists. This vision is both realist and dreamlike—a metaphor for drowning in destiny and attempting to escape life’s wounds.
Ultimately, the narrative returns to linearity: a train filled with people of various backgrounds, all moving toward an unknown destination. Inside a minibus, a television shows images resembling a pilgrimage ritual, as if past and future are collapsing into one. Survivors of the desert are scattered throughout the train, isolated yet part of a collective journey. The train thus becomes an allegory for humanity’s shared fate, where individual stories dissolve into the motion of the whole.
In the end, Sirât is less concerned with solving the mystery of the daughter’s disappearance than with offering a sensorial, allegorical meditation on loss, estrangement, and helplessness. The film keeps the viewer suspended between reality and metaphor, between searching and drifting, between fatherhood and surrender. Its lasting power may lie precisely in this state of suspension and disorientation.
