A film that seems so simple ends up being the one asking possibly the most existential questions yet. This is Sirat, the winner of the 2025 Cannes Grand Jury Prize, a film that follows a father Luis and his son Esteban as they travel through the desert of Morocco to a rave hoping to find his daughter who has been missing for months. For myself, this is all I knew going into the film, and I would recommend this approach to the film to everyone watching. Go in blind knowing as little as you can, to leave the theatre with thoughts of the power of nature and the importance of being a global citizen.

The film opens with a rave. Bass notes beating, people dancing. It is taking place in the desert of Morocco, and a young boy Esteban and his father Luis are in attendance. But unlike the others, they are not there to party and dance. They are there to find Luis’ daughter, who went missing months ago, and who they believe might be in attendance at the rave. When the rave is abruptly cancelled by military troops, Luis and Esteban join a group of drifters travelling through the desert to another rave, hoping to find the daughter there.

Before getting into the film’s meaning for myself, the immediate standout of the film is the sound design and use of music. A film that blasts deep bass notes throughout the first 15 minutes of its run time, one character says this music is not for listening to, but rather for dancing to. The use of this music throughout the film ties its themes together, creating a cohesive story, even in a film that totally switches gears in its third act. The sound has a way of reminding us how isolated the characters are in the vast desert, while always relating their journeys back to the rave and the music pulsing through the narrative.

On top of this the cinematography captures the breathtaking Moroccan desert that surrounds our cast so elegantly, showing the beast that is the nature often engulfing our humble drifters as they travel through the desert. But this natural world is never without a human influence; roads passing through, or tire marks in the dirt, and when they are presented alongside this journey, we are always reminded of the humbling power of nature, even when our charcters may feel and act above it.

With this cinematography and sound design, it easily leads into what I believe the film is about, aside from the search for the daughter. It is difficult to discuss how I interpreted the film without spoiling major plot points of the narrative, but overall this review will remain generalized.

As mentioned, the film takes a sharp turn in the third act, and this really cemented my ideas about the thesis of the film. Throughout time, but specifically now, there is a large shift in our culture as we try to ignore things; ignoring the power of the natural world around us, our over reliance on technology when surrounded by this vast nature, and an ignorance towards news and wars. Turning off the news, or blocking feeds on social media when they share too much about world events. This ignorance often comes in the name of counter-culture or “being above it all”, and wanting to live a free life outside of the constraints of the realities surrounding us. We are often like the drifters who choose to drive through the wild desert, unprepared, in the name of choosing a free life.

This may sound appealing, living with the flow and free from the emotional labour associated with these truths, but we cannot live like this. As the third act of the film shows, this ignorance will destroy us. Driving trucks through a desert not made for traversing with wheels, and not knowing how to fix them when nature takes their usability. Choosing to turn off the news radio when war is being discussed, and living in ignorance about the countries we travel through. But nature should humble us. We should fear its vastness. We should not mute the news and block out information about what is happening in the world, as we need to live with an understanding of our reality, or it will put us in grave danger, like it inevitably will for our group in the film.

For the drifters, they had a choice. They chose to come to the rave, chose not to listen to the military when asked to return home, and chose to drive through the desert, unprepared. For Luis and Esteban, they were compelled to follow the daughter, put at risk by her choices and out of their love for her. But many people lack this choice. They must live in this reality, in war-torn countries or making journeys through dangerous terrain in the name of finding a safer home. The journey we are following was a chosen one, but as we are reminded in the last shot of the film, they are privileged to have been given the choice to make the journey at all, when so many others were forced.

I can see that some people might take issue with the shift the film takes in the final act. While some might call it an abandoned narrative and want closure, I think this ending actually ends up driving home the themes of the film. It is about the journey the group takes, rather than why they are journeying, to open up bigger discussing on humanity and being a citizen of the world, not just the world we perceive in front of us. Whether the film is discussing ignorance, or immigration, or the refugee crisis, or the privilege of the west, or the power of the natural world, it remains true that the film had my jaw dropping multiple times, and that I remained on the edge of my seat throughout the runtime of the film, captured for the entire 2 hours.

This is again all without discussing the stellar work the ensemble cast does in the film, oozing chemistry with each other as they travel alone through the desert, keeping us captivated throughout with their exposed and heart-wrenching performances. With this is exceptional direction by Oliver Laxe, that crafts an emotional tension from the beginning of the film, and keeps us subtly anticipating something more sinister coming even before we fully expect anything happening, paced perfectly to keep us engaged and on the edge of our seats throughout.

As one character says in the film, the music they hear at the rave is not for listening to, but for dancing to. In Sirat, I think this captures the theme of the film. Many people will try to dance through life, with the bass pumping energy and fun through their veins. But we cannot dance forever. We must hear the world around us, be present, and listen to what is happening. We cannot drown it out, and we should not choose to turn off the real world to turn up our sound for dancing. There is balance in everything, and if we live in ignorance, it will destroy us all.

Sirat was screened at the 2025 Melbourne International Film Festival. Image courtesy of MIFF.