Movie Review: A punishing, hypnotic desert rave in Oliver Laxe’s Oscar-nominated 'Sirāt'

A father and his son are searching for their daughter and sister at a rave in the Moroccon desert as the world burns in Oliver Laxe’s “Sirāt.”

Hell on earth may look different for everyone, and yet a pulsating rave in the Moroccan desert while the world burns has the potential to be a consensus pick — even for Burning Man enthusiasts. The thing is, in “Sirāt,” that’s just the backdrop for the many terrible things that transpire.

There have been some harrowing films released in the past year, the kind that leave you feeling shattered and a little helpless, from “Hamnet” to “The Voice of Hind Rajab.” But perhaps none have been quite so punishing, so bleak, or so overwhelmingly hypnotic, as Oliver Laxe’s “Sirāt.” Currently playing in limited release, the Oscar nominated, Cannes prize-winning film is expanding to more North American theaters Friday. It is an experience that is not for the faint of heart.

Laxe opens his film with a group of men methodically setting up speakers in the arid expanse of the Sahara. The desert terrain is vast; the surrounding mountains ominous and humbling. And then, the music starts — blaring, pulsating, crashing into the silence. Suddenly a crowd is just there, vibrating to the sounds in ecstatic reverie. It feels like ages before a word is uttered.

The people that break the spell don’t seem to fit in with the malnourished, tattooed vagabonds swaying and bouncing in a trance. It’s a barrel-chested father Luis (a fantastic Sergi López ), his 12-year-old son Esteban (Bruno Núñez Arjona) and their dog. They’re not there by accident: They’re looking for their daughter and sister who left months ago; They suspect it was for this party at the end of the world, or something like it.

The war, or whatever it is, outside is left vague. There’s chatter of migrants and military. Among the ravers, there’s a kind of hopeless resignation to it all as they drift from rave to rave. One quips that the world has been ending for a long time. That this one family is still attempting to hold onto traditional ties is disarming, to say the least.