Sirāt (2025)
This sets off with a pretty great start of fifteen minutes of pumping rave music, bodies moving in sync in hypnotic dance and almost no dialogue. Then the movie turns in a psychadelic nightmare version of a Top Gear roadtrip special going from bad to worse. With some vague suggestion at a military conflict going on in the background. Intriguing mix of themes and genres at first, and I was waiting for some sort of idea to form for where this heading. Not that the film needed absolute clarity or a big “AHA”-moment. It lives quite well within its very limited outside knowledge setting, but when the film does reveal its hand it felt dishonest to me. I guess there is some symbolic attempt behind it all or a political allegory, but how it was framed here was mostly stupid, comically so, when it tries so hard to go for shock and despair. It falls flat pulling the rug under itself, and ruining an otherwise good atmospheric setting with a killer sound design.
Rating: 2