The opening of “Sirāt” has mad beats — both in terms of the quality of the music and its ability to drive you out of your head. For nearly 10 minutes, the film immerses the viewer inside the pulse of a rave; the camera seductively weaves through a crowd as a hypnotic beat wraps you in euphoric bliss. That intoxicating wave of sound is the creation of Kangding Ray – born David Letelier – a French musician whose album “Solens Arc” caught the attention of director Oliver Laxe.
“There were two tracks that Oliver liked a lot and were basically the reason why he contacted me to work on the film,” Ray told IndieWire. The album’s raw, uncompromising, dirty, and emotional tone became the stepping stone for the unrelenting score; a remixed version of the track “Amber Decay” serves as the appetizer to a narrative that harmoniously blends image and sound like two parts of the same being.
Hooking viewers early required careful craft. “Oliver talked a lot about the textures, energy, and the visceral aspect he wanted to bring to the film, especially the rave scene. One key aspect was being true to the scene but also cinematic enough so it’s palpable for a wider audience,” Ray said. “We’re portraying a free party scene born out of this punk ethos of early U.K. rave, so we had to be cautious about turning it into a stereotype but also keep it strong enough so that it could hold a story behind it.”
The emotive sequence posed an equally demanding challenge for post, which was mixed in Dolby Atmos and overseen by supervising sound editor and designer Laia Casanovas. “It was difficult to find the balance between the realism and the energy of the music. We wanted the music to feel like another character, as if you were there on the dance floor,” Casanovas said. To achieve this, they let the music carry the moment, adding layers of texture and atmosphere rather than punctuating it with sounds of the crowd to give a sensation that you are there.
The title, drawn from an Arabic word meaning “path” or “way,” frames an allegorical journey of self-discovery and transformation as a father (Sergi López) and son (Bruno Núñez Arjona) join a group of ravers venturing deep into the Moroccan desert to find his missing daughter, last seen at a festival. Music and effects deepen themes of life, death, and survival. As circumstances for characters darken, sound underscores the emotional weight.
“There’s a slow disintegration of the score towards something more ethereal, more ambient, and more spiritual. Because by the end, it’s not a film about a rave, it’s about things that are way bigger than that,” said Ray, who composed a 12-song soundtrack — all of which Laxe pushed the limits of creativity. “The great thing about working with someone like Oliver is he’s not really one to compromise. Whenever we had an idea, we were never afraid of being too radical, or too rough, or too raw. We trusted the process and also trusted the audience,” the Berlin-based composer said.
Adding to the aural equation were the sonic elements beyond music. “The film’s sound is more documentary and realistic but expressive without losing the reality,” Casanovas told IndieWire. Post collaborated early with production sound mixer Amanda Villavieja to shape the experience, asking her to record ambisonic stereo sounds of the desert. “We wanted to study and analyze how to be more expressive through the film and propose an emotional journey through sound,” Casanovas said about the technique that captures full-sphere 360-degree audio.
The emotionally driven approach allowed for subtle changes in sound design, especially for later scenes in the desert where loneliness and emptiness dominate. “Lots of the winds in the first half of the film are recorded in Morocco and the Sahara Desert. But in the final scenes, the wind recordings are from Iceland. They are more silent with low frequencies. We cut the high end and pitch it down so they become more weird and strange to match the emotional state that we wanted,” Casanovas said.
One notable scene shows the convoy of vehicles at a crowded gas station trying to top off before crossing the desert. Post recorded a number of local voices and phrases to give color to the existing production sound captured on set. The vehicles provided another opportunity for sonic life. Scarred with years of dust and sun, they trek across unmarked roads, growling with personality. “You hear more of the roar of the engines to explain that they are dangerous,” said Casanovas about their initial sounds. “Then from the middle of the film you hear more of the tires and the structure of the vehicles and not their engines because we wanted to emphasize the difficulty crossing the desert and the danger of the mountains.”
Score, at times, emphasized the spirit of a road movie, providing energy to scenes as characters journey towards their destination. In mixing a climactic accident that happens in the mountains, sound leaned into the veracity of the moment. “We wanted the scene to be realistic and raw so it was more impactful,” Casanovas said. Music takes a back seat, allowing the character’s emotions to play on screen.
Mirroring the opening of “Sirāt,” the final moments rely on score and sound to deliver a resonating conclusion – a sequence that begins with harmless drug use and spirals into chaos. “For this track, there was a requirement from Oliver that it had to grow and grow and grow, but there were different aspects to the scene,” Ray said. “There’s this solidarity of this found family, the pain, and then the psychedelic aspect. All of these emotions had different sounds that I layered to express this feeling.”
Casanovas added, “At the beginning of the film, there are more elements of insects, wind, and grass. It’s brighter than the last part of the film, where we wanted the emotional journey to be more about fear. The final scenes practically don’t have any kind of wind. It’s something more silent, and we used frequencies to make it more like a mental state.”
“In a way, it’s linked to the different states of grief and mixed emotions,” said Ray. “The film is about how to see the light and pain and how suffering can be seen as a blessing sometimes.”
“Sirāt” will have a limited release run in New York and Los Angeles on November 13.