'Sirāt' is a desert survival story — and one of the year's most gripping films

NEON

The Arabic word sirāt means "path" or "way"; in Islamic scripture, it refers to a narrow bridge that connects Paradise and Hell. That makes it a fitting title for the director Oliver Laxe's new movie, which is both exhilarating and devastating.

Sirāt is a survival story about several unlikely traveling companions making their way through a godforsaken stretch of the Sahara Desert. It carries echoes of countless earlier films, from the arid landscapes of a John Ford Western to the post-apocalyptic setting of Mad Max . But nothing about Sirāt feels derivative or secondhand. It's an astonishing piece of cinema; I haven't had a more gripping experience in a movie theater all year.

It begins somewhere in southern Morocco, where hundreds of nomadic European revelers have gathere