The Cinema of Societal Collapse
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Books & the Arts
/ March 5, 2026
The Cinema of Societal Collapse
This year’s Oscar-nominated international feature films—especially The Secret Agent and Sirāt—tackle what it means to live and die under tyranny.
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(Courtesy of NEON)
In Sirāt, a band of ravers drive deep into the Moroccan desert searching for the next gathering where they can dance freely. A father and son impulsively join them on a search for a missing daughter, despite their limited resources and a vehicle unfit for the treacherous terrain. The last rave they all attended was broken up by soldiers enforcing a mandatory evacuation in response to news that war has gripped the world outside the desert. Later, as they’re listening to a radio broadcast, one raver asks another, “Is this the end of the world?” The other raver replies, like a cheeky punch line to a bad joke, “It’s been the end of the world for a long time.”
The speculative global conflict in Sirāt that writer-director Oliver Laxe alludes to in broad, elliptical terms stands in neat contrast with The Secret Agent’s granular depiction of Brazil’s military dictatorship, which endured from 1964 to 1985. From its opening scene—a shakedown of Armando Solimões (Wagner Moura) by local authorities at a rural gas station—Kleber Mendonça Filho immerses viewers in a world of casual corruption and clandestine violence endemic to authoritarian rule. Anyone who can be cheaply characterized as “left wing”—academics, scientists, and members of queer and minority communities—are routinely targeted by those in power. The year is 1977. For the film’s ensemble of political dissidents, many of whom are on the run under assumed names, it’s been the end of the world for a long time.
The Secret Agent and Sirāt are among the five films nominated in this year’s Best International Feature Film category, all of which confront state-backed oppression. It Was Just an Accident is about former Iranian political prisoners exacting vengeance against their onetime torturer. The Voice of Hind Rajab reenacts the cold-blooded killing of the 6-year-old eponymous Palestinian girl by the Israel Defense Forces. Even Sentimental Value, a bourgeois family drama about an absentee aging filmmaker and his two semi-estranged daughters, pivots on understanding the consequences of inherited trauma from a tortured Resistance fighter during the Nazi occupation of Norway.
Living with or dying under tyranny pertains to each of the nominated films, yet The Secret Agent and Sirāt are primarily concerned with the texture of a fascist atmosphere. Differences in style and tone abound, but both films capture the psychology of knowing that one’s …
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Current Issue
Books & the Arts
/ March 5, 2026
The Cinema of Societal Collapse
This year’s Oscar-nominated international feature films—especially The Secret Agent and Sirāt—tackle what it means to live and die under tyranny.
Share
Copy Link
X (Twitter)
Bluesky Pocket
Ad Policy
(Courtesy of NEON)
In Sirāt, a band of ravers drive deep into the Moroccan desert searching for the next gathering where they can dance freely. A father and son impulsively join them on a search for a missing daughter, despite their limited resources and a vehicle unfit for the treacherous terrain. The last rave they all attended was broken up by soldiers enforcing a mandatory evacuation in response to news that war has gripped the world outside the desert. Later, as they’re listening to a radio broadcast, one raver asks another, “Is this the end of the world?” The other raver replies, like a cheeky punch line to a bad joke, “It’s been the end of the world for a long time.”
The speculative global conflict in Sirāt that writer-director Oliver Laxe alludes to in broad, elliptical terms stands in neat contrast with The Secret Agent’s granular depiction of Brazil’s military dictatorship, which endured from 1964 to 1985. From its opening scene—a shakedown of Armando Solimões (Wagner Moura) by local authorities at a rural gas station—Kleber Mendonça Filho immerses viewers in a world of casual corruption and clandestine violence endemic to authoritarian rule. Anyone who can be cheaply characterized as “left wing”—academics, scientists, and members of queer and minority communities—are routinely targeted by those in power. The year is 1977. For the film’s ensemble of political dissidents, many of whom are on the run under assumed names, it’s been the end of the world for a long time.
The Secret Agent and Sirāt are among the five films nominated in this year’s Best International Feature Film category, all of which confront state-backed oppression. It Was Just an Accident is about former Iranian political prisoners exacting vengeance against their onetime torturer. The Voice of Hind Rajab reenacts the cold-blooded killing of the 6-year-old eponymous Palestinian girl by the Israel Defense Forces. Even Sentimental Value, a bourgeois family drama about an absentee aging filmmaker and his two semi-estranged daughters, pivots on understanding the consequences of inherited trauma from a tortured Resistance fighter during the Nazi occupation of Norway.
Living with or dying under tyranny pertains to each of the nominated films, yet The Secret Agent and Sirāt are primarily concerned with the texture of a fascist atmosphere. Differences in style and tone abound, but both films capture the psychology of knowing that one’s …
The Cinema of Societal Collapse
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Current Issue
Books & the Arts
/ March 5, 2026
The Cinema of Societal Collapse
This year’s Oscar-nominated international feature films—especially The Secret Agent and Sirāt—tackle what it means to live and die under tyranny.
Share
Copy Link
Facebook
X (Twitter)
Bluesky Pocket
Email
Ad Policy
(Courtesy of NEON)
In Sirāt, a band of ravers drive deep into the Moroccan desert searching for the next gathering where they can dance freely. A father and son impulsively join them on a search for a missing daughter, despite their limited resources and a vehicle unfit for the treacherous terrain. The last rave they all attended was broken up by soldiers enforcing a mandatory evacuation in response to news that war has gripped the world outside the desert. Later, as they’re listening to a radio broadcast, one raver asks another, “Is this the end of the world?” The other raver replies, like a cheeky punch line to a bad joke, “It’s been the end of the world for a long time.”
The speculative global conflict in Sirāt that writer-director Oliver Laxe alludes to in broad, elliptical terms stands in neat contrast with The Secret Agent’s granular depiction of Brazil’s military dictatorship, which endured from 1964 to 1985. From its opening scene—a shakedown of Armando Solimões (Wagner Moura) by local authorities at a rural gas station—Kleber Mendonça Filho immerses viewers in a world of casual corruption and clandestine violence endemic to authoritarian rule. Anyone who can be cheaply characterized as “left wing”—academics, scientists, and members of queer and minority communities—are routinely targeted by those in power. The year is 1977. For the film’s ensemble of political dissidents, many of whom are on the run under assumed names, it’s been the end of the world for a long time.
The Secret Agent and Sirāt are among the five films nominated in this year’s Best International Feature Film category, all of which confront state-backed oppression. It Was Just an Accident is about former Iranian political prisoners exacting vengeance against their onetime torturer. The Voice of Hind Rajab reenacts the cold-blooded killing of the 6-year-old eponymous Palestinian girl by the Israel Defense Forces. Even Sentimental Value, a bourgeois family drama about an absentee aging filmmaker and his two semi-estranged daughters, pivots on understanding the consequences of inherited trauma from a tortured Resistance fighter during the Nazi occupation of Norway.
Living with or dying under tyranny pertains to each of the nominated films, yet The Secret Agent and Sirāt are primarily concerned with the texture of a fascist atmosphere. Differences in style and tone abound, but both films capture the psychology of knowing that one’s …
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