Lilas Mayassi, left, and Shery Bechara in Sirens (Oscilloscope Laboratories)

The heroines of Rita Baghdadi’s documentary Sirens have a unique urgency that nonetheless resonates with anyone who was ever young. They are Slave to Sirens, an all-female thrash metal band in Beirut, Lebanon, struggling to make music in their bombed city. “Home doesn’t feel safe. Friendship doesn’t feel safe. Love doesn’t feel safe,” says the band’s leader, Lilas Mayassi. She later leans against a tree during one of the many onscreen protests to show a video of the girl she’s dating to bandmate Shery Bechara. (“Cute,” Shery responds.)

Thrash metal is a subgenre of a subgenre anywhere, much less in Beirut. It’s a difficult path for women in Lebanon to take, which we see in the way others judge their piercings, tattoos, face paint, and sexy leather gear. Baghdadi captures a fascinating view into both their world and the culture around them. Lilas’s relationship with a woman across the border in Syria unfurls in an otherwise traditional community, which becomes violently unstable during filming in 2020 when explosions rock the country, physically and politically.

The band includes Maya Khairallah, Alma Doumani, and Tatyana Boughaba, but Lilas and Shery become the film’s big personalities. The two are cagey about how they met but agree that their meet-cute was intense, and their dynamic remains passionate. They argue throughout over the band’s direction (and argue over how they argue) and at one point break up the band, even after tender moments of collaboration and affection.

As director and cinematographer, Baghdadi roots this snapshot of an uncommon band through domestic scenes and wide vistas of a city roiling under attack. At home, Lilas, 24, hides her sexuality from the mother, who won’t let her move out without being married to a man, while Shery, 27, listens patiently to her father explain that maybe pop music would have led to more success for the group. Bombs wreck buildings and protestors are constantly in the background while band members talk about their lives before the camera. They hang out in family living rooms and abandoned hotels, moments Baghdadi artfully slices together to highlight the relatable chaos of their vibrant youth against their country’s instability.

The beats are so well-timed and the band is so compelling that it’s hard to remember this is a documentary, not an orchestrated narrative. Baghdadi has made a poem of a film; the band and the country function as parallel struggles to achieve something better than what each has today. Siren’s hauntingly beautiful final moments point to the group’s growth but uncertain future as Lilas and Shery follow each other into literal darkness, carefully and excitedly.