Performance artist Vittoria Hopkins has made a career out of large tableaux vivant of half-naked people, addressing the guilt of the viewer in the face of their vulnerability. Her latest work 'THE RAFT' has all the ingredients of a landmark: classical references, naked body painted people lying still on a canvas and an accusatory monologue, written from the perspective of a drowning man in the Mediterranean sea. As the art world gathers to watch Vittoria's stunning, clean and... (Full plot summary below)
Enjoy FREE movies and series with your Prime (USA) subscription or when you start a 30-day free trial!
Performance artist Vittoria Hopkins has made a career out of large tableaux vivant of half-naked people, addressing the guilt of the viewer in the face of their vulnerability. Her latest work 'THE RAFT' has all the ingredients of a landmark: classical references, naked body painted people lying still on a canvas and an accusatory monologue, written from the perspective of a drowning man in the Mediterranean sea. As the art world gathers to watch Vittoria's stunning, clean and bankable scandal, an unexpected force takes hold of the installation.
Leave your thoughts about The Raft.
| The New York TimesA.O. ScottBy setting Genovés’s words in counterpoint with the recollections of seven of the participants who are still alive, [Lindeen] reinterprets the experiment, finding meanings that the scientist missed. |
| VarietyGuy LodgeThe surprisingly short leap from radical academic study to lurid exploitation is navigated with wit, sensitivity and rueful social awareness in Swedish director Marcus Lindeen’s gripping debut feature The Raft. |
| Los Angeles TimesCarlos AguilarFavored with copious amounts of footage shot during the voyage, as well as Genovés’ collected data and writings, Lindeen forged a riveting and illuminating study of the unscrupulous endeavor. |
| Slant MagazineChristopher GrayThe film uses Santiago Genovés’s experiment to scrutinize memory and capture the feeling of life under a very curious sort of dictatorship. |
| IndieWireDavid EhrlichThe Raft, like the people aboard it, floats along the surface of a vast ocean of mystery and memory. The result is a bizarre, captivating, and borderline unbelievable memory play that only supports a hypothesis Genovés wasn’t prepared to consider: We are blind to the world as it is when we only saw the world as we are. |
| EmpireIan FreerIt sounds like Big Brother on a boat, but The Raft is an absorbing portrait of a bold (or foolhardy) historical experiment that hits many of today’s hot-button topics, dominated by a compelling and complex central figure. |
| The TelegraphTim RobeyIt’s all splendid fruit for a documentary, especially given two things: the remarkable filmed record of the expedition at the time, and the fact that seven of its members are still alive. |
| The Film StageVikram MurthiThe footage astounds, but the competing contextualizations breathe new life into the experiment, especially when Lindeen allows the surviving members free reign to confront past emotions. |
| Screen DailyFionnuala HalliganA thoughtful and fascinating piece, it’s a game of two halves, however, with Lindeen making heavy work of modern-day footage which tends to drag on the dynamism of the past. |
| Wall Street JournalJoe MorgensternThis fascinating film, which goes into national distribution this week, reconstructs the event with 16mm footage shot during the voyage, interviews with surviving crew members, and a narration taken from the anthropologist’s diary in which he reveals himself to be a spectacularly cockeyed judge of human nature. |
