73
Metascore
14 reviews · Provided by Metacritic.com
- 90The New York TimesA.O. ScottThe 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.
- 83The Film StageVikram MurthiThe 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.
- 75Slant MagazineChristopher GraySlant MagazineChristopher GrayThe film uses Santiago Genovés’s experiment to scrutinize memory and capture the feeling of life under a very curious sort of dictatorship.
- 75IndieWireDavid EhrlichIndieWireDavid 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.
- 70Screen DailyFionnuala HalliganScreen 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.
- 63RogerEbert.comSimon AbramsRogerEbert.comSimon AbramsOne of the main pleasures of watching The Raft, a new documentary that combines decades-old footage of the Acali's 101-day voyage with modern-day commentary by the ship's six surviving crew mates, is that the Acali's story isn't just told from Genoves's self-mythologizing perspective.
- 60The GuardianPeter BradshawThe GuardianPeter BradshawIt is an interesting story, and yet the film doesn’t quite summon up the atmosphere of the raft. It doesn’t fully plunge you into that strange milieu, nor does it quite analyse exactly what was going on.