THE STRANGEST GROUP EXPERIMENT OF ALL TIME.
In 1973, the Acali expedition set out from Las Palmas on a raft to cross the Atlantic Ocean; the scientific purpose for its 11 crew members was to explore human relationships in isolated environs. In the press, they became known as the ”sex raft”, so perhaps a documentary is needed to clarify a thing or two. This film reunites several surviving crew members 45 years later in a studio where a life-size model of the raft has been built. Memories surface and they discuss the relationships and conflicts of the expedition, not least the problems surrounding Santiago, the Mexican anthropologist whose macho attitude threatened to derail the whole project. Interesting, even moving, with lots of archive footage from the actual journey.
2018-Sweden. 97 min. Color. Widescreen. Produced by Erik Gandini. Written and directed by Marcus Lindeen. Cinematography: Måns Månsson.
Trivia: Original title: Flotten.
Last word: “In this film tears had a kind of symbolic value. When Fé [one of the expedition participants] is sitting on one of the boxes pretending to look into the ocean, the more staged part of the slave story, she was really moved by that and started to cry. And I’m running around like a maniac telling my camera crew to zoom in, zoom in! Get the tears! I felt horrible but I knew I could use that somehow, and I wanted to embrace that moment while also being protective of her. We did cut away from that as well because the tears in the scene with Mary were enough. We didn’t need to have them again and again.” (Lindeen, Filmmaker Magazine)
