The Raft

Hard to believe I knew nothing about this going in. 'The Raft' features Santiago Genovés, a Spanish-born Mexican anthropologist, known for designing the 1973 "Peace Project" experiment, in which he and ten other people (four men and six women) aimed to sail on the Acali raft from the Canary Islands to Mexico. All six women have survived, but only one man and they joined to recall their story on a replica model raft. It's thoroughly enjoyable with a mighty score, but it doesn't really judge if the voyage was a success or what would have made it one. We get a lot of muck thrown against the wall and admittedly some of it is good muck, but it's not world class! Final Score: 6.7/10

Definitely worth watching. It was a fascinating and interestng documentary that has actual footage, pictures and interviews with the surviving participants of the experiment from the 1970s. It brought many emotions as I watched. I laughed and cried. Highly recommend!

A pesar de que le falta mucho en el contexto para lograr entender mejor la intención de Santiago Genovés en su famoso e infame experimento, resulta muy interesante el análisis que ofrecen las personas que aun quedan vivas de este experimento de 101 días en alta mar de 1973.

A reasonably interesting documentary. It is very difficult to do justice to a voyage of 100 or so days involving 13 people in a movie that runs under 100 minutes. It would have been better if the movie was made 20 years ago, or 30, when more of those who were involved could still appear and reflect on their experience. It would also be better if there was more footage available from the voyage. Probably too much of the movie is devoted to head-shots of old people reminiscing about the voyage. But the biggest surprise for me was that at the end of the movie there is no explanation of what happened to the researcher, Santiago Genoves. Did he write book(s) about the voyage? Did his career stall? Did he continue his research? I would have also liked to have known more about how the voyage affected the volunteers who participated. Were there lasting friendships, perhaps marriages, career changes, divorces, etc.? My biggest disappointment was that Gilligan's Island was never mentioned. Not even once.