Spectacular film. Amazing storyline that keeps you on the edge of your seat. An important film that everybody should watch. This is filmmaking at its best.

| Original Score: 5/5 | Oct 29, 2024

[Buoyancy] shines a light on the nightmares that so many people are living through at this very moment. The tense, minimalist naturalism makes sure that the story gets under the viewer’s skin and pierces their ignorance or complacency.

| Dec 7, 2022

A stark character study of a child becoming a man while still a child.

| Original Score: B | Mar 14, 2021

Rathjen captures the monotony of this existence and the casual violence of it with mounting tension as Chakra himself becomes brutalised - we view key violent acts, not by watching them, but by observing the effect they have.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Feb 25, 2021

This Australian film, written and directed by Rodd Rathjen, is captivating despite its terribly grim subject matter. The acting is very convincing. It is stunningly photographed by cinematographer Michael Latham.

| Original Score: B | Feb 4, 2021

Australian filmmaker Rodd Rathjen makes the debut of the year with this harrowing story of slavery at sea.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Dec 21, 2020

It grows thrilling to watch. Rathjen's careful script and intensive eye for environmental details deliver all of this to us with a steady rhythm. Repetition, a sense of the daily drag, is key.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Oct 23, 2020

A ghost ship haunts a blank sea forcing its occupants to choose their fates.

| Original Score: 8/10 | Sep 30, 2020

Buoyancy is a timely reminder that when you're not treated like a human being, you stop acting like one.

| Sep 18, 2020

For those of us who consider empathy to be the price of a ticket to live, films like Buoyancy can make us feel small and useless. But there is power in letting them in.

| Original Score: A | Sep 18, 2020

Rathjen tells this story ... with an immediate and unnerving sense of helplessness.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Sep 18, 2020

With his first feature, writer-director Rodd Rathjen addresses an urgent situation in a way that's observant and quietly haunting.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Sep 17, 2020

Lyrically shot, Buoyancy is nonetheless a challenging watch, its story grim and violent.

| Sep 15, 2020

It's quite powerful. An inexorable journey into the destruction of this young boy's innocence.

| Sep 15, 2020

A slow burn. It is steadily tense and horrifying by the end... I can't say I enjoyed it, but it's really good!

| Sep 15, 2020

Sarm Heng graces every frame with his deeply expressive features, but there's an enthralling ambiguity to his reactions.

| Original Score: 9/10 | Sep 13, 2020

Vivid and suspenseful, this immersive Cambodian thriller resonates with authenticity.

| Sep 12, 2020

Whatever its motivations as a docu-drama, Buoyancy also bears the unmistakable outline of a Jack London story; it's an adventure film, if a grim one.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Sep 11, 2020

[Rathjen] doesn't find spurious poetry in other people's pain or try to glean greater meaning from it. He knows that the suffering is meaning enough.

| Sep 10, 2020

A hard-hitting story of modern slavery in the waters of Cambodia and Thailand.

| Original Score: B+ | Sep 6, 2020