Writer & Director
Rodd Rathjen
(Feature film debut)

Starring
Sarm Heng, Thanawut Kasro and Mony Ros

BUOYANCY is Australia’s submission for Best International Feature Film at the 92nd Academy Awards ®. This Australian production filmed entirely in Cambodia and spoken in Khmer and Thai is inspired by real events and represents these via the perspective of a 14 year-old boy named Chakra (a very fine performance by first-time actor Sarm Heng). He lives in rural Cambodia with his family, helping them make ends meet by working at a rice field. However, Chakra is fed up with not being able to keep his hard-earned money for himself and is no longer content to remain living in such poverty-stricken conditions. When he learns of jobs opportunities going at a Thai factory, he decides to leave in search of a better life. During the late night transit though, Chakra is sold to Rom Ran (Thanawut Kasro), a cruel and sadistic Thai captain of a fishing trawler who treats his foreign employees as slaves.

There are so many reasons why I just love cinema. BUOYANCY’S caring and cognisant utilisation of it to authentically capture and share insight into worldly issues to a global audience is most certainly one of them. Sadly, a lot of what has been scripted and filmed in BUOYANCY is based upon several of the filmmakers research and interviews with survivors of modern slavery in this part of the world. Even though first-time director and Victorian College of the Arts graduate Rodd Rathjen presents a harrowing tale involving a small number of workers, we always know that Chakra and his “colleagues” represent thousands more. As we would all hope, the motivation behind the production of BUOYANCY isn’t merely to leave its subject matter with audiences to feel pity or anger upon leaving the cinema. It is evident that this film’s intention is to play a part in putting an end to this issue through the power of knowledge. As such, any time I started to feel the same hopelessness that Chakra must have felt, I found comfort in knowing this and from recognising some thought-provoking truth that the screenplay emphasises. That truth, which comes to the fore during the second half of the film, also brings elements of the thriller genre to this story. As a result, BUOYANCY proves it is equally able to involve its audience as it is educating them.

4 stars

Viewer Discretion
M (Mature themes, violence and coarse language)

Trailer
BUOYANCY

Moviedoc thanks Umbrella Entertainment for the invite to the screening of this film.

BUOYANCY is released in cinemas throughout Australia from September 26th, 2019.

Review by Leigh for Moviedoc
Follow on Twitter – Moviedoc / LIKE on Facebook – @moviedoc13

©