While most of the world has scrapped out laws permitting slavery, nearly half the world’s states haven't outright banned it, and the horrors of the practice still exist in the world today. This is what makes Buoyancy difficult to watch– while its innocent protagonist hasn’t caught on as fast as the older crew members, it’s difficult to see him gradually become disillusioned out on sea, to hear the hopes he shared with the others gradually sputtering into silence to protect himself, and to witness the way writer-director Rodd Rathjen escalates the terror he faces on the whims of a captain whose cruelty was formed through the same experience. Buoyancy is terribly bleak, but a necessary, urgent exposé of slavery in Southeast Asian seas.

Sarm Heng’s performance.