This film is named after a Cuban exile to the United States and if this didn't make it clear enough the rest of the film is very much an allegory for such an exile being in a strange land that is familiar in terms of climate but totally alien in other ways. This film is essentially the story of a shark who is being carried by an old man while a narrator tells us in subtitled Spanish what it is like to be removed from one's element and be in somewhere which feels strange and different. As a dual meaning it is effective in some ways while also feeling a bit heavy handed. While I was trying to focus on the meaning of the words, it was hard not to be distracted from that by the image of a small shark essentially suffocating while be carried around in the open air.
If this sounds like I am being overly dramatic then it isn't the case because visually this is what is going on in the film and while the words are supposed to take us from there to somewhere else, it doesn't do that as well as it should and to a point you are watching a film about a dying shark. Getting passed that there is enough here to appreciate the true story beyond the images, and it is nicely done in some ways, but I really found that the metaphor was almost too strong and distracted from what it was trying to illustrate, which is a bit of a weakness in the film despite being quite memorable as a whole.
If this sounds like I am being overly dramatic then it isn't the case because visually this is what is going on in the film and while the words are supposed to take us from there to somewhere else, it doesn't do that as well as it should and to a point you are watching a film about a dying shark. Getting passed that there is enough here to appreciate the true story beyond the images, and it is nicely done in some ways, but I really found that the metaphor was almost too strong and distracted from what it was trying to illustrate, which is a bit of a weakness in the film despite being quite memorable as a whole.