A prodigal son's return from the sea much changed destroys the dreams of two women, his mother and her young friend, who have built their lives around waiting. This lovely and disquieting film, based on a text by Joseph Conrad adapted by the writer José de la Colina, culminates in a haunting image of the sea reaching the center of Mexico City. "The themes of the absolute of the myth and desire, of the phantom, of Presence/Absence, are presented by Hermosillo not in a conceptual way but in his very method of filming...He goes from the imaginary to the symbolic, phantoms take concrete shape, and the myth casts anchor in the most day-to-day reality." (Tomás Pérez Turrent)