This film really captures the idea of human interaction with the environment through it's plot and metaphors. There is no dialogue in the movie and we are forced to understand what is happening only through the visual medium. This makes the visual much more powerful but also gives room for the music to engross us completely.

The man's struggle against nature is very literal in the beginning. He fights against the elements, trying to satisfy his hunger and thirst. While exploring the island he falls into a hole near a cliff where he gets stuck. He is forced to dive deep into a crevice between the rocks to escape outside to the sea. This is a clear metaphor for the struggles we face against nature. While we seek to explore and understand our world we are forced into tough spots that we then must overcome, a very relevant idea with climate change looming over us. This idea is further highlighted with the man trying to escape from the island using a raft that he built. The raft keeps getting destroyed, later we learn, by a giant red turtle. This sea turtle symbolizes nature, but also in a more idealistic sense it relates to wisdom, beauty and power. The man who is short term minded regards the actions of the turtle with hate. He destroys the turtle and causes it's death in a gruesome scene. Then a metamorphosis occurs where the man finds a beautiful lady within the turtle shell. As he falls in love with the lady and accepts his fate and comes to think of the island as a home, he comes to regret his previous actions. The meaning behind this particular sequence of surreal events can probably be interpreted in many ways. However, I come to believe that it's a message about environmentalism and how we don't regard beauty until it's too late.

When his child later grows up, he falls into the same hole as the father. His mother then guides him to his escape showing the role of parenting and society in the progress of our relationship with nature. The boy later grows up and sets to escape the island with a raft, aided by turtles. This kind of cyclical end shows how we progress but how we also are repeating the lives of our parents in some way as well.

The movie's animation is beautiful and very simple. The shadows are used more than once to bring out emotions of different kinds. The color palette is mostly dull and subdued which makes the vivid red of the turtle come out in a strong contrast. The surreal aspects of the dreams utilize the medium in a way that shows how animation can triumph live action in terms of it's simple yet effective delivery. There is comic relief in terms of little crabs that help break the tension and the overall somber note of the movie. Overall, the movie is strong, with significant themes and an emotional delivery, yet it is lacking of a more clear message. Although, I usually do appreciate metaphorical and symbolic movies that are more abstract in nature and leave the interpretation to the audience, the whole thing feels forced rather than a subtle layer.