Dawn breaks in La Habana, and as the day advances we follow the simple lives of ten ordinary Cubans, with only sounds and images accompanied by music.

"Not everything is what it seems". This is the motto of Fernando Pérez's Madrigal, an esoteric fable built, in the first part, around a handsome actor's love story with an overweight and homely girl (does he have eyes for her, or for her swanky apartment?) and, in the second part, recounting the story of a futuristic novel the actor is writing (which turns Havana into some dark orgyesque playground with a film noir tone).

The 50-minute "Madagascar" has the resonance and eloquence of the best poetry, as it deftly turns an adolescent's search for identity into a metaphor for socialist Cuba. Laura is a professor at a shabby, stultifying college. Her daughter, Laurita, stops going to school, wishes to move to Madagascar and quickly races through several phases. One day, she looks like a heavy-metal fan, another like a bohemian who weeps at poetry and art. Slowly, she crosses the line from ordinary adolescent confusion to intense neurosis and beyond, finally becoming so obsessed with religion and good works that she brings 10 homeless children into the cramped house she shares with her mother and grandmother.

導演Fernando Perez以炫麗的影像、奇特的情節（例如有時在水中說話的Bebe）、魔幻寫實的手法及多重隱喻呈現這喜感洋溢卻批判性十足的映像情書。片中所有主角皆是孤兒，似乎暗示古巴的悲情命運。敘述者Bebe象徵命運女神Saint Barbara，決定著三位主角的際遇。而口哨更是貫穿全片的隱喻：強行帶走只吹口哨的小Bebe如同打壓自由，小Elpidio的哀求像是痛失自由的哭喊，成年的Elpidio忍痛摧毀背上的古巴刺青代表對母親／祖國的幻滅，聽見「自由」而昏倒的人們則象徵著古巴人民早已淪為壓抑自我的自由絕源體。此外，Julia因隱瞞遺棄私生女的過去而夢魘纏身正與Elpidio對假想母親的思念遙相呼應，而Bebe的質疑更進一步呈現導演對Mother Cuba的渴求，訴說著古巴人民如孤兒般急切找尋失去的母愛與自由。藉著異常空曠的革命廣場與不絕的口哨聲，導演明確地表達出失落中渴望祖國邁向自由民主未來的期許。