The cancer in Noelia (Isel Rodriguez) is reflected in the cancer in her native Vieques, Puerto Rico, whose people are still coping with the US Navy’s decades-long contamination of their land. Glorimar Marrero Sánchez’s debut feature The Fishbowl screened at Sundance 2023, but it’s been worth the wait for its US release. Since Sundance—where it was the first Puerto Rican feature to ever screen there—it went on to be nominated for a Goya Award, Spain’s equivalent to the Oscars, another first for Puerto Rico (the movie screened in International Drama at Sundance, not US Drama, because its co-producers were from Spain, a pointed tilt at its anti-US military sentiments).
The Fishbowl, or, La pecera, is an apt title, as it has a dreamy “through the looking glass” feel as Noelia floats in a bathtub at her home and then swims in her tropical home ocean at night. “Melancholic and laced with a very tangible sense of mourning,” writes Claira. “Cancer destroying an individual body falling in step with colonialism destroying the body of an entire population.”
interviewed Marrero Sánchez when her film came out at Sundance. “In 2013, my mother died of colorectal cancer,” she says. “So, I decided to write my first screenplay for a feature film, just to put the energy in a big project and develop a character that had her same sickness. I also wanted to talk about colonialism and human rights of Puerto Ricans, about sickness and colonialism.”
Lead actress Isel Rodriguez shines as Noelia. “Isel is mainly known in Puerto Rico as a comedian,” explains Marrero Sánchez. “The casting director said, ‘Let’s try her in a casting process just to see another level of her work,’ and it turned out to be amazing.” Rodriguez also has family links to Vieques: “The father of her two daughters is from Vieques.” The director continues, “She knew a lot about Vieques history because she’d been going to Vieques many years. She knew everything about sickness and the results of the water pollution and was very connected to the theme and the scenario.”
