User reviews

A documentary like "Against Wind and Tide: A Cuban Odyssey" serves not only to make audiences remember the Cuban refugees struggle when they arrived in Florida, during the Mariel boatlift in 1980, but also to make a comparative analysis with the Latin immigration in the U. S. of the past 10 years and the political football such issue became on the hands of current political administrations and their ideas of building walls and enforcing mass deportations.

Cinema fans who watched Brian De Palma's "Scarface" will remember its opening scenes when there was a mix of news footage of the real Mariel boatlift then cuts to Tony Montana arriving in the U. S., as he, along with thousands of Cubans were liberated by Fidel Castro to get on a boat and reach America, and the dictator got rid off of many political rivals, others dissatisfied with life in Cuba, and another handful who wanted to meet their families already living in the United States.

In a great spur of the moment as the events were unfolding and interrupting his vacation, director Jim Burroughs and his team followed the Cuban refugees from their arrival on crammed boats, sharing their personal stories, trying to find their families (since some of them were split during the ocean crossing), the detaining of the boats on the harbor and the detaining of some of the people, the U. S. government handling of those people, either granting a good stay or detaining on prison-like centers without reason and with plenty of unreasonable bureacracy - as the Carter administration was okay with those arrivals in the context of Cold War, etc. And for the few moments of hopes and dreams from the Cubans in the wishes of a better life in a new country, there's plenty of sadness, outcry, tragedies and protests as they realize anything can go wrong and they either might stay arrested without knowing for how long or worst, maybe be shipped back to Cuba after hours of a risky crossing.

Burroughs covered with great care, detail and some risk the whole sides of the issue, incluing American boats that were daring to help with the cross and later on got stranded on the harbor by Coast Guard orders. And the film crew end up staying following those cases for over a year, as the situation prolongued in drastic manners, with some happy endings and some reunions. It's a powerfully devastating film, a bittersweet time capsule that echoes more than 40 years later despite the different ways immigration (illegal or not) has changed over the decades in America yet the drama and the obstacles of it all never seem to change, and the struggle continues. 10/10.