A man looks at a child's drawing of a whale and it takes him apart. The movie doesn't explain why until it's ready, and by then you've already felt it in your chest. That's the entire film: one moment of recognition that unlocks everything about who we become when we stop being the people we were.

An elderly headmaster runs a primary school on the edge of the sea, where lively pupils hold him dear. Standing in a hallway and looking at a picture of a whale, he drifts into memories of boyhood, when whales were a common sight off the coast and he thought of them only as food. He also recalls watching a whaling ship spear one. Whales rarely appear anymore, but on this day one shows up for the first time in years, stranded against the rocks, and he rushes out of the school to help it. The film is a reflective drama.