A cartoon satirising "Uncle Sam", driving a nail into Panama.. A mermaid watches over a ship. A bunch of seaweed, conjuring up streaming hair, floats in the troughs of the waves. Then different statues of mermaids.
But when is there an end? The mermaids in the harbour have not ended their song. They are there, watching, listening, waiting.'
Chris Marker, script for ... A Valparaiso, in Rosalind Delmar, Joris Ivens: 50 years of filmmaking (London: BFI, 1979), p.96.