What a sad story! When Elena, a newly-orphaned girl under the care of her wealthy uncles and looking for love, has the mischance to fall for Guido, a newly-widowed older man in a modest job who lacks the intelligence and the courage to thwart convention and make a life with her, both are condemned to unhappiness. Their love affair is doomed: she is affectionate and caring but cannot marry in Argentina before age 21, and if she did would be cut off without a cent, while he cannot surmount the huge chips on his shoulder of being a cuckold with only a salary to live on.
Visually, the social and financial gulf between the two is emphasised. With the way she dresses and does her hair she would fit into the smartest circles of Madrid or Paris, whereas he always looks like the minor bank employee that he is. Emerging from her family home of a mansion in a park with servants, she races around in a nifty little white Renault, while he takes the bus or walks from his rented room.
Aurally, most characters' speech often sounded to me almost more Castilian than Rioplatense but Guido gives himself away when talking to any male of higher standing by continually adding the word "Señor" ("Sir"), going beyond civility to servility. It is a pleasure however to hear clear diction and precise grammar, unlike modern films where the more actors are allowed to mumble and distort syntax the cooler they sound.
Since Elena and Guido have to meet out of working hours and in places where they will not be conspicuous, there are many scenes of the largely deserted seafront of Mar del Plata in winter. What melancholy in the long empty colonnades at twilight, with the Atlantic surf beating endlessly on the great stretch of beach on which we see their two tiny figures! Their conversations reflect the impasse in their lives, going nowhere: a previous reviewer very aptly referenced Antonioni, and at moments I thought of Marienbad, as well as the couple in "In the Mood for Love" who try to understand the betrayal by their partners.
When feeling sadness for the failure of the love affair, one has to remember first that both may find happiness with new partners and secondly that they are fiction, that Elena and Guido could just be symbols for two worlds that resist being mixed. Viewers outside Latin America may not realise how strong social distinctions can still be.
