BOX

It seems that the only thing Rafael and Cristina have in common is performance anxiety. Rafael comes from a poor gypsy family, washes cars to make ends meet while living with his headstrong grandfather. He is on the verge of his breakthrough as a professional boxer. Cristina, in her mid-thirties, is a married mother of one child, and actress at the local theatre.

Without knowing each other Rafael and Cristina walk the same route every day and it takes a little lifetime before they finally encounter one another. Nothing seems to connect them, but blood, sweat, and tears. So different appear their worlds, that we are amazed by the love that grows between them silently and gently.

Slowly but surely, the view of their lives is condensed and it turns out that they are not so different after all. Cristina’s husband is the star of the theatre ensemble and her work is overshadowed by him. During rehearsals for a play she is also being bullied by the director. Rafael, meanwhile, gets encouraged by his coach to lose the next fight and is thus drawn into the machinations of the gambling mafia.

Rhythm and choreography are important aspects of their worlds and it is movement that connects their fates. All of this is shown in unobtrusive and quiet images, in tune with the almost hypothetical construct of their love, which gives it even more dignity at the end of the last act.