Mariana is that rare health professional who unfailingly views her patient as a human being.

Played by Ines de Medeiros, she makes sure a coma patient (Isaach De Kankole) avoids the sun, and gets his forehead pat, little gestures that other nurses wouldn't think to do.

However, once this exemplary healer leaves her native turf of Portugal, for the stark, volcanic terrain of Cape Verde, it's as if she starts to disintegrate, showing coldness to staff at a clinic where her ward awaits an unknown person who paid for his return home.

We meet all manner of person in the village, though it's never entirely clear who means what. Along the way we meet some wonderful local musicians. Dancing at a club is lovely to observe.

I puzzled over the significance of Creole-speaking emigree Edith (Edith Scob), only later to realize in a discussion sponsored by the New York Public Library that she followed her political-prisoner husband to the island, treasuring his poetic love letters.