El Hombre Del Subsuelo on AllMovie

Rather than presenting a traditional beginning, middle, and end to a story involving events that lead to a conclusion, this film, set in the 1930s in Buenos Aires, is more of a single character study of a man who is almost perpetually caught somewhere between rage and irritation. He interacts with those lower than himself (a servant-type in his rundown estate) and those just different than himself (an actress), and others he has shared a part of his life with (school friends) -- yet these interactions are still colored by his recurring anger and indignation. No clear reason is shown for his extreme malaise, it is merely a subject of exposition from several angles. The man was based on the lead figure in Dostoyevsky's short story, "Notes from the Underground," in which that "underground man" was reclusive and a misanthrope, though there were political nuances to his behavior that are missing in this movie.