Madrid, Spain, early 20th century. A woman turns up dead in a modest home. She turns out to be María la Jerezana, a popular singer who was famous years ago until she disappeared. The Police Commissioner in charge, dissatisfied with the official version, which concludes that the crime was the result of a simple robbery, is determined to find out the truth.

The film consists of a series of tightly interlinked vignettes, the most sustained of which details the story of a man and a woman who are passionately in love. Their attempts to consummate their passion are constantly thwarted, by their families, by the Church and bourgeois society in general.