Period cinema often lacks authenticity, a sense of faux deprivation when such scenarios are encountered at best. Not here however, where the discomforts and hardships experienced by the colonial Spanish and their conquests leaves no room for misplaced romanticism. To extract the most from this piece I suspect you already need an interest of it, to have read the book upon which it is based (and enjoyed it), to be an avid follower of those times and of that era. It's elegantly performed, believable and honest but you can easily be distracted if you're engagement light begins to fade and dim, needing only to do so by a fraction to initiate the disconnection.