In a documentary of epic proportions, filmed over nearly 20 years in Nicaragua, Swedish director Peter Torbiornsson takes the fly-on-the-wall technique to new heights, so much so that at times we forget that the film is a documentary at all. But it is. These people are real and as such have genuine human problems, which we can relate to. The scenes you are watching may take place in Central America, but they are being played out all over the world.

Tinoco is from Leon, on the coast of Nicaragua, while Ninoska is from San Fernando, a small village in the mountains. They meet in the early Eighties, during the war between the Sandinistas and the Contras, when Tinoco is posted as a soldier to San Fernando. The couple start off as the quintessential idealistic young lovers. Blushing slightly, Ninoska tells the camera that she has kissed Tinoco "infinite times", while Tinoco talks passionately of his intended's "guitar shaped body", concluding that he would die for her.

At the wedding ceremony, a nun reminds them that family planning is a sin against God and 10 years later, when the couple return from living in Leon, they have three children. Things did not go well in Leon and they are virtually penniless. They move into Ninoska's family home, her mother having died and her father taken up with another woman.

Tinoco works on the land, which is run as a co-operative business, but life does not go smoothly and the couple are torn apart by poverty, family loyalties, cultural differences and insecurities. Ninoska, who had naively thought that marriage would give her more freedom, feels like a slave and, against Tinoco's wishes, goes to college and becomes a teacher.

There is a brief moment of happiness when she feels fulfilled by work and Tinoco is head of the co-operative, but this is short-lived and after a disagreement between her brother and Tinoco, she decides to run away. Before setting off, she takes a medical test and discovers she is pregnant again and has cancer.

The movie ends on Millennium night, with toasts and fireworks and the couple dancing together, but what will the future hold? Ninoska is more tied than ever to her wife-beating, volatile husband, while Tinoco continues to stew in his feelings of self-loathing.

The documentary leaves us with many questions. There are huge gaps in the story. What happened in Leon? While there is some footage of Tinoco fishing happily with his brothers, we don't meet any of his family. Likewise, we watch him sneaking across border rivers by night in his pursuit of the American Dream, but we don't get to see what happens when he reaches the other side. The narrator tells us that he made it to LA. But it is cold and there is no work and so he returns to Nicaragua.

His journey has taught him that the dream - a nice house and a car - is in the mind and does not need a North American seal of approval. More facts on logging and the environment, for which the co-operative decides to use its land, would have been welcome. The biggest question is what is happening to these people now and what do Tinoco and Ninoska make of the documentary? Indeed, why did they agree to do it in the first place?

Despite the crumbling marriage, the film is not wholely bleak. The beautiful landscape, the children at play, the men charging around on horses, the genuine love and respect shown between, not only the lovers, but other members of the community, all measure up to a life which may be low on financial gain, but is rich in other qualities.

Prejudice exists. The very poor are looked down on by the less poor. The darker skinned, like Tinoco, are considered inferior by the fairer complexioned. However, in the end, it is the similarities to our own lives, rather than the differences, that are most striking.

As Ninoska says, "It wasn't meant to be this way."