 Based on Guy de Maupassant s short story Le port that also inspired Arcady Boitler s 1933 classic Mexican melodrama. La mujer del puerto is the story of Perla, a prostitute and star in a miserable cabaret who falls in love with a sailor without knowing that he is her brother. Tomasa, Perla s mother, tries to prevent this incestuous relationship at all costs, but fails to do so. Set in a sordid environment, Ripstein makes no concessions in this tragic love affair, which is narrated from three different points of view.