Hours ago, white holy smoke from a chimney announced what observers predict will be a hard-line continuation of Church policy on sexual matters and the place of women. Whether this prediction comes true or not, such concerns are the crux of writer-director Lucrecia Martel’s second feature, unofficially subtitled “The Temptation of Good -- and the Evil It Causes.”

Set in the town that is the title of her 2001 fiction début and that, translated as The Swamp, hints of moral morass and overlapping, The Holy Girl/La niña santa visually captures the Old Continent-oriented Argentina that resembles Europe of decades ago. Dress and attitudes are more mid-twentieth century than post-sex-drugs-and-rock-‘n’-roll, medicine seems male-clubby medieval, the un-made-up actors singularly plain looking, and, respectable but no longer tony, the hotel which serves as setting is a lightless, heavy, peeling dowager.

Below this physical surface is the powerful, repressive current of dogma, the reference point because, says Martel, “the Catholic religion is my religion; where I learned a way of thinking, a system of thought.” The implied criticism is that, in a universe where His Special Providence no longer invests every sparrow-fall, where there are no eternal rules or plan, humans are adrift, good and evil mix, and essential decency can easily come out on the short end.

Aside from random moments, we do not leave the Hotel Termas, where young teen Amalia (María Alché) lives in rooms with divorcée mother Helena (Mercedes Morán) and separated uncle Freddy (Alejandro Urdapilleta), who together run the family-owned place with the cynical but devoted help of Mirta (Marta Lubos). Estrogen starting to bubble up, physically and emotionally virginal Amalia and chum Jose/Josefina (Julieta Zylberberg) exchange catty uninformed whispers about the young woman who leads their flock of old-womanishly-dressed schoolgirls in choir and religious instruction. The class’ current topics are vocation, distinguishing celestial from infernal “voices,” sacrifice, and earthly responsibility as against eternal bliss.

A weeklong medical conference is to be held at the hotel. Among the participants is shy, respected Dr. Jano (Carlos Belloso), balding, thick-framed glasses, middle-aged, happily married with children. Not a partyer like some, the doctor mingles in a street crowd around a musical-saw-sounding electrode-theremin player and lightly pushes his groin against the girl, Amalia. She is partly pleased but also perplexed, and catches herself spying on him.

On two further occasions the light sexual contact will occur, though the doctor is torn with shame and refuses anything resembling an advance from the girl. But he has also embarked on a casual mutual flirtation with Helena, who knows he is married, covers her own loneliness with busywork, and is miffed that ex-husband Manuel has not formally told her his new wife is two months pregnant with twins.

Bewildered by an inner conflict between sexual awakening and conservative doctrinal and social training, the adolescent runs a short psychosomatic fever, hypnotically intones a rote litany to herself, finally confides in Jose, and contradictorily seeks Jano while simultaneously decided to save his soul. Tantalizingly having refused sex until marriage, Jose is nevertheless caught with her boyfriend by her parents, panics and spills the beans. Womanizer Dr. Vesalio (Arturo Goetz) has just been disgraced by an escapade with a conference hostess, and, his family in the audience, Dr. Jano must go onstage with Helena for an amateur dramatization of the doctor-patient relationship.

Recognizing that “You’re a good man,” but her inexperience and youth preventing true understanding, Amalia back-kicks in the ubiquitous old-fashioned pool with Josefina, while fate is intimated but not spelled out.

With its themes of good and evil and their mix, perfect vision as compared to sad warted reality, and a These Three/The Children’s Hour destruction that uncomprehending youngsters wreak, The Holy Girl is provocative, if maddeningly paced, but may not prove an audience favorite. 

(Released by HBO/Fine Line Features; not rated by MPAA.)