Manohla Dargis, film critic for the "Los Angeles Times," makes the case that the film "sub silento" informs of what is happening in Argentina (in 2001) both economically and culturally. She wrote, "Life in "Bolivia," a parable about contemporary Argentina, is even grittier than the film's churning black-and-white cinematography...the film offers up characters in a state of ongoing crisis. Underpaid and overwhelmed, financially unmoored and spiritually adrift, these are men and women for whom the tanking economy is, finally, just the most obvious manifestation of a deeper malaise."