Set in colonial Columbia, Of Love and Other Demons is a struggle between modern and pre-modern world views. Adapted from a novel by Gabriel García Márquez, it is the story of Sierva María, a young girl (although in the film she is a young woman) who has been bitten by a rabid dog. A Jewish doctor has treated her, but there is no cure. If she has been infected, she will die.

The local bishop has other ideas. He understands rabies not as disease, but as the way the devil gains entrance to a body to steal a person's soul. He tells the girl's father that "her body is irretrievable, but we can save her soul." He sends her off to a convent where the nuns keep her in restraints and dispatches Father Delaura, a young bookish Jesuit priest, to exorcise her.The bishop and the nuns hold to the world view that dominated throughout the middle ages—an understanding of a world filled with demons that are only controlled through the power of the Church. It should be noted that much of the reason they have Sierva María in their sights is that she has been raised by black servants. She knows their language and their religion. In the film, the nuns seem just as superstitious as the non-Christian people.

Delaura is the representative of the modern world. He has been reading Leibniz's philosophical work about the problem of evil, which the bishop discounts. Indeed, the bishop doesn't really trust in the young priest's orthodoxy. Even though Delaura is not trained in exorcism, the bishop assigns him this task. He does not believe in demons. He does not believe Sierva María is possessed. When she does not develop symptoms of rabies, he sees no reason for this charade to continue—except that he has his own possession: he has fallen in love with the girl.

Looking back at the modern/pre-modern conflict may seem utterly foolish from our perspective. We know that rabies is caused by a virus that affects the central nervous system. To see that as anything other than disease seems ludicrous to our minds. Yet, without our modern approach to disease, wouldn't demonic possession seem a good explanation for the effects the disease causes? At the same time, is there any way to scientifically explain Father Delaura's "possession?" Is love more akin to a pre-modern understanding or a modern one?

Yet that conflict has continued on in various ways, especially within some branches of Christianity and their attitudes towards science. It should be noted that both modern and pre-modern minds often look at things as black and white. They accept their own given mindset as the way things really are—other mindsets are mistaken. To be so dogmatic either way may make it hard to find the truth.

Delaura's struggle with ideas is where progress can be found. Searching new ideas for truths that old ways may not have understood is where we begin to make new connections that lead to even more discoveries.