Carmelo Muniz Sanchez, a street musician, sings songs of love and passion; thus the documentary about him is called “Romantico.”

But the particulars of Carmelo’s life are anything but romantic. An illegal immigrant in San Francisco when we first meet him, Carmelo ekes out a living by strolling through restaurants and collecting tips for his playing.

He’s been in the U.S. for three years, sending back money to his family in Mexico. Carmelo, who’s nearing 60, sleeps in a shabby corner of someone else’s house, and performs with his partner Arturo. Arturo’s a loyal friend, except when he drinks too much.

“Romantico” shows Carmelo’s life as an illegal, and then follows him home. He misses his wife and two daughters, and his mother’s diabetic condition is rapidly worsening.

As the film displays, he can’t make anywhere near the kind of money in Mexico that he made in San Francisco. But having come south of the border, he must face the possibility that he might never be able to cross back into the U.S.

This makes for an unexpectedly moving documentary, directed by Mark Becker. Shot on film rather than videotape, “Romantico” has a visual richness that makes you feel you’re watching a story rather than a news report.

And Carmelo makes for a wonderful subject. Weathered, beefy, his singing voice full of emotion, Carmelo is the face of modern poverty. He works incredibly hard, but doesn’t have a great deal to show for it.

One of the film’s most fascinating sequences follows Carmelo as he takes to selling ice cream on the street when Arturo goes on an alcohol rehab. We see the painstaking process of grinding the ice and sugar and milk together, and Carmelo’s day pushing a cart on the street.

And then we see him tearfully admit that, despite his own impoverishment, he can’t resist giving away cones to children who have no money – because he remembers his own sad childhood.

This is a good man, and “Romantico” captures his world. The film has an open ending, which at first glance is frustrating (we want to know what happens to Carmelo), but in retrospect seems right. To neatly resolve the story wouldn’t be telling the truth.

A scene from “Romantico.”