Nostalgia for the Light

2010

Chile/France/Germany

Rated PG-13

1 hr 35 min

Synopsis:

Veteran director Patricio Guzmán, famed for his political documentaries on Allende’s Chile and the subsequent coup by Pinochet, travels to an entirely new environment for his latest film: Chile’s Atacama Desert—the driest place on earth. At three thousand meters altitude, astronomers from all over the world gather there to observe the stars. The desert sky is so translucent that it allows astronomers to see right to the boundaries of the universe. It is also a place where the harsh heat of the sun keeps human remains intact: those of the mummies, explorers, miners…and also the remains of the dictatorship’s political prisoners. While astronomers examine the most distant galaxies in search of probable extraterrestrial life, at the foot of the observatories women sift through the desert soil in search of their disappeared relatives... By juxtaposing the quest of the astronomers with that of the grieving but determined women, Guzmán’s intimate and insightful documentary forces us to ask why, in a country where people are trying to determine what happened millions of light years ago, is there so much resistance to confronting the turmoil of the past forty years? (Partially subtitled) 

Director:

Patricio Guzmán