Nostalgia for the Light
Dir: Patricio Guzman
2010
****
Nostalgia for the Light is a speculative and dream-like documentary mixing archaeology and astrology but explaining that they are one and the same. Patricio Guzmán also uses Chile's history from Pre-Colombian shepherds, 19th century explorers and miners and victims of Pinochet's regime to further explain the need to look into our past to see into the future. The fact that the Pre-Colombian Shepherd's drawings are on rocks close to the Chilean observatory, with the mummies of explorers close by and that the area is frequented by the mothers and wives of the victims of the nearby concentration camp who are looking for what remains they can find (often small fragments of bone) just helps to paint this picture of the history of everything in such a small and arid place in the most haunting and beautiful way. My only wish is that I'd seen this on the big screen. Utterly captivating.