Review 1
The Atacama Desert is a fascinating place. It is the driest place on Earth; some areas of it have not experienced rainfall since records began. The camera pans round it in reverence, now taking long shots of the landscape, of the transparent, azure sky and the blazing sun, now zooming in upon the intricate salt structures fixed to the ground, the drawings of pre-Columbian shepherds from a thousand years ago, the fossils scattered on the surface. The lack of humidity in that desert makes it the perfect environment for fossilisation, meaning that geologists and archaeologists alike are drawn like magnets to this mysterious place to uncover the history immortalised below its surface. At the same time, the very transparency of the sky means that it is the perfect place for astronomers to conduct their observations and analysis of space.
Nostalgia for the Light is directed and narrated by Patricio Guzman, whose filmography until now has mostly focused on Chilean social and political history. Here, we are not faced with a departure from that, so much as a natural extension of his work. With astounding intelligence, respect and humanity, Guzman identifies the links between the archaeologists and the astronomers and their respective sciences. He peers into the past, to thousands of years ago, to the nineteenth century, and to Chile’s recent history after the coup d’état in the 1970s, bringing with it Pinochet and his oppressive regime (the Atacama desert and its surroundings, of course, housing the concentration camp and graveyard of his terrible dictatorship).
Guzman never shows himself to the camera, yet his presence pervades the film – not only through his insightful and poetic narration, but also through the answers of his interviewees, to whom he has asked the questions. His approach to making this film is fascinating; he does not want to teach a history lesson, and refuses to seek out historical experts to fulfil this end. We do hear from several astronomers, but they do not so much teach us anything about the methods they use as inform us what each, individually, is searching for, and why.
This is a film about people, and humankind. Guzman seeks out the people directly affected by Pinochet’s destructive regime, the legacy of which plays an active part in many of their lives today, not allowing them to move on. Their stories are vital – we must be grateful that Guzman has perpetuated them and given them to the world.
It is a film about memory, what it is and what it means to remember and to forget. It is a film about the present and the past, and how we forever live our lives just outside of the present moment. What does this mean for us? Why should we focus so heavily on the past?
I sat down to watch Nostalgia for the Light expecting to be bombarded with information, for this film to achieve its emotional tipping points through facts, statistics, historical images. Nothing could have been further from the truth. Sure, I learnt a lot – far more than I actually felt I did, which I mean as a complement to the film’s intricate structure and narration. But this is primarily a movie which provokes meditation; it shows you a select few lives, peers into their motivations, their hurts (and they, the astronomers and Guzman all have their own viewpoints), but it is we who are left at the end of the film, to mull it over and think it through.
If this, then, is a highly cerebral affair, it is also an incredibly moving one. It is one thing to have statistics read to you, quite another to hear the voices and confessions of those left behind, to be shown the bones of the deceased still being uncovered and the wandering souls who spend their lives searching for answers, for some remnant of truth. And tying it all together is that vast desert, that mysterious, seemingly enchanted place, silent and ancient witness to atrocities, secrets and miracles alike.
Nostalgia for the Light is a documentary of the highest order. It breaks free with ease from the conventions of its genre and becomes something far more: a profound and disquieting philosophical meditation and a beautifully constructed piece of poetry, capturing images, moments, even turns of phrase on camera that will remain in your memory for a very long time. It is one of the best films of the year.
12A certificate
Review by LiveWire Young Film Critic, James Martin (August ’12)
Review 2
Summer (in regards to Cinephiles) is a period that’s known notoriously for revamps, sequels and a whole lot of nothing. Usually the films released in this period blur in front of you, you watch for the spectacle and for the octane and that’s purely it. However, Guzman’s film juxtaposes current cinematic trends whilst also adheres to them (wait, let me explain). Nostalgia For The Light is a spectacle, no doubt about it; a metaphysical, meditative beast with psychological, philosophic insight but, for all those reasons it also goes again current Summer trends as it actually makes you think about the questions it raises.
Nostalgia for the Light examines the rise in Astrology in Chile in the 1970s due to the Atacama Desert, a terrain on Earth that most closely resembles Mars perfect for any astrological pursuits. But at the same time as Chileans were looking to the stars for guidance, they were also trapped by the Atacama desert through the concentration camps. Now after 30 years have elapsed, we witness the women most important to the victims search for the mass graves in the Atacama desert to try and find the ones they loved the most.
Guzman’s masterclass filming of the Atacama desert is only one of the reasons we could hail Nostalgia For The Light one of the best films of the year. Guzman films the desert with a sense of otherworldly-ness, like we’ve been given rare insight into life on another planet, it’s nearly impossible to process the fact that these images are taken from somewhere on this planet. But, this otherworldly-ness is dramatically weighed down by the real pain of the women who’ve lost their husbands, brothers and sons to the hands of the concentration camps in the desert. Guzman uses the cultural importance of Astrology and splices in images of nebulas and other such visual delights to emphasise that the pain is only relative to the tininess of the person in comparison to the vastness of the Universe. This is beautifully alluded to in the final monologue spoken by a child of victims of the concentration camps.
Nostalgia for the Light is a meditative piece of art, you find yourself reflecting your pains onto the canvas Guzman creates. It shows human pain in the most realistic light but also shows salvation more than a possibility. I came out of the film at ease, I felt like I had learnt something but not been spoken to in a didactic manner. Ultimately one could argue that film’s ultimate goal is to be a mirror culturally, politically, philosophically to the world a way of looking at things in unflinching human detail and Guzman does that better than any other film this year.
Review by LiveWire Young Film Critic, Jay Crosbie (August ’12)