2010 ‘Nostalgia de la luz’ Directed by Patricio Guzmán
In Chile's Atacama Desert, astronomers peer deep into the cosmos in search for answers concerning the origins of life. Nearby, a group of women sift through the sand searching for body parts of loved ones, dumped unceremoniously by Pinochet's regime.
Nostalgie de la lumière, Nostalgie de la Lumière
Nostalgia for the Light is a moving and ambitious documentary that successfully explores astronomy, genocide and the never ending quest for answers to create a poetic and remarkable experience. The Atacama Desert in Chile is an otherworldly environment that provides the perfect setting for stargazing. Yet, as director Patricio Guzmán states, celestial bodies are not the only bodies being searched for out in this unforgiving landscape but also the remains of the thousands of disappeared political prisoners that were murdered during Pinochet’s regime.
The film’s great strength is in how it delicately balances the personal stories with existential and far reaching questions about our existence and the things that connect us. It is amazing that in only a short 90-minutes,…
I love it when films feel like they were made for me. As a Hispanic American with heavy Chilean heritage and ancestry, whose mother escaped from Chile to the U.S. towards the beggining of Pinochet's rule, I feel like theirs a lot in this film that I was able to personally relate to. I may not have had the same exact experiences, but I still felt the pain within the words of those who lost loved ones to Pinochet's dictatorship government and the concentration camps. The distortions on space and time throughout Nostalgia for the Light were also incredibly interesting to witness and observe, allowing us to form a connection between the vastness of the universe and our own past…
An absolutely stunning film that manages to enrapture the viewer visually, emotionally and intellectually. The word poetic doesn't do it justice. Patricio Guzmán's examination of light gradually turns into a discourse on his country's troubled past and its uncertain future. Some of the most moving moments involve conversations with survivors of Pinochet's regime who continue to look for loved ones. But first and foremost this is a grand visual experience, magnificently shot and striking to behold.
What started out as a documentary about stars turns into something much more devastating and closer to home.
It was interesting to see how the two subjects were tied together, both stemming from the same hunt for knowledge of the past.
A nice little documentary about the universe and science as it parallels with the concentration camps in Chile during the dictatorship of Pinochet and found and missings of many political prisoners.
Technically speaking, there are some great cinematography that are very good. I wouldn't say its top notch, but the use of photography and special effects, especially on the moon shots are great. The score is very good as well.
The story of Pinochet and the concentration camps, something I didn't knew, was completely interesting and eerily fascinating. Unfortunately the story tries to force a story about science and evolution that never fully comes together and the latter aspect feels more as a rather distraction.
All in all, featuring some great cinematography and ideas that are pretty interesting sadly gets watered down for a whole narrative about the universe that never fully gets realized. I would have loved for it to focus more on the dictatorship.
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Film #20 of 30 in my March Around The World | 2017 Challenge (Chile)
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Documentary film director Patricio Guzmán is revered in his home country of Chile and has gained international acclaim for his keen political insights and fearless filmmaking. Many consider this to be his best work to date, so I just had to give it a look as part of this year's challenge.
As documentaries go, this is a very odd blend of several studies, with the central theme being humanity's relationships with the past. There's an overarching premise here that "the present," in absolute terms, is unknowable; only "the past" can be known. And without getting into the huge body of philosophy and religion that…
Since the onset of civilization we have been interested in the idea of discovery, and discovery is motivated by questions, the wondering about what we do not know.
What makes the Chilean Atacama Desert unique, which is the setting of this documentary, is that it is conducive to both archaeology and astronomy as methods of study and discovery. One is devoted to the study of the earth (recent history) and the other of space (origins), and the uncompromised and uncluttered landscape (the closest thing we have to a Mars like environment, as they say) makes it perfect for digging into the earth and peering into the vast expanse of space.
It is in the intersection of these two studies that…
What started out as a documentary about stars turns into something much more devastating and closer to home.
It was interesting to see how the two subjects were tied together, both stemming from the same hunt for knowledge of the past.
Wow...I *really* loved this documentary. Nostalgia for the Light centers on the harsh Atacama Desert in Chile, and portrays the people who investigate aspects of its role in Chile's history and place in the world. The desert is first a site for investigations into the sky - astronomers who reconstruct the past of the universe. It is also a site for archeological understanding the past of pre-Columbian civilization in the region. It is a site of resource extraction. And finally, it is a central node in reconstructing the terror of the Pinochet regime: its concentration camps and mass graves. By tracing lines between astronomy, archeology, history, and the search for memory among bereaved kin of the…
Astronomers and archaeologists looking into the past. Trying to reconstruct & understand. Searching for what, and who, has been lost.
The wonder of creation. The brutality of life. A meditation on the darkness of the skies, and the darkness of Chile's recent history.
A beautiful film. A thought provoking documentary.
Best viewed on the largest screen possible.
I've been meaning to watch this ever since I caught a half-hour snippet at GOMA years ago. I'm glad I finally did. This isn't a subtle film and stretches the "as above, so below" motif to near breaking point, but the gravity of the content (sorry!) is enough to hold things together until the end.
Nada se ve en el instante que se ve, esa es la trampa. El presente no existe.
Indudablemente un documental que deja un insólito asombro por lo pequeños que somos respecto a nuestra historia y origen. Un trabajo maravilloso.
Nostalgia da Luz estreava há 10 anos no Festival de Cannes.
Brilhante amalgama de dois temas que parecem tão díspares quanto são próximos, é o transformar da ciência e o pesar em poesia.
BlurayRip no MakingOff.
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