Nostalgia de la Luz

5) ‘Nostalgia de la Luz’

Patricio Guzmán abandoned his homeland after he was imprisoned during Gen. Augusto Pinochet’s 1973 coup and has now spent more of his life outside of Chile than in it. Yet his films – including the influential three-part documentary The Battle of Chile – circle back again and again to his native land for a recording of its blood-soaked past, a reckoning of its state-sanctioned sins. He returns once more in the rattling, ruminative, and majestic Nostalgia de la Luz (Nostalgia for the Light). This one defies easy categorization, for sure: Is it a film essay? A tone poem? An eye on the astronomer community in the Atacama Desert, a bone-dry and highly elevated landscape ideal for stargazing? A documentary exploration of the women who comb that same desert for the remains of their loved ones, dumped there long ago by Pinochet? Circle e) for all of the above, although that still hardly hints at the multitudes contained within this gorgeously shot stunner.

Saturday, April 23, 6:30pm, Alamo South Lamar

This article appears in April 22 • 2011.

A note to readers: Bold and uncensored, The Austin Chronicle has been Austin’s independent news source for over 40 years, expressing the community’s political and environmental concerns and supporting its active cultural scene. Now more than ever, we need your support to continue supplying Austin with independent, free press. If real news is important to you, please consider making a donation of $5, $10 or whatever you can afford, to help keep our journalism on stands.

SUPPORT US

A graduate of the Michener Center for Writers at the University of Texas, Kimberley has written about film, books, and pop culture for The Austin Chronicle since 2000. She was named Editor of the Chronicle in 2016; she previously served as the paper’s Managing Editor, Screens Editor, Books Editor, and proofreader. Her work has been awarded by the Association of Alternative Newsmedia for excellence in arts criticism, team reporting, and special section (Best of Austin). The Austin Alliance for Women...