For his new film master director Patricio Guzmán, famed for his political documentaries (THE BATTLE OF CHILE, THE PINOCHET CASE), travels 10,000 feet above sea leveI to the driest place on earth, the Atacama Desert, where atop the mountains astronomers from all over the worId gather to observe the stars. The sky is so translucent that it aIIows them to see right to the boundaries of the universe. The Atacama is also a pIace where the harsh heat of the sun keeps human remains intact: those of Pre-Columbian mummies; 19th century expIorers and miners; and the remains of politicaI prisoners, disappeared by the Chilean army after the military coup of September, 1973. So while astronomers examine the most distant and oIdest galaxies, at the foot of the mountains, women, surviving reIatives of the disappeared whose bodies were dumped here, search, even after twenty-five years, for the remains of their loved ones, to recIaim their famiIies' histories. MeIding the celestial quest of the astronomers and the earthly one of the women, NOSTALGlA FOR THE LlGHT is a gorgeous, moving, and deeply personal odyssey. |