Patricio Guzmán’s introspective narration lingers over drone-mapped footage of the Andes, one of the world’s longest cordilleras (mountain ranges) as the shadow of their tectonic physicality envelops Santiago, Chile’s capital city. We’re told that if Santiago’s cobblestone streets – forged out of rocks from the cordillera – could speak, “they would speak of the blood that ran over them”, as the spectre of Augusto Pinochet’s 17-year long military dictatorship haunts Chilean polity and society.
Poeticism segues into cutting political analysis as the end of Pinochet’s dictatorship led Chile to become the first testing grounds for a forceful implementation of neoliberal economic policy. The introduction of Santiago filmmaker Pablo Salas – who, unlike Guzmán and many of his exiled contemporaries, stayed in Chile during the dictatorship – provides an astute digression into Chilean political memory.
His vast archive of tapes bore active witness to the darkest chapter of the country’s recent history, simultaneously immortalising the people’s spirited resistance. Guzmán wistfully laments his long absence from his homeland and the circumstances that led him to flee, imbuing his reflections with a tangible sense of mourning. The cordillera’s essence is the “material of dreams”, but as Chile’s soul is sick with the ills of neoliberalism, dreams of futures that defy market profitability must result in nightmares.
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ANTICIPATION.
Guzmán’s follow-up to the amazing Nostalgia for the Light and The Pearl Button 4
ENJOYMENT.
Laconically-paced cinematic beauty. 4
IN RETROSPECT.
This affecting lithograph of Chile culminates in the intersection of personal, political and poetic. 4
Directed by
Patricio Guzmán
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