Nostalgia for the Light
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| Directed by | Patricio Guzmán |
| Produced by | Renate Sachse |
| Written by | Patricio Guzmán |
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| Cinematography | Katell Djian |
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| Distributed by | Icarus Films |
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90 minutes |
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| Box office | $156,928 |
Nostalgia for the Light (Spanish: Nostalgia de la Luz) is a documentary released in 2010 by Patricio Guzmán to address the lasting impacts of Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorship. Guzmán focuses on the similarities between astronomers researching humanity’s past, in an astronomical sense, and the struggle of many Chilean women who still search, after decades, for the remnants of their relatives executed during the dictatorship. Patricio Guzmán narrates the documentary himself and the documentary includes interviews and commentary from those affected and from astronomers and archeologists.
As a filmmaker Patricio Guzmán's filmography has focused mostly on the political and social issues that have plagued Chile. He explored Chile under Salvador Allende and his government (Salvador Allende, 2004), and Pinochet’s dictatorship and his human rights abuses (See Batalla de Chile [The Battle of Chile trilogy, 1975-1979], Le cas Pinochet [The Pinochet Case], 2001) and others. The latter film deals more so with the aftermath of those human rights abuses.
Nostalgia for the Light opens with a view of a telescope and images of our moon. The narrator, Patricio Guzmán, describes how he came to love astronomy and begins to remember his childhood where “only the present moment existed.” Soon, Chile became the center of the world as astronomers and scientists flocked to Chile to observe the universe through the thin and clear skies. We next see Guzmán walking in the Atacama Desert, a place with absolutely no moisture, so much so that it resembles the surface of Mars. This desert, and its abundance of history, becomes the focus of the documentary. Because of how dry it is, the desert hosts the untouched remains of fish, mollusks, Indian carvings, and even mummified humans.
Astronomer Gaspar Galaz is introduced and comments on how astronomy is a way to look into the past to understand our origins. It is generally a science seeking answers, but, in the process, creates more questions to answer. He comments that science in general, like astronomy and geology, is a look into the past; even sitting there having this interview, he comments, is a conversation in the past because of the millionths of a second light takes to travel and be processed. Lautaro Núñez relates astronomer’s endeavors to his own; archeologists and astronomers have to recreate the past while in the present by using only a few traces.
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