Nostalgia for the Light

An extraordinary essay film less interested in facts and more interested in ideas, atmosphere, and the experience of life. The film deals in a central paradox: How can a place be at once so well-suited for examining the past (in the heavens and on earth), and yet be located in a country unwilling to deal with its own more recent, and tragic, past. Guzman's photography is exquisite. As one shot blends into the next through creative editing, the film's underlying humanism stands out all the more.

an immense work of reflection. the combination of photography and computer animation is mesmerising, and the whole thing is beautiful, as well as really fucking horrifying. some people seem to have concerns about how the stories are merged together, but i think it's silly to say that patricio was trying to make some mystical connection between chile and the stars. instead, he is simply exploring two different pasts, and how they coincide in the minds of some individuals, particularly in his own.

A beautifully lyrical documentary that takes an intimately personal perspective on key philosophical questions of science, history, and metaphysics. Guzmán explores the spiritual link between space and earthliness through gorgeous effects and cinematography, juxtaposing expansive, detailed cosmic photography with barren landscapes of the Chilean desert. Ultimately, it's poetry disguised as an archeological essay about the choice everyone makes either to deny the past or to embrace it.

On the relationship between three ways of searching for three kinds of pasts: the past of the universe, of "the disappeared", and of pre-Columbian Chile. Guzmán's cinema is really very good at intertwining psychic, collective and cosmic con-siderations, and always manages to build a quiet and subtle affective charge, which in this case is liberated by the wonderful lines at the end about memory and gravitation. Overall, just an excellent movie and the best kind of cinematic essay.

A wonderfully moving entwinement of pursuits of personal, cosmological, historico-anthropological and political memories in and through the locality of Chile, showing how it's only in our connection to and pursuit of those memories that life becomes meaningful and the world becomes enchanting for us. Watching it in a cinema seems to make a big difference to the experience of this film.

"I wish the telescopes, didn't just look into the sky but could also see through the earth, so we could find them."

While N.F.T.L has more aesthetic ambition than most documentaries, there are some overly glossy images that are too pointedly symbolic and artificial. Nonetheles, it's a thoughtful attempt to explore the connection between the past, memory and humanity. What struck me as being particularly interesting was how many of the interviewed subjects were able to reconcile their own personal pain with a belief in a purposeful cosmos rather than taking a nihilistic view. Perhaps there is a lesson there.

Guzmán makes it clear that in Chile some pasts are more easily confronted than others. Astronomers are lionized while grieving mothers are ignored. The "nostalgia" in the title refers both to Guzmán's love of stargazing and his painful urge to reclaim the tragedies of Chile's dictatorship. Thoughtful and moving.

The sad beauty of the subject matter is undermined by the tedious and overused documentary structure of the film that is a bane of this type of cinema - cuts to talking head interviews in cramped rooms, static establishing shots with no sense of depth - completely wrong when the subject needed a much more abstract essay structure to amplify the message and tone. That it's about such tragic subject matter makes me guilty for finding it dull, but the poor technical production is unjustifiable.

A merging of two disparate themes that don't quite fit together.

"That rare documentary that's as thrilling as art as it is as reportage, a marvelously shaped thesis that's both disquieting and humbling." - Jesse Cataldo

Pretty but dull. Astronomy and Pinochet's state terror are a real herring-with-whipped-cream choice for dual subjects for a documentary. It's remarkable how little Senor Guzman manages to say on two meaty subjects that's even remotely new or interesting. I cannot help but suspect that the Pinochet stuff was just thrown in there as some sort of emotional blackmail ("Like this movie or you're on HIS side"); let us not forget that the Commies piled up a lot more bodies than the right-wing guys did

A very good, elegant documentary that manages to connect the impossibly vast search of the stars for truths by astronomers and the searches of archaeologists to a lesser known but even more poignant search for truth: the women who search the Chilean desert for the remains of their loved ones murdered during the Pinochet regime. It might sound like a stretch on paper, but it really works and is quite beautiful.

Reminiscent of those fifth-grade documentaries that had lots of good information but lacked that really powerful hook to keep you awake once the lights went out. Some beautiful shots (especially the astro ones, minus all the glitter). But it was very slow, and there's a supposition that you already know a lot about the Pinochet era.

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.

Heartfelt documentary. Well made and well chosen interviewees. Gorgeous cinematography, competently edited and full of meaning, poetry and humanism. Highly recommended when you take the time to appreciate this cinematic essay.

Think it probably would've been better if he kept his focus on one of the two subjects instead of trying to put them together.

Pretty!

Guzman deals with different zones of past by showing the contrast between the different ways of interpretations of the past. The story powerfully queries the anxiety of recent memory and also the forgetten one by the Chilean public. In short, I am really happy to see another Guzman. He tirelessly combine the Pinochet's regime cruelity to the hidden or repressed beauties of his country.

Innovative approach to the humanitarian disaster that was Pinochet's regime in Chile. Very beautiful to look at.

Touching and contemplative. Nothing revolutionary and extremely thin but manages to stay on the right side of pretension despite the cosmic themes. Very sparse and enjoyable with some nice poetic reflections.

There is a great shorter film not unlike the Tacita Dean films for the Tate gallery, and a film about the Pinochet regime and its legacy that has been done better elsewhere. Unfortunately they have been put together here.

Builds a philosophical and poetic momentum then applies those insights to Chiles recent history and the stories of survivors. While the second section lacks the magic of the first it's still fascinating and beautifully filmed.

The way Guzman weaves the two stories of the Atacama desert threatens at times to trivialize both parts, but he manages to avoid traps and delivers a powerful, insightful and beautiful documentary that hits the core of meaning and existence.

a great example of bringing a documentary to a very high artistic niveau and let it gain depth.

Quiet and slightly plodding. Nostalgia philosophizes but doesn't attempt to answer unanswerable questions about Chile's recent past.

Excellent subjects for a documentary which perfectly displays the poetic contrast between the two circumstances.

The film is reminiscent of a Herzog documentary, going off on tangents, making intriguing connections, and using poetic voiceover to muse upon the mysteries of history, memory, death and the universe. The cinematography is stunningly beautiful, especially when it focuses on the gorgeous light of the heavens or rays of sunlight. However, I wondered if some of the images were computer-generated. Still, it's a thoughtful, meditative and often sorrowful film that draws some intriguing parallels.

Some interesting parts here and there but overall quite thin in substance, especially considering the topics.