This film is part of Rentals
The Cordillera of Dreams
Veteran documentarist Patricio Guzmán completes his trilogy about Chile’s troubled past, meditating on how the Andes shaped its sense of identity
Director: Patricio Guzmán
Overview
Completing the trilogy that included the sublime Nostalgia for the Light and The Pearl Button, Guzmán’s characteristically contemplative commingling of the personal and political takes as its driving metaphor the mountain range which once protected and isolated Chile from the outside world. Exiled since the 1973 coup, Guzmán returns to Santiago, city of his childhood, to ponder – with help from others – what the timeless wall of the Andes Cordillera means to Chilean culture.
As ever, his methodology is measured, lyrical (Samuel Laho’s crystalline landscape images are stunning), philosophically allusive and politically pertinent: the film’s second half includes a tribute to cameraman Pablo Salas, who remained in Pinochet’s Chile to film protest and oppression. Salas’ archive represents the need for documentation and remembrance, watchwords for Guzmán since he made The Battle of Chile four decades ago.
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