After his acclaimed Nostalgia for the Light (2010) – with its study of the Chilean desert and its star-filled sky, alongside the painful memories and remains of the country’s people disappeared under Pinochet – Patricio Guzmán’s The Pearl Button takes us on an equally spellbinding documentary journey into the ocean of Southern Chile.
Along similar thematic lines, it’s designed to be a diptych with the first film, and investigates the sea which forms Chile’s longest border – 2,670 miles of coastline – and holds the secret of two mysterious buttons found on its ocean floor. Guzmán explores this secret as well as Chile’s almost preternaturally beautiful landscape of volcanoes, mountains and glaciers; the history of the indigenous Patagonian people, the first English sailors and the country’s political prisoners.
Using both archival images and gorgeous new footage, The Pearl Button conveys ideas of history, geography and native memory to stunning effect. Screened to vast acclaim at the Berlinale – where it won the Silver Bear for Best Script – it’s also due to screen in the Documentary Competition at LFF.
