Our take
A beautiful, poetic and disturbing ode to the waters of the Chilean archipelago from the perspective of the stars and planets, its Indigenous inhabitants, and the bodies of those who were disappeared into it under the Pinochet regime. As Patricio Guzman tells us and shows us, water has a memory and a voice. The opening sequence is like Salgado’s “Genesis” photos but in colour and moving on the screen, absolutely breathtaking.
What it won
Berlin
2 wins
César Awards
1 nom
The story
The ocean contains the history of all humanity. The sea holds all the voices of the earth and those that come from outer space. Water receives impetus from the stars and transmits it to living creatures. Water, the longest border in Chile, also holds the secret of two mysterious buttons which were found on its ocean floor. Chile, with its 2,670 miles of coastline and the largest archipelago in the world, presents a supernatural landscape. In it are volcanoes, mountains and glaciers. In it are the voices of the Patagonian Indigenous people, the first English sailors and also those of its political prisoners. Some say that water has memory. This film shows that it also has a voice.
Elsewhere
"A sobering, lyrical essay film on Chile's various physical and emotional surface areas."
— Glenn Heath Jr.
The details
Streaming arrival
Who picked it
Melina Buckley is a contributing writer at A Good Movie to Watch, reviewing films and shows across the major streaming services.
"Dealing with horrors of this intensity and scale, Guzmán can be forgiven a slight penchant for the galactically vaporous."
— Jonathan Romney