By William Wolf

THE PEARL BUTTON  Send This Review to a Friend

Chilean director Patricio Guzmán has combined the lyrical and the political into a visually beautiful and contemplative film about his country and its history.

We see Chilean waters over and over again, with exploration, actual and cinematic, and a button discovered in the depths becomes symbolic of oppression of Chilean people in the distant past and in the more resent atrocities under the Pinochet regime.

Told sparely but impressively, the visual saga recalls the waters as a recipient of the victims thrown from airplanes, the untold numbers of those targeted by oppressors trying to eliminate dissent. It as if the waters speak.

“The Pearl Button” is conceptually fascinating, but it requires viewers to give ourselves over to the filmmaker’s artistic vision and patiently immerse ourselves into this exquisite, thought-provoking film. A Kino Lorber release. Reviewed October 25, 2015.

  

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