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In this documentary filmmaker Patricio Guzman ties the beauty of icy glaciers and Chile's extensive coastline to a history of disturbing events that affected the country. The film utilizes Paz Errazuriz's striking photographs of the ancient inhabitants of Patagonia combined with interviews with the remaining survivors to illustrate the decimation of the Water People. Guzman also details the "disappeared"-where supporters of deposed president Salvador Allende were tied to heavy rails and dropped into the ocean. Guzman previously directed the critically acclaimed Nostalgia for the Light.
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The Pearl Button (2015)
82 min
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.