“Nostalgia for the Light” profiles Chile’s diverse Atacama Desert

Chilean writer/director Patricio Guzmán’s 2010 documentary “Nostalgia for the Light” provides a dramatic introduction to the Atacama Desert in northern Chile, located between the Andes Mountains and the Pacific Ocean. The film surveys astronomers interrogating origins of the cosmos, archeological evidence, and the heartbreaking unearthing of bone fragments of Augusto Pinochet’s murdered victims, their bodies discarded in the desert.

The highest desert in the world, averaging over 8200 feet and the driest nonpolar desert in the world, Atacama all but defies description. Even having seen “Nostalgia for the Light” before my recent visit, nothing prepared me for the week I spent experiencing its diverse ecosystems and historical richness. Each day introduced a surprising environment. In wetlands, three of the six flamingo species (Chilean, Andean, and James) dig for readily available brine. Indian petroglyphs abound in another area, with representations of llamas, fish, human figures, and Andean deities. Various cacti have adapted to the desert hillsides, some at least three hundred years old and many blooming during my visit. Surreal in its own right, at 14,170 feet, the Tatio geyser field erupts in numerous steam pots spread over an area of several football fields.

Salt flats and mineral mountains define other areas, along with the best imitation of a Mars landscape. The deepest blue sky, courtesy of the altitude and clear air, complement all of this, though, to residents’ delight and surprise, the second day of my adventure it rained, lightly but noticeably where only 0.6 inches of rainfall normally occurs in a year. It’s impossible to single out a highlight, but among them was the night I viewed the heavens through six professional astronomical telescopes. The extraordinary definition and explosive brightness of Saturn, the moon, and clusters of stars made clear why seventy percent of the world’s best, high-powered telescopes are focused on the stars at Atacama. 

In “Nostalgia for the Light,” in voiceover narration, Guzmán surveys most of this, emphasizing astronomers’ search for the origins of our world, with geological details adding earth-bound context. Most significantly and deeply tragically, Guzmán documents Chilean women’s search in the desert sands for any remnants left of those murdered by agents of military dictator Pinochet’s unconscionable brutality. Digging in the desert, they seek out calcium remnants that indicate bone fragments while astronomers hope to find calcium from stars or from the big bang. Relatives and scientists alike search for answers, for the hidden truth of the past, for the light.

Outside the desert town of Calama, a memorial of pillars honors the twenty-six known men murdered by one of Pinochet’s death squads, that assassination group dubbed the Caravan of Death. Twenty-four men, ages eighteen to thirty-four, have been identified, thanks to the determined Chilean women who refused to abandon their searches, even against daunting odds. That such heartbreaking tragedy existed in this overwhelmingly gorgeous, glorious location intensifies the impact, increasing appreciation of its beauty and sorrow over its history. “Nostalgia for the Light” is streaming on several platforms.