Fresh
This haunting Chilean documentary is more poetry than journalism as filmmaker Patricio Guzman compares the fate of the indigenous people of Patagonia with that of the disappeared of the Pinochet regime.
Kate Taylor, Globe and Mail
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The Pearl Button
Overview
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.
Director and cast
Critics on Rotten Tomatoes
Top critics, in their words
93%
Tomatometer
Fresh
Another philosophical and cosmic historical documentary.
Dave Calhoun, Time Out
Fresh
This is history of a personalized and meditative sort, and you ought to give it a chance.
Walter V. Addiego, San Francisco Chronicle
Fresh
By turns lyrical, impressionistic and profound, the documentary "The Pearl Button" requires patience but offers stirring rewards.
Gary Goldstein, Los Angeles Times
Rotten
Ultimately, the material starts to feel thin, with Guzman attempting to cover everything in less than 90 minutes.
Alan Zilberman, Washington Post
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