Review: Patricio Guzmán's Thoughtful And Inspiring 'The Pearl Button'

This is a reprint of our review from the 2015 Berlin International Film Festival.

Broadening, deepening and further illuminating the inquiries of his acclaimed "Nostalgia For The Light," Chilean director Patricio Guzmán's "The Pearl Button" pulled off an unusual, if not unprecedented feat when, as a documentary, it took home the Berlinale Best Screenplay award. But it's very well-deserved, because while unscripted interviews do form a large part of this questing, curious, expansive film, what unites and elevates it is the flow of its ideas and Guzman's scintillating narration. To essay a slightly daft comparison, in Robert Zemeckis' "Contact," upon first glimpsing the cosmos, Jodie Foster's scientist character gasps, "They should have sent a poet." If they had, it should have been Guzmán, and something like "The Pearl Button" might have been the result.

Guzmán's poetry is not that of flowery...