Patricio Guzmán’s The Pearl Button is a haunting, visually sumptuous journey through Chile’s waterways and histories, using water itself as both subject and storyteller. The film interweaves three strands: the ancient maritime traditions of the Kawésqar and Yaghan peoples of Patagonia, Chile’s brutal use of coastal waters as dumping grounds for Pinochet’s victims, and the symbolic discovery of a small mother‐of‐pearl button that once weighed down a corpse at sea. Guzmán uses long, meditative takes of glacial fjords, patrolling seas, and rusting railroad tracks to underscore water’s dual nature—as bearer of life and repository of violence. His crystalline framing and deliberate pacing transform each shoreline and each wave into a living archive, inviting us to read the landscape as we would a written text.

What I found most compelling about The Pearl Button was the way Guzmán elevates water from a mere backdrop into the film’s emotional and narrative core. The silent expanse of the Pacific becomes a canvas on which grief, memory, and survival are painted in equal measure. I was particularly moved by the testimonies of the last Water People—elders who speak with quiet dignity about a culture that has all but vanished. Their voices, set against shots of drifting icebergs and rippling tides, create a poignant counterpoint to the story of dictatorial brutality. Ultimately, the film’s power lies in its ability to flow between tragedy and resilience, reminding us that even the deepest wounds can be borne forward on the current of remembrance.

-Amyy Mubeen