Critics reviews

Quieter and more inwardly focused than their predecessors, Guzmán’s latter-day films show that the rage of his previous works are coalesced into a calm, resolute probing for personal and historical truth.

Those cracks were formed, for the nation and for Guzmán, on that seismic day in 1973 [Pinochet’s coup against Allende], and one of the most moving aspects of The Cordillera of Dreams is the film-maker’s candour about the effect on his own life: “I’ve never spoken of the loneliness that’s stayed with me since (that day).”

A beautiful film about nightmares that have yet to end.

Across the opening stretch of The Cordillera of Dreams, he doesn’t provide that context, but you’ll instantly feel as if the entire weight of a nation’s history is being carried by the Cordillera.