Nostalgia De La Lulaz Essay

I agree with Drake’s quote, specifically the notion of how Nostalgia de la Luz is counter- atomist due to how it brings together the worlds of science and human affairs. The film’s director and narrator, Patricio Guzman, does a fantastic job showing the connection between astronomy and the women searching the Atacama desert for their loved ones who unfortunately were murdered during Pinochet’s brutal reign as dictator. Previously to watching the documentary, I was an avid and amateur fan of astronomy, frequently going to parks to catch a better glimpse of the skies and being an avid participant in my school’s Astronomy and Rocket Science Club. However, I was never aware of the notion that every time we look at the sky, and literally the “past”,

He connects both the astronomers’ desire to understand the past and the Chilean’s desire to learn the fate of their relatives in the past to illuminate that, in reality, they are both on the same quest. Both groups look into the past for answers, even stated by the astronomer Galaz in the documentary, but Galaz adds that “he and his colleagues are and remain at peace while these women are reminded everyday of what’s happened,” depicting even greater the despondency of the lives of the women. The similarity between both groups is even further portrayed through the discussion of calcium. The women search the desert for bones that have traces of calcium; similarly, the astronomers look and measure calcium because it's a remnant from the big bang and can teach a great deal of history of the universe’s past. Ultimately, I agree with Drake that Nostalgia de la Luz is “counter-atomist” as it depicts how the astronomers, the world of science, and the women, the world of human affairs, are seemingly on the same journey, and thus differing from the idea of social atomism, in which there is a “radical isolation of individuals from one another, and the concomitant separation of