Labyrinthine memory – Nostalgia for the Light as a document of history and memory

This paper discusses the various ways in which the narrative and editorial structure of a film achieves a commensal relationship with memory and history. The paper considers the two ways of doing this as described by Deleuze in his works – the movement-image and the time-image. These have been used to discuss the 2010 documentary film Nostalgia de la luz (Nostalgia for the Light) by Chilean filmmaker Patricio Guzmán. The paper aims to understand how the film serves as a record of memory and history, as well as a stimulant for both the participants in the film and the viewers to retrieve their own memories and, by extension, their histories and identities through the film. The paper presents the concept of ‘labyrinthine memory’ as a mechanism through which films such as Nostalgia for the Light become a documentative and representative voice for victims of conflict and systematic and authoritarian oppression and trauma.