All language subtitles for El Botón De Nacar

THE PEARL BUTTON

"we are all streams
from one water"

This block of quartz
was found

in the Atacama desert,
in Chile.

It is 3,000 years old

and contains a
drop of water.

The Chilean desert

is the driest
place on Earth.

From here,

astronomers discovered water

in almost the entire cosmos.

There's water
in the planets.

There's water vapor
in some nebula.

There's ice in other
celestial bodies.

On earth, and elsewhere,

water is essential
for life to exist.

Each night

a new planet is discovered,

that might have water.

As I watched the stars,

I was drawn to the
importance of water.

It seems that water
came from outer space,

and life was brought to
earth by the comets,

that shaped the seas.

Water,

Chile's longest border,

forms an estuary known
as Western Patagonia.

Here,

the Cordillera of the Andes
sinks into the water

and re-emerges as
thousands of islands.

It's a timeless place.

An archipelago of rain.

Some distant relatives
of mine lived here.

We had a zinc roof

and the raindrops
made a noise

that reassured
and protected me.

That sound has followed
me all my life.

When water moves,

the cosmos intervenes.

Water receives the
force of the planets,

transmits it to the earth,

and to all living creatures.

Water is an intermediary force

between the stars and us.

Before the white
man arrived,

the first inhabitants
of Patagonia,

lived in communion
with the cosmos.

They carved stones
to ensure their future.

They traveled by water.

They lived submerged in water.

They ate what the
water supplied.

They arrived ten
thousand years ago.

They were water nomads.

They lived in clans

that moved about
through the fjords.

They traveled from
island to island.

Each family kept
a fire burning

in the middle of their canoe.

There were five groups:

the Kaw�sqar,

the Selk'nam,

the Aoniken,

the Hausch,

and the Yamana.

They all traveled by sea.

The sea...

The sea is one of
the places that I...

As I grew up close
to the sea,

I really love it.

I'd like to be able
to travel by boat

as we used to.

But now there are
too many restrictions,

we are barely
allowed in the sea.

Why?

The Navy demands too much
for us to be able to use the sea.

I have a boat I made myself.

Such a small boat
scares them.

They're not familiar with
boats that travel in this way.

That's why...

They claim they're
protecting us,

but I don't think so.

I was told

that you crossed Cape
Horn with your dad.

The first time we
crossed Cape Horn,

the weather was bad.

The wind was strong.

The sea is very dangerous,

but we got across fine.

How old were you?

Twelve years old.

We went from Puma Arenas

to Cape Horn and back again.

The paddles were short,
like this

because we paddled
downwards.

That's how you paddled?

The paddle isn't
fixed to the boat?

No, we hold it in our hands.

The current doesn't
drag the boat away?

No, it doesn't.

In Cape Horn?

The current holds
it back a bit,

but it still moves forward.

We still don't know

how they were able
to predict the weather.

It is estimated that
in the 19th century,

there were 8,000 people
with 300 canoes,

traveling around this
vast archipelago.

Gabriela, do you feel Chilean?

Not at all.

What do you feel?

Kaw�sqar.

I didn't tell you...

Once, with my mother,

we were on an island, near...

near Natalee.

I don't know exactly where.

I'd been sent there as
we didn't have water.

There was no well, no river,
nothing.

We had gone to fetch water.

Opposite, there was a river.

I already knew how
to paddle a little.

You need strength to paddle.

It's not easy.

It's not easy when it's windy.

The wind got up

and we couldn't reach
our camp on the island.

So we had to know
how to paddle,

in case we needed to
get out of trouble.

We couldn't say:

"I can't paddle",
that wasn't possible.

We had to be able to do it.

I learned how to dive,

I had to learn.

I must have been
7 or 8 years old.

I got a mussel on
my first dive.

That's when I was told

that I could catch
shellfish to eat.

This was our food.

Back then,
we ate only shellfish.

For Gabriela,

water is part of her family.

She accepts both
the dangers

and the food that
the sea offers her.

But I, as a Chilean,

I don't feel close
to the sea.

For the ocean I feel admiration

and at the same time, fear.

This is because of a
childhood memory.

One summer,

one of my friends was
swept away by the sea.

He was jumping from
rock to rock,

amongst the waves,

that rushed in, claw-like,
between the reefs.

His body was never recovered.

He was my first
disappeared person.

The indigenous
people of Patagonia

were Chile's first and
only maritime peoples.

We Chileans today

have lost this intimacy
with the sea.

I asked Emma Malig,

my painter friend,

to show me something
I've never seen.

Since I was a child,

I've never been
able to see

a complete picture
of my country.

In the schools,

there were no
walls big enough,

for such a long country.

Chile had to be divided
into three parts:

the north,
the center and the south,

as if it were
three countries.

I think this country
got its mission wrong.

We have 4,200 kilometers
of coastline.

Probably the most
coastlines in the world.

With a large mountain range
that isolates it from the continent.

The desert in the
north isolates us

from Western civilization and
a frozen continent in the South.

We are an island,

in the geographical sense,

in terms of human
geography, etc.

We don't have a
maritime tradition,

and we've built up inland.

But our valley is too
narrow for agriculture,

so we built our future

on a very slim
economic possibility,

which, over time,
has shrunk to almost nothing.

This country has not made
proper use of its sea,

the vast ocean that
lies before it.

Few people have given
the ocean due honor,

have turned to the
sea to admire it.

Not just to admire it,
but to acknowledge it

as part of our identity.

My country denies
the Pacific ocean,

the biggest of
all the oceans.

It mistrusts its vastness,

equivalent to half the
surface of planet Earth.

However, for the indigenous
and the astronomers,

the ocean is an idea,

a concept that's
inseparable from life.

How long was the
journey of the comet

that brought us the
first drops of water?

Each drop

is a world apart.

Each drop is a breath.

As an anthropologist,

Claudio learned
from the natives,

the language of water.

Native Americans believe
all things are alive.

A stone is alive
and has a spirit,

water is alive
and has a spirit.

So water is a source of music.

All that moves makes a sound.

And the universe is movement,

so there's always sound.

It's the same water here.

If Earth's made up
of different parts...

three parts water,

and one part earth,

what we call "earth"
is actually water.

Our bodies are made of water,
plants are water,

so everything's water,

with bits of something
more solid:

earth, stones or bones.

But everything is water.

What we breathe
is also water.

So there's nothing strange in
the fact that astrophysicists say

that the universe
is full of water.

I began to listen to the
sound of the river,

and suddenly I began
to hear music.

A river sounds

like a thousand sounds
at the same time.

We can separate them,
listen to one at a time,

and suddenly you hear...

and you hold on
to it and then...

you have two
separate sounds

and then another...

and when you have
10 sounds...

That's when the jolt happens.

When you hear the noise,
that's a song,

a different sound.

An oceanographer
taught me

that the act of thinking
resembles the ocean.

The law of thought is the
same as that of water,

that is always ready

to adapt to everything.

Might this explain

how these groups of men
managed to live here

for thousands of years,

in polar temperatures?

They lived in the
most distant region,

the least inhabited.

They had no towns,

they didn't erect monuments,

but they knew
how to draw.

One of these groups,
the Selk'nam,

came up with the idea

of drawing on their
own bodies.

After death,

they believed they
would become stars.

In their mythology

they evoke the
constellation of Orion,

and the Southern Cross.

We still don't know

the meanings of
these drawings.

Perhaps a Chilean poet,
Rafil Zurita,

might be able to help us.

These people were complex

and rich.

Their drawings show
the whole cosmos,

the way they painted
their bodies,

how they transformed them.

For these people,

the stars are the spirits
of their ancestors.

So what are they
searching for,

those mighty telescopes
in the north?

They are searching,

essentially,

for their ancestors,

to make the universe

more familiar.

In one way or another,

when the Indians saw
the souls and spirits

of their ancestors,
their warriors,

they somehow felt
closer to the Universe.

They knew their
dead were there.

So what do they want?

What are the telescopes
looking for,

the space probes?

To bring the universe closer.

It seems all this progress

is the product of
a deep nostalgia,

a desire to retrieve something,

something we already knew,
in a poetic sense,

something we
inherently knew.

In 1883,

the settlers arrived,

the gold hunters,

the military, the police,

the cattle farmers,

and the Catholic missionaries.

After centuries of
living alongside

the water and the stars,

the indigenous people
saw their world collapse.

The Chilean government,

who supported the colonists,

declared that the
Indians were corrupt,

cattle thieves and barbaric.

Many of them took refuge
on Dawson island,

where the main
Mission was located.

They took away their beliefs,

their language,
and their canoes.

They dressed them
in old clothes

that were contaminated

with the germs
of civilization.

Most of them

got sick and died
within less than 50 years.

The others became prey

to those known as
"Indian hunters".

The farmers paid
one pound

for a man's testicle,

one pound for a
woman's breast,

ten shillings for a child's ear.

This story, I believe,

should be told far more often.

The Chilean settlers,

backed by the foreign settlers,

carried on south

to establish large
farming companies.

The Chileans benefited,

buying or obtaining lands
from the government

to occupy and turn
them into cattle farms.

They began to exterminate
the southern people,

to wipe them out
and kill them,

in the savage way
we know about.

None of these massacres

ever resulted in the
perpetrators being accused.

The mother is water,

she's the ocean,
the canals, the rain, all that.

When we think of the
indigenous people

of America,

we tend to think,
as historians,

that these people
already identified

with their land, their territory,
with nature,

with water, in the case
of the Southern people.

They were the masters
of their country.

The last groups
sank into misery

and alcoholism.

In the eyes of the settlers

they became monsters.

In the 16th century,

the Spanish also
saw monsters

in Patagonia.

They confirmed the presence
of giant savages.

They called them "Patagones",

because of their long feet.

I ask myself a question:

has the same thing happened
on other planets?

Have the strongest people

always dominated,
everywhere?

One of the planets
of the Gliese star,

discovered in Chile,

may have a vast ocean.

Might it be inhabited
by living beings?

Might it have trees
to make large canoes?

Might this planet
have been a refuge

where the Indians
could live in peace?

Having these
thoughts is unreal.

But I dare to have them,

because I'd love for
these water people

not to have disappeared.

There now remain 20
direct descendants.

Through them

their language has
survived for hundreds,

perhaps thousands of years.

A seal.

A whale.

Canoe.

Paddle.

Dad.

Mum.

Child.

Sun.

Moon.

Star.

Gabriela, I'd like you
to say in Kaw�sqar:

Beach.

Mussel.

Canoe.

Button.

Button?

Shirt.

Rain.

Window.

Sea.

Water.

Storm.

I got it wrong.

Good man.

Bad man.

God.

No, not God,

we don't have that.

Police.

Police...

We don't need that either.

When she was a child,

Gabriela crossed almost
the whole of Patagonia,

paddling,
for 1,000 kilometers,

in a canoe.

Is it true that when
you were a child

you made a long trip
with your family,

from an island, to Port Eden?

To the Gulf of Penas.

I know the way.

I know how to get
to the Gulf of Penas,

going through Agropolina,

very near the island
of San Javier.

Tell me about it in Kaw�sqar.

I'm going to start

to tell you from when
we were near...

Cape Tomar.

I paddled all around the south.

It was known as the
"K'eaelkces' land,

the Kaw�sqar people
of the south.

I don't know what the
area was called

in Kaw�sqar.

When a canoe is
damaged by barnacles

another is built
with an axe.

If the new canoe
gets a leak

another must be made,
immediately.

When you travel by canoe

you get to know the
islands inside out,

where to camp

and where to sleep.

Sometimes we stay
there for several days,

blocked by the wind

and if it rains we sometimes
spend 3 months

waiting for the sea to calm.

I became a teenager,
then an adult

as I paddled

and here I am.

The first time I saw Gabriela
was in a photograph.

It was also the first time

that I saw nearly all
of Patagonia's survivors.

Paz Err�zuriz,

a talented photographer
from Santiago,

was drawn to the
faces of these people

long before the
history text books.

For many years,
for centuries,

the Fuegians were
invisible people.

At the same time

as Gabriela made her
1,000 kilometer journey,

and dived in the sea,

I was at school

and lived by the sea.

We school kids
knew nothing

of the people
from the South.

Gabriela and I

were several
centuries apart.

During those years,

I preferred reading
Jules Verne novels.

I didn't even know
about the only native

who'd left his
mark on history.

His name is Jemmy Button.

I found out about his
life much later on.

The adventure
of Jemmy Button

seemed almost
a legend to me,

when I read it for
the first time.

But this is a true story.

At the dawn of
the 19th century,

an English boat

arrived in Patagonia,

under the command
of Captain FitzRoy.

His mission was to
draw the lands

and coastlines
of this country.

He drew the finest maps,

that were used for
the next century.

He was the first person
to draw the natives

with a human face.

The captain,

a humanist,

had a surprising idea:

to take four natives

to England to civilize them.

One of the natives went aboard,
in exchange for a pearl button,

which is why the English

named him Jemmy Button.

Jemmy Button was dressed
in a sailor's costume,

later on,
as an Englishman.

For more than one year

Jemmy Button lived on
an unknown planet.

He traveled from
the Stone age

to the Industrial revolution.

He traveled thousands
of years into the future.

And then,

thousands of years
back into the past.

After Jemmy Button had
become a gentleman,

the captain

took him back to Patagonia.

When he set foot
on his homeland

Jemmy Button took off
his English clothes.

He continued to
speak half in English,

half in his own language.

He let his hair grow long,

but he was never
the same man again.

This was the beginning

of the end of the
Southern peoples.

FitzRoy's maps

opened the doors to
thousands of settlers.

For 150 years,

a group of white men

governed harshly,
in a silent country.

Salvador Allende's revolution
broke the silence.

A major social movement arose

that spanned half the country.

We heard voices we'd
never heard before.

Allende began to give
back to the natives

the lands that had been
seized from them.

The freedom didn't
last for long.

It was destroyed
by a coup d'Etat,

financed by the United States.

At the same time,

the disintegration of
a supernova star

was seen from a
Chilean observatory.

It was the first time
this had occurred

so close to Earth.

Dictatorship

struck Chile.

It lasted 16 years.

There were 800 secret prisons,

with 3,500 civil servants,

many of whom
carried out torture.

In some regions,

the prisoners were
butchered alive.

Women were raped

in front of their
husbands or children.

Men and women

were hung from the ceiling.

Their skin was burnt
with acid and cigarettes.

They were electrocuted
all over their bodies.

They were drugged.

Their throats were slit.

They were imprisoned
in boxes of 1m�.

Usually, the information wanted,
was already known.

They tortured to kill.

For years,

the military and
civilians involved

didn't say where
the prisoners were.

Dawson island,

where hundreds of
indigenous people died

in the Catholic missions,

was turned into a
concentration camp

for Salvador Allende's ministers

who were deported
from Santiago.

Dawson was also
used as a prison

and torture house

for over 700 of
Allende's supporters

who lived in Punta Arenas,

capital of Patagonia.

I want you to show
me with your hands

where Dawson is.

I would like each of you to tell me
how long you were held in prison?

- One and a half years
- Four years.

Four years and three months.

- Six months.
- Four years.

444 days.

Two years and two months.

Two and a half years.

Two years and ten months.

Five years and one day.

- Six months.
- One year and seven months.

They were victims
of a violence

that the natives knew
only too well.

In Chile,

impunity accumulated
over centuries.

Dawson is just one chapter.

During those violent years,

the Humboldt current
washed up a body,

in the same region

in which my childhood
friend had disappeared.

It wasn't the
body of a child,

it was the body of a woman.

Nobody knew who she was.

People began to suspect

that the ocean
was a cemetery.

Thirty years later,

several officers
of the dictatorship

confessed that perhaps

a few people had been
thrown into the sea.

One of them
was Marta Ugarte,

the woman from the beach.

The family's lawyer
knows the facts.

Her wounds are
mainly internal.

She shows other
signs of torture.

She has some cuts.

As for her face...

what strikes me most,
even today,

is that she's looking at us.

Her eyes are open,

and she's looking at us.

Curiously,

her eyes are intact,

which is unusual,

when a body has remained
for a long time,

underwater.

But that's how it
was with her,

I find it very strange.

Her face isn't bloated.

And she's looking at us.

It's as though she's
awake and looking at us.

I wonder what was
the last thing

that she saw?

Did she see other prisoners

nearby?

I have decided
to reconstruct

the last moments

of a victim,
in order to believe it.

A writer and journalist

will help me.

There are various testimonies
that they were given an injection.

Some say that
it was cyanide,

but most say that
it was pentothal.

It was a way of guaranteeing
a prisoner's death.

The rail was placed
on the thoracic cage.

Higher up, on the chest.

How much do you
think this rail weighs?

This rail

must weigh around 30 kilos,
at least.

The rails came from the
Puente Alto barracks.

The rail carrier was
murdered by the DINA,

for talking too much.

To finish off the packaging,

they put plastic bags,

one over the head,
and another from the feet,

meeting in the middle.

The other plastic bag here.

And potato sacks.

Exactly the same process:

from the feet up,
and from the head down,

to meet in the middle.

Then they awaited the
helicopters or airplanes,

from which they'd be
thrown into the sea.

What happened with
Marta Ugarte's body?

What happened was
that this prisoner,

when she was
in the airplane,

began to move.

What they did was
to take this off her,

untie the bags,
take them off her body.

They opened the packaging,

and realized she was alive.

So they took the
wire that was here,

and strangled her.

The package was
then badly sealed.

This would explain
how her body

came to be washed ashore.

According to judicial reports,

the Chilean Armed
Forces tossed

between 1,200 and 1,400
people into the ocean,

dead or alive.

They were assisted
by many civilians.

They hoped

that the sea would keep
the secret of the crime.

This happened in November '79.

Aboard the helicopter,

the mechanic enters
the side door.

I realized that there
were two bodies:

one was a woman,

who was obviously young,

and one a man,
of more than 90 kilos.

I could see his build,
but his face was hidden in a bag.

A rail was attached
to the body.

Unfortunately,

that was the most difficult
day of my career,

I'd already said

that God would punish us.

What we were doing
was a crime.

On my second flight,

that was in June 1980,

There must have been...

judging from the stains,

I think there were
8 or 9 bodies.

I had the impression
they'd just been killed,

given the blood stains
that were left.

Was there more
than one civilian?

There were four civilians.

They pushed the bodies out.

They used the hatchway

that's used to load cargo,

and the side doors.

It was easier to throw
them from there,

than to drag them
to the side doors.

Those by the side doors
were thrown out there,

the others out the middle.

There's no limit
to the cruelty.

They didn't even
have the grace,

the compassion,
to return the dead.

It's written in the
most ancient history:

the enemy's dead
body is returned,

so its relatives may
continue to live.

For them to grieve,
the bodies must be returned.

So the dead
may finish dying

and the living
carry on living.

It's so...

It's so brutal,
what happened...

in Chile,

in these countries.

Impunity is a double murder,

it's like killing
the dead twice.

Finding the guilty is not
the end of the road.

It's just the beginning.

Ever since he was a child,

Rafil Veas has dived
near to the rails.

Almost everyone in the
town knew about them,

but people were scared.

In 2004,

judge Guzm�n ordered
inspector Vignolo

to find them.

It was Rafil who dived
to the bottom of the sea.

Forty years later,

the rails have become
covered with marks.

Water and its creatures

have engraved
these messages.

Here are the secrets

that the bodies
left on the rails,

before melting
into the water

and taking on the
shape of the ocean.

Observing each of the rails,

other remains
were discovered.

A button was found,
stuck to a rail.

This button is the only trace

of someone who
had been there.

From Jemmy Button,
in exchange for a pearl button,

they took away his land,

his freedom, his life.

When he was returned
to his island,

Jemmy Button never
retrieved his identity.

He became exiled
in his own land.

Both buttons tell
the same story,

a story of extermination.

There are probably
many other buttons

in the ocean.

In this detail lies everything,

condensed,dense,

like a black hole.

That was my impression,

because one can
imagine the rail,

and trace its story:

the workers who made it,

who cut it, who laid it.

One can trace the
story of the button:

the button leads
us to a person,

a shirt, a situation.

Perhaps to Villa Grimaldi itself,

and all that happened there.

It's a detail that
grows and expands,

waves that go in
different directions.

It's the history of Chile,

and all events of
the dictatorship.

When you watch the sea,
the water,

you're watching
all of humanity.

These lands, both marvelous
and in some ways blood-soaked.

They hold the worst

of ourselves.

At the end of the day,
we all...

In a world of victims
and killers...

although both exist,

we are each responsible
for everything,

for the victims
and the killers.

Each human being,
no one in particular.

So when such terrible
things happen,

as they often have done,
throughout history,

without participating,
we're also responsible,

as in a family in which
a child commits a crime

and the whole
family is affected.

So...

this part of History,

associated with water,
ice, volcanoes,

is also associated with death,
massacres,

abuse, genocide.

It is one part...

If water has memory,
it will also remember this.

All things converse
with all things,

water, rivers, plants,

reefs, deserts,
stones, stars...

It's one long conversation,

a mutual regard.

The Indians of Patagonia,

believed that
souls didn't die,

and that they could live again,
as stars.

They say that
water has memory.

I believe it also
has a voice.

If we were to get
very close to it,

we'd be able to
hear the voices

of each of the Indians
and the disappeared.

Not long ago,
very far away,

a Quasar was discovered,
full of water vapor.

It holds 120 million
times more water

than all of our seas.

How many wandering
souls might find refuge

in this vast ocean that's
drifting in the void?