Cielo

Affording viewers a trip to the Chilean desert to gaze up at the crystal-clear sky, Cielo is a rapturous act of cinematic contemplation.

City-dwellers may go their entire lives without realizing that the greatest movie screen of all is above their heads, telling billions of stories.

A serene, existential experience from the Canadian filmmaker Alison McAlpine, who takes to Chile’s Atacama Desert to look both skyward and inward.

Alison McAlpine's documentary lacks urgency beyond its persistent pondering of the sky's eternal mysteries.

A curious film in multiple ways, Cielo does not always achieve its lofty ambitions of transcendence. However, accompanied by the eerie silence of the desert and the plaintive wail of Philippe Lauzier’s mournful score, McAlpine’s visuals transport the viewer to a state of reflection while reminding us of the sublime beauty of the space above.

While these individual images are indeed powerful, the surrounding film lacks thematic depth and narrative substance, rendering it inert and rather forgettable.

Ms. McAlpine’s purple musings in voice-over (“the stars tell me to go on a journey in this desert”), and the decision not to identify subjects formally until the closing credits, give the film an unnecessary fuzziness.