NO is the third in Chilean director Pablo Larrain’s series of films set in Chile during the Pinochet years, following on from Tony Manero and Post Mortem. This time, Gael Garcia Bernal stars as René Saavedra, an advertising executive who is hired to develop a campaign for the Chile’s 1988 national plebiscite.
Chile had not had an election since the military coup on September 11, 1973, which brought General Augusto Pinochet to power. The people were faced with the choice of voting yes to eight more years of military rule, or no, which would mean open and democratic elections in due course. As Anthony Lane says in his New Yorker review,
“So when General Pinochet declares a referendum on his rule, excitement is muted. Vote “Yes,” and the General will remain in command for the next eight years; vote “No,” and he will step aside. For many people, it’s not a difficult choice. “I’m fine,” one kindly maid replies, when asked why she intends to vote “Yes.” Things are much gloomier in the other camp, where the skeptics presume that the entire thing is a fix”
Sadly, for all its strengths as a film, is No too subtle in its storytelling. The maid in question doesn’t want to vote yes because “it’s not a difficult choice.” In fact, it’s a hard choice, the classic conservative paradox, trading freedom for security, which in this case meant avoiding a return to the economic and social instability which had created an reason for the military to take over in the first place.
Larrain chose to tell NO with a minimum of back story. We are dropped, in dramatic fashion, into the mid-80s, as the film in shot in televisual 4:3 aspect ration, mostly on video cameras from that era. The look of the film is glaringly low tech and hard to watch at times. But, this along with excellent costume and set design, cuts to actual footage from the time and some great Chilean-Spanish dialogue gives NO a real sense of authenticity.
The lack of back story matters because in a very important way NO manages to be quite non-partisan. By not dwelling too much on the history of Chile NO manages to not align itself too strongly with any one political ideology.
Bernal is excellent as Saavedra and brings to life his struggle to create a campaign that can overcome ideological differences and unify the whole spectrum of political parties who, amongst themselves, share little common ground. In fact, many party leaders are only interesting in using the campaign to score ideological points against the military government, since they assume the election is rigged anyway.
What Saavedra and his team do instead is approach this as a marketing problem, rather than a political one. Although advertising and public relations had long held played a role in political campaigns, this was a new stage in selling a campaign the way companies approach selling a product.
So, if this well acted and thoughtfully constructed film has a weakness, it is perhaps that it assumes too much familiarity about Chile’s political history and so can leave viewers open to some misunderstandings. But, on the other hand, it does serve as a really good primer for anyone who might not know the whole story and wants to tune into one of it’s most remarkable moments.
You can also read James’ review of No here.
