Much blood was spilled in Chile during the reign of General
Augusto Pinochet, but in his new film No, Pablo Larraín focuses on a group of
men who attempted to defeat a dictator with happiness. This is a turn of events
that is as welcome as it is surprising, as the previous two films in Larraín's
loose trilogy of Chilean dictatorship have given us little to smile about. Tony
Manero and Post Morten were grim affairs, and whatever humour they possessed
was of the gallows kind, but No is the most accessible and immediately
enjoyable film that the director has yet made, as well as being his most
satisfying and accomplished work.
No takes place in 1988, the year in which Pinochet, under
increasing international pressure, was forced to hold a referendum to decide
the country's future. The nation was asked a simple question, to decide whether
they wanted the current regime to stay in power, and they had to answer YES or NO.
In a gesture towards democracy, the state-controlled television networks
allowed 15 minutes of airtime per day in the month leading up to the vote for
the NO campaign to put forward its argument. In an unexpected move, the NO
campaign largely eschewed the traditional tactics of opposition parties by
painting an upbeat vision of what life could be like after Pinochet instead of
focusing on the abuses committed by his dictatorship. They sold freedom from
Pinochet as if it was the latest must-have product.
That approach makes more sense when we see that the NO
campaign is being orchestrated by advertising creative René Saavedra (Gael
García Bernal), a fictional creation who represents the large advertising team
behind the commercials. We first see him pitching his campaign for a new soft
drink, with a fast-paced advert and aspirational language, and he uses these
same techniques when he is hired to work on the NO campaign. He creates a
jingle, a colourful logo (with a rainbow indicating the disparate opposition
parties working together) and a series of TV commercials that are filled with optimistic
imagery and good humour. The images used in these adverts had little to do with
the everyday lives of ordinary Chileans – a family eating baguettes at a
picnic, a very tall Scandinavian-looking man are two of many incongruities –
but after initially being dismissed as trivial escapades, the NO campaign
gradually began to win the hearts and minds of voters, and unsettle the
establishment.
Larraín's previous two films had protagonists who existed
outside the political system, but No focuses on a character who finds himself
at the heart of it. René Saavedra initially appears to be an apolitical
character who takes on this project as a job like any other, and his ex-wife Verónica
(Antonia Zegers) appears to be the real political firebrand in the family, but
he later reveals that he was an exile. No's screenplay (by Pedro Peirano, who
pulled off a similar balancing act with The Maid) is a marvel in the way it folds
exposition and political details into a compelling and funny narrative. Larraín
neatly flits between high-spirited sequences of creation and political
subversion to tense scenes of intimidation, with Saavedra and his cohorts being
menaced and followed by shady government operatives. The one aspect of the film
that doesn't quite fit is the domestic story, with Saavedra's ex-wife and young
son being awkwardly inserted into the story without making much impact.
No is a film set in the 80s and in every respect it is a
brilliant evocation of that era. The integration of real news footage and
commercials into the picture is particularly impressive, and it is facilitated
through No's most daring aesthetic decision. The whole film has been shot on
U-matic video, with the flat, square and ugly images making it look like a
cheap soap opera. It does take some getting used to (as does Larraín's habit of
cutting conversations across different locations) but it allows for a seamless
blending of reality and fiction, paying particular dividends at the end of the
film when Saavedra goes out on the day of the vote and finds himself caught in the
midst of violence. No achieves the trick of gripping us as it moves towards a
result we are already familiar with, and the climactic scenes of joy are
exhilarating to witness, even as the director tempers them with a more
ambiguous final scene. From the evidence of his previous work, I would never
have guessed that I could have enjoyed a Pablo Larraín film as much as this. It
seems the director has taken the advice of his protagonist – sometimes changing
the tone and having a little fun is the most effective way to get your message
across.