Film: No

Director: Pablo Larrain
Genre: Drama
Source: Chile (2012)
Rating: R
Location/Format: Blu-ray
Grade: B+

Living in the United States all my life--save for a few years in Japan and a semester in London--it's hard to imagine the reality of living life under a dictator. In Pablo Larrain's No, a dictatorship seems, on the surface, to be not so bad. Rene Saavedra, for example (played by the always excellent Gael Garcia Bernal) seems to have a successful career, a pretty stable income, and a fairly middle class existence. That surface appeal in Pinochet's Chile, however, has a rotten core: oppression, disappearances, arrests. Like Saavedra, it may take viewers unfamiliar with the ins and outs of Pinochet's rule a little while to see the iron grip at the heart of the country. But once you do--and in Saavedra's case, once that iron fist starts to make its way into his very home--it's impossible to see everything as quite so innocent and hopeful again.

Which is why Saavedra's ad campaign for the "No" vote is so incredible. Instead of focusing on the terror and pain, the he and his team choose to create an ad campaign (and it is very much grounded in the realm of advertising, as one would a soft drink or a breakfast cereal) based in hope: "Chile, Happiness is Coming!" the ads proclaim, and it's this simple decision to look forward instead of backward that makes the team's message stand out so much. Of course, one can't turn a blind eye to the past, and so numerous conversations center on how much of the horrors of the past to include in the fifteen-minute programming block the campaign is allotted each night on television, and Saavadera always, always, always chooses less in favor of a message of hope and prosperity. When the actual ads begin airing, it's clear how audacious this tactic is. And yet, that belief in the future--and belief that this fraudulent referendum really could make a difference--is infectious once it begins.

I haven't found out whether the "real" ads from the No campaign were used, but it seems like they were. (Of course, it's hard to tell for sure. Larrain films the entire movie on videotape, which is both jarring, to viewers so used to HD, and incredibly effective for making the movie feel like a product of the mid 1980s.) But I wouldn't be surprised if they were. A compelling mix of comedy, optimism, pathos, and joy, each segment we're allowed to see really is hugely effective in spreading excitement--even though we're now 28 past the election they're speaking of. That's powerful messaging.

And that optimism is needed, as Saavedra's life becomes increasingly complicated and increasingly scrutinized due to his work for the campaign. Not all of the conversations about Saavedra's reasoning for working on the campaign worked for me, but by the time he is hearing people skulking about in his house and receiving threatening phone calls, it's easy to see why he remains committed to the cause even at great personal and professional cost.

In the end, the film is a fascinating look into a story I knew nothing about. That it happened to be a really good film just turned out to be a bonus.