NO is the story of the advertising campaign surrounding the 1988 referendum that was supposed to “elect” General Pinochet to another eight years of dictatorship in Chile, win or lose.
Pinochet’s government were an arrogant bunch; 15 years of dictatorship will do that to you, to the point that the election was largely seen as a farcical exercise merely to validate his rule.
So, the fact that this election campaign won a seemingly un-winnable election and validate real democracy in that it began the end of Pinochet’s rule is still a pretty incredible turn of events.
The film itself tells the story of Rene Saavedra (Gael García Bernal) an in demand advertiser with a troubled home life who spearheads the NO campaign by putting a positive, consumerist spin on it with plenty of humour to be had.
What’s really inspired about this film is the way the film implements the real-life adverts of this campaign into the narrative in a very similar way to George Clooney’s Good Night and Good Luck by filming the entire thing on a low definition, 3/4′ Sony U-matic magnetic tape, which was widely used by television news in Chile in the 80s.
This is particularly effective because of the way it seamlessly ties original footage with new, often making it difficult to tell which is which, so that the narrative can never feel lost or alienated in the original source material.
Equally, the use of quick cuts between scenes to suggest conversations go on for a much longer time then usually presented excellently balances the self-conscious decision to make a new film look completely of its set-age perfectly.
Much like Lincoln, NO does a great deal to make the words and discourse behind an election sound very exciting, as well as the, Lives of Others esque tension of being constantly watched by the abusive government officials.
NO perhaps doesn’t make enough of this surveillance; it largely disappears by the film’s end, but it is well performed and assembled to make for a riveting watch which remains entertaining and fascinating to its conclusion.
Words: Adam Turner-Heffer
