"No", a film directed by Pablo Larraín, sees its first release
"No", a film directed by Pablo Larraín, sees its first release
The Chilean director’s new film, a candidate for the Oscar for ‘Best Film in a Foreign Language’, will be released on the 8th of February
Following the acclaimed Tony Manero (2008) and Post Mortem (2010), Chilean director Pablo Larraín concludes his trilogy dealing with the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet with his latest film, No.
Winner of the Art Cinema Award at the Director’s Fortnight in the last edition of the Cannes Film Festival, the film focuses on the referendum on Pinochet’s continuance which the dictatorial government was obliged to hold in 1988 as a result of international pressure.
The film portrays the manner in which the opposition convinced publicist René Saavedra (played by Mexican actor Gael García Bernal) to orchestrate the ‘NO’ campaign, and the development of the campaign itself. Despite very limited resources and rigid controls by the regime’s police force, Saavedra and his team managed to perpetrate a daring plan to win the referendum in an attempt to free the country from oppression.
Aside from its brief, though enlightening title, one of the principle idiosyncrasies of No is its visual aspect. Larraín used a now obsolete U-matic 3/4 (used in television in the 80’s) in order to achieve greater compatibility between the authentic video clips of the era and the narrative of the film.
As with Tony Manero and Post Mortem, the film employs comic irony to portray the tense, uneasy atmosphere of a very dark era.
Publication date: Monday, 04 February 2013