Advertisement

Movies & TV Movies & TV Reviews

No

NO directed by Pablo Larraín, screenplay by Pedro Peirano based on a play by Antonio Skármeta, with Gael García Bernal, Alfredo Castro, Antonia Zegers and Luis Gnecco. A Mongrel Media release. 117 minutes. Subtitled. Opens Friday (March 15). For venues and times, see listings. Rating: NNNN


Chilean director Pablo Larraín concludes his Pinochet trilogy – begun with 2008’s Tony Manero and continued in 2010’s Post Mortem – with his most audacious film to date, a comedy of manners centred on an advertising whiz (Gael García Bernal) hired to package and market the campaign to defeat the dictator’s 1988 attempt to legitimize his 15-year reign through a public referendum.

Shooting in butt-ugly analog video, the better to integrate footage from the era, Larraín finds sly humour in the push-pull between dogmatic revolutionaries and Bernal’s more mercenary character, who’s trying to sell a product (freedom! democracy!) rather than scold voters about issues they’ve long been required to put out of mind.

But the movie also captures the tension of a terrorized society just starting to allow itself to imagine an end to a decade and a half of oppression – and the anxiety that even the tiniest steps toward that end could be undone in an instant.

Advertisement

Exclusive content and events straight to your inbox

Subscribe to our Newsletter

This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

By signing up, I agree to receive emails from Now Toronto and to the Privacy Policy and Terms & Conditions.