Gordon-11 This film is about the phenomenal TV campaign that changed history in Chile."No" tells a story where mentality of the masses is changed by a one month TV campaign. From fear and learned helplessness, the jolly campaign awakens the Chileans and rewrites their brainwashed brain. Though the unconventional campaign is met with much scepticism and resistance, Rene's perseverance is paid off. Never has a NO been so satisfactory.One thing that struck me about the film is the use of cheap lens, with much distortion and fringing of light. This may reflect the poor state of affairs in Chile, or to make archive footage blend well with new footage."No" is a fun history lesson on a piece of miraculous history.

Dariusz Nawojczyk This is the essence of cinema. The story is really involving and the director uses the best tools to show it in a theater.What is more, at the beginning I was thinking this movie is naive, but the last two scenes makes it something even similar to Orwell books.It is also really important because at the general stage it a movie about the reasons which drives people to do something. We usually think that some easy slogans like "freedom" are the ones we should fight for. But this movie shows they are only slogans... Great movie to discuss. Makes you think about the mechanisms of getting power.

gradyharp The close examination of the 1988 referendum campaign called for by Chile's military dictator Augusto Pinochet provides not only a fascinating peak inside politics, but it also is a true story of how the Chilean people successfully staged a bloodless revolution to free themselves from the power of a dictator. Based on fact as depicted in a play written by Antonio Skármeta, molded into a screenplay by Pedro Peirano,and directed with a keen sense of period by Pablo Larraín, the film uses substantial bits of archival film footage that enhances the impact of this moment in history.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. The referendum campaign will last 27 days leading up to the October 5, 1988 vote, with each side getting fifteen minutes of uninterrupted television air time each day for their campaign. The "no" coalition decides to hire René Saavedra (Gael García Bernal), a young, brash, in demand advertising executive to spearhead their campaign, which causes problems if only because his boss, Lucho Guzmán (Alfredo Castro), is an adviser to Pinochet. Saavedra's troubled home life - his ex-wife Verónica Carvajal (Antonia Zegers) believes the referendum is simply Pinochet propaganda and shares custody of their son Simon (Pascal Montero) - interferes with René's focus, but he eventually devises a plan to spearhead the NO campaign by putting a positive, consumerist spin on it with plenty of humor to be had. Instead of reminding the Chileans of the horrors of Pinochet's reign he instead infuses the campaign to unseat Pinochet with symbols of rainbows, hope and the happiness that the people can enjoy if they vote to end the dictatorship. In the end, despite the attempted disruption of the campaign by the YES campaign that want to re-seat Pinochet for another 8 years, the people's revolution slogan of 'Chile: happiness is coming!' is a bloodless lesson for the world that revolution can come form the hearts of the people instead of being the result of bloody battles.Gael García Bernal shines in his understated portrayal of René Saavedra , a fact that makes his intelligent media focused mind more appreciated. If at times he seems physically uncommitted to the campaign at hand that only reinforces how he used his mind instead of brawn to accomplish is assignment. There are moments of tenderness, frightening scenes of the cruelties form the Pinochet dictatorship brutal rise to power, and all of this is blended with filmed archives and in the moment film that result in an intelligent and empathetic film. Grady Harp

Eumenides_0 People can say the Academy is worthless but at the end of the day it is still useful to point me in the direction of a movie I could easily have overlooked. If No hadn't been nominated for an Oscar I probably wouldn't have heard of it, watched. It probably wouldn't even have come out in Portugal. I'm glad it did because it's an excellent political drama about the twilight of Pinochet's regime in Chile.Gael García Bernal plays René Saveedra, an ad executive who helps a coalition of parties to organize a campaign to vote Pinochet out of power in a referendum. Although Pinochet had ruled Chile for over a decade when, international pressure forced him to take measures to legitimize his regime, hence a referendum to vote YES or NO to his staying in power. This gives a coalition of parties (mainly left-wing, from what I understood) temporary freedom to pass TV spots against his regime. This unusual premise results in a fine movie.Although García Bernal isn't one of my favourite actors, I have to applaud him for almost carrying the movie alone. He gives a fine, subdued performance, nothing two showy, but efficient. His character is more interested in marketing techniques than politics, and the irony is that he joins the campaign not because of beliefs but because he thinks they're doing a horrible job and he can do better. He takes marketing very seriously. All the other actors are mysteries to me, I've never seen them before, but they do a fine job too. I have to single out Alfredo Castro, who plays Lucho Guzmán, René's boss in the marketing agency. Lucho is an oily, two-faced, cowardly Pinochet sympathizer working in the YES campaign. They're always at each other's throats because René is working for the NO, and their discussions constitute many memorable scenes.Prior to this movie I had never heard of Pablo Larraín before, but I liked the way he shot this movie. He used a video support from the '80s to make it look like a homemade movie from the era, which is an interesting choice because when the film footage is mixed with the life ad footage of the time, there's almost a complete harmony. As for the screenplay, Pedro Peirano does a good job too. I was amused to learn this was based on a play by Antonio Skármeta, famous for a novel about Pablo Neruda. I though the novel was horrible but at least resulted in a great Italian movie called The Postman.I'm a huge fan of political movies, whether they be thrillers like Z, satires like In The Loop, or war like The Battle of Algiers, and I think No is a strong addition to this subgenre of cinema. It has drama, it has humour, the dialogue is intelligent, and the discussions about the power of marketing to influence people remain timeless. In fact I liked the fact that movie spent a lot of time going over about marketing techniques - it could only have paid lip service to it and focused only on the characters, but no, this movie shows the decisions ad executives take and what goes in their mind when they're coming up with ads to convince people to buy, do or think something. This view of the profession alone is worth watching the movie.