8/10
Set in Chile in the 1980's, Pablo Larrain's No stars Gael Garcia Bernal as Rene, an ad-man who gets recruited to help win the "no to Pinochet" campaign. Campaign movies seem almost to be a mini-genre unto themselves. No underplays a lot of what would be blown-up or exaggerated in a Hollywood production. In fact, Bernal's character is deceptively sedate. It's a great performance, completely devoid of grandstanding and the better for it.
The tone of No is quite interesting - it could almost be an absurd black comedy, if the situation weren't so real and dire. There's a part where Rene's son is threatened by "yes" supporters, and he takes him to stay at his mother's house, where she's lodging with her current lover - who is wearing a "no" campaign shirt with the rainbow logo created by Rene. As Rene walks away from the house, you know he's either going to burst out laughing or burst into tears, and neither reaction would be inappropriate.
Slim offerings in the way of history lessons here (Larrain assumes the audience should already know why Pinochet is so undesirable and why winning the "no" vote is so important), which is admirable, but I think it disservices the film a bit too. A little more context would have gone a long way. As such the movie doesn't hit as hard as it maybe could have, but it's still well done and memorable.
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