Acceso usuarios
Alexis Howe
Pablo Larraín’s film No (2012) has been widely viewed and reviewed both at home in Chile and internationally. Some reviewers have focused on the film’s representation of the triumph of hope and optimism over tyranny. Others have criticized the film’s historical inaccuracy, citing a list of details that the film either got wrong or left out. Neither of these groups, however, has touched on the core argument at the heart of Larraín’s film. The present article examines No, and proposes that the film presents a satirical representation of the transition in Chile. While on the surface the film appears to celebrate the political transition from dictatorship to democracy that began with the 1988 referendum, a closer analysis reveals how No actually emphasizes the success of another transition: the economic transition that had been carried out brutally by the military regime, a transition that was not undone by the referendum. Positioning the adman as the hero whose victory in the referendum is due to a strategic marketing of democracy as if it were a soft drink, No highlights one of the many triumphs of Pinochet who, despite being removed from office, had already succeeded in transforming Chile into a consumer-based capitalist society.
