Waste of time

Did you people see the same film I saw?

Instead, you get a movie that's enjoyable enough, but leaves you feeling like it could have been much, much more.

Close shines in drama with strong language, adult themes.

As a person, who actually was very actively fighting against Pinochet's dictatorship - _far from abroad_ and that means from Sweden - this movie made it all alive again. All the feelings, all the people I met during and afterwards, all the stories, all the songs, all the poetry...made me cry once again. Above all - the stories that I never heard - from the ones who stayed and tried to survive during the dictatorship of Pinochet, is a reminder for me and all the world: "This is God speaking. I have a new competition: Can you beat your KARMA? Can you change something?" ......

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.

"Faith is what will change Chile." Saavedra (Gail Garcia Bernal)1988 was not a good year for August Pinochet, the dictator of Chile: after 16 years, he agrees to a referendum that simplified the topic by having the electorate vote either "Yes" or "No" for his rule. One of the reasons he lost, notwithstanding the number of murdered or vanished enemies, was adman Renee Saavedra (Bernal), the brains behind the commercial for soft drink "Free," featuring mimes and rock musicians among other images.While this docudrama gives an effective perspective on the fall of a tyrant, it also shows the successful inside working of an ad firm, which seemed not to have a chance given the perception that Pinochet had a lock on the election process. Not so. It's instructive to see how much Saavedra's belief in selling the upbeat emotion of the soda makes a difference in the final outcome, and that good does sometime overcome evil.One of the more successful aspects of the film is its use of vintage video cameras, which allows the director to smoothly incorporate original TV commercials and news footage. In other words, No is an enjoyable thrust back into history, as good a look at the underside of Latino politics and propaganda as you will ever see.

As soon as the opening credits started, I knew I would love this film. Even before that, the idea of learning more about the TV communication war between the two parties seemed very much interesting. The director had the brilliant idea to edit the movie in a vintage, 80's look which helped mixing archive clips with the actual film more easily. Also I guess his intention was to take us on a journey to that period, and I must say that it worked quite well. I truly enjoyed the time travel machine experience.Gael Garcia is an amazing actor and I believed in his acting. So did I for the rest of the cast. Being able to enter the process of this huge advertising and political war was jubilant, as it felt like we had access to a whole secret world where no one was able to step in before.Now the main thing I regret on this film is the lack of an actual story. As fun as following these advertising nerds can be, it is disappointing to not know more about them, especially the lead character René. Yes, he has a son and is separated, struggles with a few ego issues... but that is it. We are only given a very few insights of his personality. Nothing else happens really.You can tell that the director did some research and heard this and that about him or her, so he's put it in the film. Then we just watch the YES and NO TV commercials one after the other, sometimes accompanied with a few images of people's reactions.What I mean by that is that it was difficult even frustrating at times, to swing between a proper documentary and a regular movie. Finding the good balance is the main difficulty with such films.Overall I truly liked this film because it taught me things.