Hi all
Here is the link to the film. We watched up until 1:09. Finish watching it at home and then write a brief blog post on your response to it. Discuss your impressions of the film. What did you find interesting about it? Do you think that there was some merit to the criticisms that the film received? Do you think it overstates the role of advertising in the Plebiscite victory for the No side.
While watching the film No, I gained a deeper understanding of the reality of the No campaign and its struggle to succeed. Such as the marketing technics that were used during the campaign. It was a fine line of utilising humor, happiness with a touch of reality, that captivated the audience. It further explained by the Chilean “NO” campaign took on the rainbow as its representative. Having a colourful stance, would not scare away its prospective voters. I initially didn’t realise, that some of the footage was taken from the real-life event. I enjoyed this style, because it was able to fully emerge the audience in a mixture of reality and fiction. The protest scene, where the No and the Si campaigns are marching, captures this very well. Watching it, I was not able to keep track of what footage was reproduce and which one was taken from the real event. However, this scene which depict the brutally that Chilean people endured during the campaign is a rarity. Throughout the film, it had a deep focus on the producers of the No campaign, although I would have liked to seen the perspective of the voters as well. Overall, I really enjoyed the film.
I think the movie is a good representation of the plebiscite and that it demonstrates the role advertisement played during the campaign. I think it is also a good representation of people’s thoughts during this times, since we get to understand why some people supported Pinochet and why some didn’t. While I understand why there might be some critiques, I do think that the campaigns and the TV ads played a big role in the final decision, and although all the movie shows is the campaigns and I am aware that that was not everything that played a factor into the voting, I do think that it had a major role. All in all, I really liked the movie and I enjoyed putting together the pieces, and connecting what we learned in class with the movie scenes.
I think the movie was a really interesting take on the amount of power that advertising had during the plebiscite. I very much liked the take on the effect of the plebiscite and the creation of the ads upon the personal lives of the people that were involved in the project and how slow the processing of adopting the ‘positive’ NO rhetoric was. I do think that the heavy focus on the power of advertising does take away from the practical moves that the NO campaign also carried out, like registering millions of Chileans to vote. I think the film places a heavy focus on ads..but not enough on the NO voters autonomy in their vote against Pinochet, but rather presents it like they were manipulated into it, taking the agency away from the voter’s voice of resistance.
I enjoyed watching the film because it showed how the No campaign took a lot of effort, time and creativity to be created. What I found most interesting about the film where all the inner discussions that happened regarding how they were going to portray the No campaign. What theme would they try to revolve around? Would they want the short clips to be happy and joyful or sad? Another section of the film which I found tremendously interesting was the doubt and negativity by many party members of the NO campaign about losing regardless of their efforts.
I think the movie did revolve a bit to much on the ads for the NO campaign. It would have been interesting if they would have shown some of the voters perspective of the campaign.
The movie was very good and does set the setting quite well.It reflects Chile at the time in a realistic and plausible manner, showing the opposing opinions of the people of Chile. Given that the movie is about the advertisements it will obviously portray advertisements as a very important factor which led to Pinochet’s defeat. I think that the role of advertisement is not overstated in the movie and the propaganda campaign conducted by the ‘No’ faction was a decisive factor but I truly have no idea if it was THE decisive factor. I think that it is quite impossible to 100% know whether the ad campaign secured the victory at the ballot.
I really, really enjoyed the movie. I thought that in particular Larrain paid careful attention to set details, producing a film that felt real and was effective in delivering a heartfelt story. However, I do think that it is important to remember that NO is just that- a story. While I have no doubt that many of the scenes in the movie do accurately reflect historical truths, one must keep in mind that despite being shot close to the style of a documentary, NO cannot, and indeed does not attempt to, portray everything that happened accurately. One example of this, which I believe might be valid criticism, is the overemphasis on the importance of advertising to the NO campaign. To be completely honest, I do not believe there is any reasonable way of knowing exactly what pushed the NO side to victory, but to show that all of the credit, (or at least the vast majority of it) lies on the shoulders of the advertisers could be a fallacy. But then again, it could also be true. A question for the historians among us, perhaps.
I liked how the No movie allowed us to see the behind the scenes action that is involved when running a political ad campaign on both sides. The movie incorporated lots of humour, witty banter and commentary as a way to make light of a more serious situation (ie; Pinochet’s plebiscite). Not only did the movie portray real life events but as well it brought a sense of reality to viewers. I think that the advertising used by both sides during the campaign would have been crucial, but not the sole reason why people voted yes or no. I think it helped broadcast and influence many Chileans, by promoting their own beliefs and ideals to the public via advertising messages. I wish that the movie focused more on voters from both sides to see what opinions they had about Pinochet’s plebiscite.
I really liked how the movie captioned the details of what was happening in that time. Movies can influence people’s mind and make them change their mind about some matters, that’s why it’s important to try to stick to reality. Although the movie is most about how the advertisement affected the results, I don’t think that it was the main reason why things turned up the way it did. One thing I do consider important, is that thanks to the advertisement people knew that they weren’t the only ones thinking that way or feeling that way. I think that the movie tries to pretend like if the ads somehow washed people’s brain and pushed them into voting NO.
Well watching the movie “No” I think it was quite impressionable because it gave me a deeper understanding to what the vote actually meant through a creative lense. I found it interesting how it showed the realities of how hard it was to sway the voters through adds and the perspective of peoples views on the televised adds for the yes and no campaigns through this dramatic true story. The “yes” campaign was derived out of fear and the “no” campaign was very opposite and it was comparable to a 1980’s coke commercial where it is all happy and smiles. Yet behind the rainbows and smiles there was a driven political message. I enjoyed the film and its perspective on the campaign and its ability to get across such a powerful message with emotion and good acting. Even though not entirely true the movie did a good job at representing the main ideas behind the “No” campaign.
I thought that the No film was a compelling representation of how either campaign sought to sway voters towards their side. I found it interesting to look into the different ways that the ‘no’ and ‘si’ campaigns tried to cater to Chile through advertising – ‘no’, through a less grim and more happy/hopeful way, and ‘si’ being more grim. I especially enjoyed its style – splicing together real footage of the plebisites’ context, alongside footage from the film, in the U-matic style that was used at the time created a nostalgic, heartfelt and somewhat realistic representation of Chile during that transition period. However, I do believe that the critics have merit – although advertising was definitely an important factor to the ‘no’ campaign, the film frames it as if that was the only contributing factor to their success, evicting other important actors such as grassroots movements.
I really enjoyed the movie, definitely more than I thought I would. It has a nice mix of humour, reality, history which really grabs the attention of a viewer. I think the director has an interesting technique of incorporating old commercial into the movie. The movie does, mostly, address the role the commercial played in the success of the campaign. It seems, that without those innovative advertisements the NO campaign would not have been as successful or successful at all. I think that the movie shows how they “sold” the idea of NO, without showing that that was what people already wanted, they did not need to be repeatedly sold into it. It is possibly true that ads helped in establishing a movement, it making it a thing, it helped the campaign gain its momentum.
The movie was quite impressive for me and made me remind of Korean dictatorship period. It was no exactly same with NO campaign, but a lot of youth, students and normal people came out to regain freedom. Also, this movie helped me to understand how media can deeply influence the society. Thus, media control has severe impact to society especially when there is power that tries to control society as he wants to. I do not really know well about the reality of NO campaign but movies itself seems to represent the political movement very well and also contained how people felt. Through this film, I found out how important role this campaign had, but might have been more interesting if it talked about cooperation of different movements more specifically.
While the film takes a very interesting view on the plebiscite campaign, to the unaware viewer, it seemingly overstates the importance of the media during the campaign. Nonetheless, the movie did a fine job creating an authentic take on this era and is a compelling examination of the issues in Chile. Like I previously mentioned it does look like advertising was the only way to bring out these subterranean values, even though there were artistic, musical, and outright political movements against Pinochet and ‘Yes’ principles. I thought that Gael’s character was also very interesting as he tried to focus on advertising rather than demonstrating his own political beliefs, which frustrated and confused the people around him.
I do believe the film over exaggerated the effects of advertisement on the elections results. I do believe that advertisement helped to make voters feel comfortable voting against Pinochet, allowing them to feel as if others had the same thoughts and ideas they had, but I don’t believe the advertisement changed anybody’s mind over the vote. I found the visualization of the film fascinating, I really liked how it was filmed using technology from the 1980’s as it gave it a gritty, realistic, feeling. I believe that the NO campaign was so successful because it was what a large number of people wanted to happen. These people had undergone years of hardship and abuse and wanted change, they did not necessarily have to be convicted to vote against Pinochet, rather comforted in the idea that their vote would not be alone.
I found the movie to be very interesting informative. In the movie, I found particularly interesting the role of which advertising played on the campaign. Through the movie, see the importance that advertising possesses. We see how through television and social media how advertising can pro trade peoples opinions and how in the movie through advertisement was able to connect to the Chilean public. In today’s society similar to the movie, we can see how the use of the advertising can sway and affect people’s opinions and decisions. I think this movie demonstrates importance of advertising in our daily lives which was one of which was my favorite part of movie as I found the movie to be quite funny.
I really enjoyed this movie; however, I did not like how there was so much emphasis on the media. In my opinion, the importance of the media and advertisement was quite exaggerated, and although it did play a role during the campaign it would not have been enough to completely sway public opinion. Nonetheless, I enjoyed the film for its humor and incorporation of vintage commercials, and I liked seeing both sides of the campaign. Moreover, the director was able to create an authentic setting in this era to the audience.
I think this film overplayed the importance of advertising in the No campaign. This could easily have been avoided by focusing on the contribution of movements such as the Arpilleras, and this would have also been informative for viewers who do not know anything about Chile; this being my case, i think that answering this question is difficult since i was not born yet in the 1980’s, let alone was i in Chile at the time witnessing the fall of Pinochet’s regime. The element of the movie i enjoyed was the fact that it was made to look like it was produced in the 1980’s and several real television broadcasts from that period were incorporated into the film, making it seem more authentic to viewers.
I thought the film NO did a great job in representing the process each side went through in the making of the campaigns for the Plebiscite, as well as showing the difference of opinions of various Chileans and their reasons for wanting, or not wanting changes, in their government. I also think it was an interesting display of the effects of commercialization on people and its ability to sway viewers, whether it be to purchase a product or vote a certain way. Perhaps the criticisms of the film focusing too much on the impact the commercials had on the voting public are true, however in my opinion, the film worked well in bringing international attention to the goings on in Chile during this time.
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I really liked the movie. It was really interesting to me how the director (or whoever is in charge of the movie in this sense) spliced the old clips with the new film. I think that it added a depth and integrity to the film that it wouldn’t have had, or at least not as strongly, if it had just been all new footage. I also really enjoyed the acting as I thought that it was excellent, and I just generally like all Garcia Bernal movies. I found it most interesting how the campaign affected the personal and family lives of the main characters. What I find most problematic about the criticisms the film received is that they talk a lot about how the ad campaign wasn’t the only factor in the plebiscite and how other things should have been detailed as well. This is easy to say, but when you consider that a movie is only about 2 hours long, you can’t expect a writer/director to incorporate every single factor that contributed to the no side’s success. I think that the movie was actually better this way because it really hyper-focused on the ad campaign which meant it could really elaborate on that, which I think was quite effective. It does obviously slightly overstate the role of advertising because anti-Pinochet sentiment was strong before the ads as well, but I don’t think that that is such a big deal.
I think the most interesting part of the film was getting to watch, and therefore better understand, why support of Pinochet was so split. It seems impossible to us now to believe that anyone could have ever been in support of a dictator like that, but after watching No I can see how difficult it was, and still is, to know the truth about people in positions of power. I also really liked how the movie was made to feel vintage, with old clips fit seamlessly in and how they filmed it on older cameras to get the authenticity they wanted. I do understand why some critics thought that the film oversimplified the situation, but when you consider that the movies is only about 2 hours long and designed to persuade the audience that Pinochet was a horrible dictator (which he was), I find that I don’t have much of a problem with the lack of elaboration.
I found the film “No” to be a very interesting and quite entertaining to watch. I found the way in which the director chose to view the plebiscite campaign in Chile during the 1980s from a different perspective quite fascinating. I also enjoyed how the film captured how both the “No” and “Yes” campaigns used advertisements and media as tools to sway voters during the plebiscite campaign and important way in which this influenced that campaign. I also liked how the movie was able to show both sides point of view and objectives during the plebiscite campaign. I thought the depth they went into about each political campaign on both the “Yes” and the “No” side helped me gain a better understanding about what was going on in Chile during this time and really did a great job of fully showing us the importance to which advertisement, media and television had on the Chilean people during the plebiscite campaign in Chile. I find the criticism of the film to be unfair, I believe it is hard to fully explain what was happening in the plebiscite campaign in two hours and the film did a good job of fully explaining it within the two hours as I found they did a great job of capturing many aspects in the film. Overall, I really enjoyed the film and would definitely recommend the film to a friend or a family.
the film for me was interesting and created a good piece for learning. I like the way they used 1980’s jargon to make the movie seem more authentic to the viewer. The film did a very good job at demonstrating the process each side took in making their campaign for the use against of the plebiscite. It also expressed the difference in opinions of various Chileans and their reasons for wanting, or not wanting change in the government. The use of commercialization on people and its ability to sway viewers to either purchase the product or vote in a certain way was expressed thoroughly in the movie and some critics found it to be to much I did not. Yes, the film relied heavily on the use of advertising, but it was helpful in demonstrating the struggles and mind games the people of Chile were being put through. No, the film was a great way to bring to the international stage what Chile was going through during this time of the 1980’s.
The film no was an interesting and experimental project. It certainly was able to capture an “80s feel,” something that gave the film an authentic appeal. I believe the film captured well the historical meeting of politics and marketing, and the creation of the modern-day political campaign as we know it. Though this kind of political media has become commonplace to contemporary elections, NO! historicizes this trend, questionning is status as electoral staple.
I particularly liked the way in which media in media was played with in NO!. where the audience watches a screen (the film NO!) upon which is projected another screen (the plebiscite campaign). This added more layers to the mediated content of NO!. bringing to the fore discussions around audience and media, distance, intimacy and politics.
“No” immediately struck me as a skilfully-produced, well-cast film in its own right, and one sees a tiny bit of self-reference regarding the subject matter considering the many scenes that depict Rene and his team working frantically on video production, driven by a nagging doubt that their opposition still might win. I particularly enjoyed the Pablo Larrain’s decision to focus on the lives and concerns of ordinary voters rather than goings-on at Pinochet’s palace and in International Courts; I would say that one hears a very close fascimile of the plebiscite’s true atmosphere in “No” (although it’s very rare for film to truly replicate the images and words of times past). I would also add that to attribute Pinochet’s fall exclusively to an advertising campaign seems a stretch; international pressure and the Arpilleras must be considered as if not more crucial to the plebiscite’s result.
I found this film very interesting as it is based on one of the most notable figures in Latin American history, Augusto Pinochet. This film depicts the No campaign surrounding his referendum of retaining power. I think it was very interesting in the movie showing both sides, but primarily focusing on the No aspect, and why people wanted him out of office. I found little things interesting such as the use of rainbow in their logo as to attract younger voters and not scare people. The end results were very intriguing, as I actually expected the No campaign to get way more votes than they did. I expected Pinochet to be mostly hated by Chile, especially after his long almost 20 year rule. However that wasn’t necessarily the case as the No campaign won, but by less than a lot of people expected, proving he actually did retain a decent level of support throughout his reign. This movie however I thought sided too much with the No campaign, and would’ve been interesting getting more perspective from the si side.
I thought the film was really cool! In the 80’s television was popping so I’m I think its pretty dope to see the process behind how it was shaped. I feel like art, advertisements, and propaganda all get mixed up as media so I just thought it was interesting to see the creative process behind this iconic campaign. The film showed that there is so much more that goes behind a catchy little jingle. This was a time when the government had such strict control over information and needed to be a powerful voice to oppose them. Pinochet had his supporters who were making moves consolidate his power and this film celebrates the unsung heroes who helped end his rule.
Aesthetically the film not only brings to the table a perspective into the atmosphere of the No campaign but also the initial output of the project in terms of the chronology of events during the regime. As we have previously discussed in class, the No campaign was an artistic reaction to the oppressive dictatorship put forth by the deceitful and dishonest Augusto Pinochet. I do not think that the film, however, should be scrutinized for its overstating of the Plebiscite victory for the NO side because it was a crucial achievement for social justice and film often have tendency to dramatize historical events by nature anyway.
I found the film to be very interesting and it really allowed to understand the political climate at the time of the Plebiscite. I thought it was really interesting how it showed the importance of advertising in the No campaign, however I do not know if I necessarily agree that it was as important as presented in the movie. I think that there was already a lot of dislike toward the Pinochet regime and thus many people did not take much convincing that he should not be allowed to rule for another 8 years. There was so much loss, violence and oppression during the regime that the No campaign did not have much struggle in finding reasons to oppose his regime. I do believe that the advertising allowed a united message of the opposition to be delivered to the masses, in a much larger volume than would have otherwise been done. I think the amount of voters that showed up to vote is a testament of how far and wide these ads reached. While I do believe it was slightly overstated, it was the focus of the film so that was likely why they could fit the other reasons for the success of the campaign in the film (i.e lack of success of the Yes campaigns, use of celebrities, dislike of the regime), and I think it is difficult to say what would have been the result of the plebiscite without the help of the advertising.
The film No gave me a deeper insight into the reality of the NO campaign in Chile. The fact that the film had real footage allowed the audience to really embrace what was going on during the campaign. The film showed the struggles and obstacles the NO side had to face in order to succeed but also presented it as having a colourful, inviting stance that would encourage supporters, rather than turning them away. Despite the critiques, I do believe that the campaign played a big part in the success of the NO side- it encouraged people to support the side, despite the fact that the movie only shows the campaigning part, it still had a big role.
Every film will receive criticism for some reason or another, and while I did find it hard to enjoy the film the first time around as I was caught up in paying attention to the plot, I did really enjoy re-watching it as it allowed me to go into the film understanding the basic premise and feeling connected to their cause already. The advertisements of the No campaign were truly mesmerizing pieces of art especially compared to some modern examples of advertising. While in our own technological age of information being instantly available at our fingertips may make modern people more skeptical and informed when it comes to decisions, in that time period people were left to believe whatever they were told by their surrounding environment which made it a lot harder to distinguish truth from fiction. Because of this I think that criticizing the movie for placing too much emphasis on the ad campaign is unjustified.