Last but not least: The little advertiser's opposition strategy
As PR executive René Saavedra, Gael García Bernal sells everything with the promise of a better future for Chile—*No* hits theaters on March 21, so that’s sure to get the weekend off to a good start.
On Thursday, the feature film "No" by Chilean director Pablo Larraín will be released in cinemas in German-speaking Switzerland. The film revolves around the advertising man René Saavedra, played by Gael García Bernal. When he is hired by a group of opposition activists to really do something for Chile - namely to end the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet - he is initially helpless. According to the SDA's review of the film. Instead of turning Pinochet's bloody atrocities - torture, abduction, 3,000 opponents of the regime killed - into chilling commercials, the protagonist prefers music, dance and promises of happiness in the Coca-Cola style.
However, the film is by no means simplistic, but rather astonishingly topical: in the events of the feature film, it has become commonplace to sell politics with the most unreflected emotions possible instead of concrete facts - and not to the benefit of everyone, the SDA film review continues.
Selling politics in the style of the manipulative psychology of soft drink advertising - emotions instead of facts: This is not an unknown stylistic device in this country either. A movie certainly worth seeing. (uma)
Teaser image: Keystone
