Sunday, November 10, 2013



The movie that I have chosen and which is related to the notion of power is called "No". This Chilean drama film was released by Pablo Larraín in 2012
The story takes place in Chile, during the Pinochet's dictatorship. It shows how Augusto Pinochet decided to organize a referendum, and  to what sort of opposition he had to face up. In fact the movie deals with the historic 1988 plebiscite of the Chilean citizenry over whether general Pinochet should have another 8-year term as President.
Furthermore, the main actor is called René Saavedra and is played by Gael García. He stands for a young and clever advertising man. (Effectively the story is when advertising tactics came to be very used in political campaigns) The René's campaign tries to defeat Pinochet and his party, in other words, it promotes the party of the "NO" made up of people who are against the dictatorship. However, the population is skeptical, and very scared to tell what it really wants, so it is unable neither to claim its rights nor to make a choice.

The first aspect of power that we can notice is the political one. As we can hear in the tailor, Pinochet, helped by the head of the police and the Army, has the total control of mass communication and social and economic organizations. He also represses any form of opposition and dissidence. In fact even if people is assumed to have the right of replying "No" to the plebiscite, the government keeps threatening population and more particularly the leaders of the campain. Moreover this dictatorship resulted in the death and disappearance of 3 200 people, and about 38 000 tortured people.

The second aspect related to power refers to the "counter power", in other words to the public opinion as it is question of a referendum. Effectively, even if the government carefully controls the population, we can notice that people are holding demonstrations. Furthermore, the forth branch of government, the media, also alludes to the notion of power. All the story is structured around an ad, that would be permit the party of the "NO" to win, and overthrow the dictatorship.We can see what sort of sequences are chosen and how they are shot, for what purpose... With a few resources, Saavedra and his team succeed in creating a powerful ad, and win the referendum.
To my mind the last aspect of power is the most important : It is the power of happiness. The advertisers decide to build up their ad around the notion of happiness, an incontestable value, in order to be more credible, 
and to gather people to the full.

2 comments:

  1. An interesting choice, Lauren.
    As I have not seen this Chilean film, I'm looking forward to learning about it in your oral presentation...

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  2. Can I summarize my post during my oral presentation or should I explain other things ?

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