No (in Spanish)
Rating = B
The film is a
fictionalized account of the 1988 national vote on whether to keep the dictator as
the non-dictator president for an 8 year term (vote Yes) or to reject the dictator
and have a real presidential election the next year (vote No). The movie story is
about role commercial-type advertising had in the campaigns for Yes and No votes.
In particular, the story is about one advertising man, Rene, who skates through
life (figuratively and literally on a skateboard) without profound political principles but
excited about the possibility of having a winning No campaign when the common wisdom is
that No can't win.
The film is confusing at first as Rene and his boss/friend Lucho carry on their
commercial advertising business while beginning to get involved in the Yes and
No campaigns where it is a little hard to distinguish among the various commercial
and political campaigns; but the movie then picks up speed and clarity.
[At the end of the film after the successful No campaign, Rene and Lucho are back
in their advertising business planning a campaign that draws on work Lucho was doing
during the Yes campaign and boasting of Rene's involvement in the successful No campaign.
The director left me wondering if unstated in the story was a plan (perhaps implicit) by
Lucho and Rene to have one of them involved in each campaign so that regardless of whether
Yes or No won, they would have been on the winning side with its benefits to their commercial
business.]
Some critics complain about the low quality of the filming, but this didn't bother me.
[2013-04-06, Cape Cinema, Dennis, MA]