Inside Cannes 2012 Day 3: Pablo Larrain’s No

It was a triumphant return for Pablo Larrain today in the sidebar that helped push his sophomore film Tony Manero into the film circuit stratosphere of 2008. With his fourth feature film “No,” this U.S-Mexican co-production once again uses a Chile that is affected by the presence of Augusto Pinochet, but unlike his previous pair, this examines what occurs when repression is evinced into the open via the media. Gael Garcia Bernal plays his part of a tenacious formerly exiled young advertising visionary with a downplayed gusto and takes his more dramatic cues from regular Larrain players/muses in Alfredo Castro and Antonia Zegers. Larrain matches the feel of the era with what could be described as a VHS video look. Here is footage from this morning’s world premiere screening – Q&A is introduced by the artistic director Edouard Waintrop, (if you don’t understand either of the spoken languages) and the gist of what was discussed was Larrain’s chosen format (a bold and effective choice in my opinion), how his lead actor got involved, the kind of research Bernal did to inform himself of the social and political context and how Pedro Peirano adapted the stageplay (his investigate process lead him to find figures in both of the YES and NO camps).