The Chilean doc/fiction hybrid No (T/F 2013) has returned to Columbia, and is now playing at Ragtag Cinema.

No is director Pablo Larrain third consecutive film dealing with the rule of General Augusto Pinochet, whose military junta governed Larrain’s native Chile from 1973-1990. Each approaches life under the dictatorship through the story of an unusual, seemingly apolitical protagonist. Tony Manero (2008) follows a psychopath obsessed with imitating John Travolta’s character in Saturday Night Fever, a darkly comic echo of Pinochet’s regime. In Post Mortem (2010) a middle-aged morgue worker’s strange romance with a burlesque performer plays out during the violent coup that brought Pinochet to power. In No our hero is René Saavedra, an ad-man who creates a catchy campaign to bring down the general. Saavedra is portrayed in a powerful and subtle performance by Gael Garcia Bernal.

No has a direct connection to Columbia, in that it was produced by Hickman grad Daniel Dreifuss. In the video below, shot following our closing night screening at the historic Missouri Theater, Dreifuss discusses the film’s universalism and its use of archival material to create “a feature with a documentary soul”.