Movie and Book Review: No, Roberto Bolano, and Violence in the Contemporary World

The film “No” by acclaimed Chilean director Pablo Larrain is equal parts powerful and innovative – both in its narrative and televisual aesthetics. It can be deceiving at first sight as this is not an ordinary run-of-the-mill historical drama film; much of the story is actually based on actual events. Personally, I felt that this film was similar to Chen Kaige’s Yellow Earth in a symbolic way. While Yellow Earth touches on Chinese feudalism as an oppressive force waiting to be liberated by the forces of communism, “No” highlights how a brutal Chilean dictatorship can be dethroned by one man’s clever marketing campaign. This contrapuntal relationship drives the plotlines of both movies, and is impactful due to its strong political undertones that are, in fact, non-fictious and very realistic. Yellow Earth aside, I felt that No’s compact package and representation of the 1988 Chilean Plebiscite was very well done, especially for foreigners who have not lived through the Pinochet era but wants to understand and experience what it felt like to be in those times. Also, the sheer irony of it all was ever sweeter when Pinochet was brought down by the very same forces that got him into power – American influences. By using advertisements inspired from the Cola Wars, the protagonist was able to sway voter behaviour and oust the military dictator in something of an underdog victory. The use of special VHS cameras to emulate the time period adds to the overall realism of the movie as at times I could not tell whether the footages were real or not; blurring the lines between the fictitious, and non-fictitious worlds.  

On the other hand, when I read Sensini, I felt it was largely melancholic in its tone, perhaps even nostalgic if you were a Latin American, since much of the story is set in the region with its own unique cultural contexts and connotations (i.e. the mentions of Spanish books, Argentine writers, magazines, histories, et cetera). Moreover, the story is very intimate as well; we get a lot of detailed information about the personal lives of both the narrator and Sensini. However, what is most interesting about this story is how its underlying tones of political and societal instability defines the realities of the characters. From start to finish, we see a mentor-mentee relationship that develops as quickly as it ends – with the story resolving into a cliff-hanger of sorts. Though it is worth mentioning that the narrator’s voice is rather unreliable as at times he would appear to not remember some events accurately (i.e. “…one night, after dinner or after a light meal or just a snack”, p. 2). Otherwise, this story provides a great introduction into the intimate lives of Latin Americans, especially those of artists and writers. Another story by Roberto Bolano worth discussing would be Mauricio “The Eye” Silva. At first, from the title I assumed that this story would be about a boxer. However, it turns out Mauricio was a photographer tasked with taking pictures of a prostitute’s district in an Indian city – a far cry from my previous assumptions. To me, this story employed very similar literary techniques to Sensini in that Bolano restricts how much we are allowed to know about the characters. Even in doing so, Bolano still manages to tickle our emotional faculties towards the end of the story – a testament to his powerful yet minimalist writing style, which reminds me of Chinese writers of the Republican era such as Lu Xun and Lin Yutang.

Part 1: The Analysis of the Film and Literary Sources

The similarities between the movie and the two short stories essentially boils down to the characters’ unique subjectivities. In “No”, Rene is an exile and the son of a former political leader. Similarly, the characters from the two short stories also feature Chilean exiles. This is very interesting because another similarity I could draw from these three sources would be that the characters were mostly artists, such as writers, advertisers and photographers, which suggests that art in Pinochet’s Chile was perhaps deemed a threat to the regime. I believe this is no coincidence as, according to Murphy (2018), artistic practice was widely prohibited during Pinochet’s rule, forcing many artists to leave the country and live as exiles where they could continue producing films and other media critical of the Chilean dictatorship. This makes a lot of sense when you dissect the deeper subjectivities of the characters. In “No”, Rene appears to be this “jaded” individual who never seems to fit in with the same type of happiness that he himself promoted through his advertisements. In Sensini, we can see that the narrator suffers from some kind of identity crisis at many points in the story, such as when he had to retake his photograph multiple times because he felt he looked “ugly and skinny and scruffy-haired” (p. 5). This further exemplifies the unreliability of the narrator both as a voice, and as a character in the story. On the other hand, the subjectivities within Mauricio “The Eye” Silva are also fascinating. The titular character of the same name, Mauricio, is a Chilean photographer who frequently travels the world over to take up photographic assignments. The theme of identity is also very prevalent here, with characters either separated from each other across vast distances (such as in the case of the narrator and Mauricio when he was in India, Berlin, et cetera), or with cultural subjectivities that do not match their ethnic background (such as the elderly Asian taxi driver who listens to Beethoven). In addition to that, Mauricio, who identifies as a homosexual, probably does not feel like he belongs in the culturally conservative Chilean society. These stories, in effect, demonstrates how transculturality shapes the identities of the characters, who, as a result of being in exile, have to deal with problems that take place in foreign countries like India and Spain.

I believe Bolano’s consistent use of distance both as a physical and metaphysical device is not mere coincidence. I think Bolano, in the grand scheme of things, wanted to suggest in his stories that; wherever people go, they bring their influences with them. And by extension; wherever Chileans go, they bring their Violence with them. If we recall, the opening passage of “The Eye” was “Mauricio Silva…always tried to avoid violence…but violence, real violence, is unavoidable”. This is the subjectivity that is consistent across both the movie and the stories – a magnetic attraction towards violence. With this in mind, it makes a lot of sense why Rene’s usage of positive instead of negative images would win him the campaign – the dissociation of violence serves as powerful resolution for the Chileans; this violence that Pinochet champions is not what the Chileans wanted to identify with. This is probably similar to how everyday Malaysians do not necessarily want to be associated with a culture of shuffling money from sovereign funds into our own pockets. Anyways, the cultural subjectivity of being predisposed to violence is actually directly in-line with Pierre Bourdieu’s notion of habitus, which suggests that unconscious social actions are driven by an individual’s unique social history and socially constructed predispositions (Dimitriadis and Kamberelis, 2006). Thus, I would argue that these predispositions are derived from experiences and social interactions living in a highly violent and repressive society like Chile during the Pinochet era – amassing a cultural capital that centres around violence.

Part 2: Violence, Conservatism and Authoritarianism in Latin America, and Post- Colonial Malaysia; What This Says About the Contemporary World

Before we can truly understand the violence during Pinochet’s Chile, we must first take a look at Latin America as a whole. Both Brazil in 1964 and Argentina in 1976 experienced horrifically violent transitions during their own regime changes (Uchoa, 2014; Hoeffel, 2016). In Peru, unrestrained violence is literally legalized in the autogolpe under President Alberto Fujimori, which allows him the rights to “apply drastic punishments” towards any suspect of terrorism (Burt, 2006). In short, there is no bar to the violence of regime change in Latin America. During the 1973 Chilean coup d’etat, Pinochet and his coup opened fire against the Palacio La Moneda, or the Presidential Palace, checkmating the then socialist president Salvador Allende who committed suicide after the troops entered the building (Sigmund, 1977). The violence extended into the almost two decades that Pinochet was in power as his military government killed thousands of students and members of leftist organizations, while dispersing over 200,000 Chileans across the globe as exiles (Wright and Zuniga, 2007). In fact, one of the hallmark features of Pinochet’s 18-year rule was the brutal torturing, and frequent “disappearance” (or disappearing, rather) of political dissidents and opponents (Bernetti, 2019). Pinochet’s violent political legacy may have left its indelible mark in modern Chilean society as, very recently, mass protests in the South American country were violently repressed by the government using military forces – the first time in over three decades (Troncoso and Becerril, 2019). Interestingly, the choice for military intervention was legitimized by President Sebastian Pinera declaring that Chile is now “in a state of war”. Using language like this, usually reserved for actual armed conflict, to describe a grassroots social movement could very well indicate that the violent political subjectivities of Pinochet’s Chile still lives on in the psyches of Chileans today – especially amongst the more fluid youth groups.

Inadvertently, authoritarianism across Latin America during those decades highlight one important domain of our studies this semester: Gramsci’s conceptualization of power and hegemony. Here, Gramsci explains how individual and collective insecurity achieves coercion in a consensual manner through the manipulation of fear and punishment (Bates, 1975). Cases like these are not unique to the Latin American experience. In Malaysia, we have a growing class of organic intellectuals that are weakening the legitimacy of the hegemony created by the Malaysian elites, thus forming the basis for renewed counterhegemonic participation in the country (Miles and Croucher, 2013). Such counterhegemony was already on the rise as early as the 2008 General Elections (GE08), finally reaching its peak 10 years later in GE18. This was the first regime change in Malaysian history since Malaya’s independence in 1957. However, we too experienced a marked degree of violence in the decades leading to this monumental moment – particularly in the late colonial periods of our history. The Malayan Emergency is an example of such violent events because bearing in mind, countries aligned with Western democratic models at the time were at full-blown McCarthyism during the Cold War. However, according to McGregor (2016), the threat of communist insurgency in Malaysia also indirectly formed the basis for Malay primacy and nationalism in the country – championing the narrative of the ethnic Chinese “backstabbers”. Furthermore, the violent legacies of the Malayan Emergency essentially justify the government’s implementation of draconian laws such as the Internal Security Act (ISA) aimed at squashing threats to national sovereignty. Most Malaysians would know the contrary, however, that the ISA’s only use is to silence political dissidents (Lee, 2002). Suppressive mechanisms like this looks very familiar to Chile’s in a lot of ways. Again, these same mechanisms are legitimized through hegemonic narratives from the ruling classes.

Though surprisingly, this narrative is starting to break apart as counterhegemony continues to grow amongst the Malaysian youth, particularly from those that are ever more critical of the government and media. At the time of GE18, Malaysia was in fact heralded as a beacon of hope for democracy in a region that has, historically, been largely dominated by right-wing politics, Malay nationalism, and cultural conservatism. In this light, I believe that counterhegemonic development in Malaysia has contributed to a change in political, social, and cultural mentality away from such values. According to an article by New Straits Times, the transition of power from Barisan Nasional (BN) to Pakatan Harapan (PH) was mostly peaceful, to the amazement of some political figures (2018). This marks a new level of political maturity in the country – one that is perhaps no longer split along racial lines. A similarly peaceful transition from dictatorship to democracy was witnessed in Chile just two decades prior as well. According to Hopkins (2012), the 1989 election was noted for its fairness and accuracy, a complete turnaround from the atrocities perpetuated by the Pinochet regime. Evidently, we do have our parallels with Chile despite having largely different social historical backgrounds.

Historically, Chile has always been seen as this poster child of democratic stability in Latin America – a privilege not enjoyed by many countries in the continent. However, this stability has not, as recent events indicate, held up well against the test of time. What makes Chile different from Malaysia, and by extension the rest of the democratic world, is that its democracy is always on the verge of collapse, always in a constant “state of exception”, whereby laws and civil rights in the country are rendered obsolete, and imaginary security threats acts as justification for state terror (Bartlett, 2019). The ability to declare a “state of emergency” is a very powerful one, and is not limited to suppressing protests. During the pandemic, many countries around the world has enacted measures such as “powers of detention, closing non-essential businesses, limiting public gatherings, and limiting people’s movement” (Greene, 2020). These measures have very serious implications for freedom. In one example, powers to limit gatherings could also be used to break up political parties essential for a healthy democracy. In Malaysia, the government has blamed the pandemic on the delay for parliamentary sitting, starving policymakers of a chance to go through a planned confidence vote against now Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin (Radhi and Yusof, 2020).

Therefore, it is very easy to see that our contemporary world is defined by our social histories. This, in turn, defines our cultural capital. Both Chile and Malaysia have gone through periods of great violence in our histories, gaining a cultural capital that is very violent-centric, and should not be very much different. However, Malaysians appear to be less violent in our approach to politics. Perhaps, this can be due to our past as a British colony, where a monopoly of fear is used to control populations – fearful obedience, as I call it. In Chile, this fearful obedience – although there – was simply not at a big enough capacity to discourage violent political behaviour.

Part 3: Final Insights and Conclusions

I believe events mentioned above undermine the notion of democracy, as well as showing that such events are not just limited to one country. However, I do believe that Chile’s early democratization ultimately led to the deeply entrenched issues they face today. In agreement with Francis Fukuyama’s analysis on failed states, I believe that social mobilization, modernization without development, and early democratization made the Chilean state an easy object of capture by elite domestic (the military) and foreign (the CIA) powers (2017). To a hammer, everything is a nail; the fall of Allende’s leftist regime simply paved the way for the plastic democracy that continues, until today, to define Chile’s political destiny.