Larraín’s Ambivalence

This chapter brings together the political aesthetic writings discussed thus far with works on historiography and ethics in Rancière’s work, in order to understand how historical representation contains its own latent potential for politics. Focusing on No (2012), the film’s ambivalent relationship to the effects of atrocity is, I argue, representative of what Rancière describe as an essential ambivalence at the heart of political resistance: ‘to resist is to adopt the posture of someone who stands opposed to the order of things, but simultaneously avoids the risk involved with trying to overturn that order’ (Rancière, 2010: 169). No offers a deeper understanding of the forms and concerns of contemporary political art cinema through its rejection of partisan narratives, its ironic employment of classical conventions (like stardom and linearity) and its artful use of obsolete technologies.