She implies that Rene has put together a piece-meal collage of cliches that have nothing to do with Chile's social or political realities: "El arcoiris, gente linda, ninos rubios que corren contentos celebrando no se que mierda, un hombre alto que mide como cinco metros--los chilenos somos chicos!" The unusual fivefold repetition of the word copia clearly refers to simulacrum, a copy that masks the absence of both the original and any real content whatsoever, a concept popularized by postmodernist thinkers.
In contrast, Larrain's adman cheerfully offers consumers another virtual reality, a simulacrum of democracy that, Larrain argues, has been perpetuated ever since: "Since 1988 we've been living in a big shopping mall" (Larrain's interview by Romney 29).
In calling the democratic transition in Chile a simulacrum, the filmmakers echo those political scientists who deem it "low intensity," "empty," or "pseudo." These scholars argue that the elites accepted the advent of democracy because it presented fewer risks to their power than did dictatorship.
When his wife aims to hurt him, exclaiming, "Tu campana es la copia de la copia de la copia de la copia de la copia," Renes quick reply of "Nosotros no copiamos!" reveals that he does not know that she is referring to the copy without original or content--the simulacrum. When Renes boss copies his techniques in the rival "Si" campaign, Rene shames him with his wife's very words, "Es la copia de la copia de la copia de la copia de la copia." His boss is no more knowledgeable in contemporary philosophy--he looks away, tacitly acknowledging that he did copy Rene.
I believe that Larrain frames, and flaunts, his film as a simulacrum to stress that the story he is telling is merely a representation of reality, not reality itself.
