Nuevo orden

This is the first film by this director for me, but from very first moments he captured my attention by his approach to the story. Contrary to the most American films' depictions of Mexican society and dramatization of "good guys" and "bad guys", this one shows the roots of violence and brutal nature of inequality. Script lacks more details on the plot but overall it is an effective and provocative attempt by this promising film maker.

As "New Order" (2020 release from Mexico; 86 min.) opens, there is upheaval in a hospital, as lot of wounded and dead are brought in, resulting from social protests in the streets. In a parallel story, an upper class family is getting ready for a wedding, and the guests are arriving, but the judge who will officiate the wedding is late due to the protests. Things are becoming increasingly chaotic... At this point we are 10 min. Into the film but to tell you more of the plot would spoil your viewing experience, you'll just have to see for yourself how it all plays out.

Couple of comments: this is the latest film from Mexican writer-director Michel Franco ("After Lucia"). Here he brings a "what if" social and political tale, set in Mexico City: what if social unrest leads to a violent military coup? The film observes the chaos of it all, and also what it means for the class inequities. Beware: there are a number of very disturbing scenes including torture, rape and execution-style murders. Yet the film also is incredibly well paced and it all flies by in no time. When the end titles started rolling, I thought to myself, "holy crap, what did I just watch?".

The movie premiered at the 2020 Venice Film Festival, where it won one of the top prizes, and it wasn't long before NEON snapped up the US distribution rights. Then COVID-10 changed the world... The film finally was released this weekend, and my art-house theater here Cincinnati had it on it schedule. The Sunday early evening show where I saw this at turned out to be a private screening: I was literally the only person in the theater. (Please note that upon its release in Mexico, this film was rebuked critically by many for being "classist and racist". I must admit it never crossed my mind while watching this.) If you are in the mood for a disturbing social and political "what if" from Mexico, I'd suggest you check this out, be it in the theater (while you still can), on VOD, or eventually on DVD/Blu-ray, and draw your own conclusion.

Starts soft and salty. Depicted in this movie is to some degree already happening in some countries of Latin America, so no news for me at least. The Ending is what makes this film true to life, somewhat grotesque, scary, but so sad and realistic at the same time.. one thing to add here is the camera they used to shot the film.. a top notch quality camera , and cinematography is not bad either.

Countries collapse quickly and this is one of the few movies that express that speed.

Set in Mexico, New Order takes from a wedding day through riot to a military coup and beyond.

The story focuses on the events around one family and their servants. Each subplot deals with the personal and family tragedy that evolves.

Each character reacts to their circumstances and the challenges they face - asking us how we would react faced with similar circumstances. Would we buckle under or would we stand for right.

It is well portrayed and acted but be warned it is graphic. The prison scenes in particular are difficult to watch.

The film is shown pretty much through the eyes of a young woman from a rich family. There is not much explanation of the situation in a country, you just see one after another events happening to the main character and build your own story out of it. The problem with this film is, you have a rich family which sort of doesn't care about anyone except the main character and you have the poor which are pretty much shown as mindless monkeys with weapons. Then there is the third side the military puppetmasters which are actually taking over the power forming a new dictatorship. So from the perspective of the creator of this film, there is just a constant struggle of who will be in power at the top and nothing can be changed about it, we are just supposed to comply or our corporate overlords will make it all even more dystopian. When in fact what is wrong with current society is that you have giant corporations and the rich totally avoiding taxes, governments maintaining inflation, so that the poor always stay poor. So when you get a film like this it's more like a message to the poor, just keep working for nothing or it will be even worse, which makes it a depressive film is it offers no ideas on the solution, it just shows a mindless wheel we are all running in...