New Order (2020) (Spanish Language)- BFI London Film Festival 2020

Review

88min

Genre:       Drama

Director:     Michel Franco

Cast:         Naian González Norvind, Diego Boneta, Fernando Cuautle…

Writers:     Michel Franco

-Synopsis-

A wealthy Mexico City family wedding becomes a bloodbath when anarchy reigns after angry protests against corruption and inequality turn into a violent wave which rips through the fabric of society, while the aftermath for both the rich ruling classes and the poor who serve them becomes tragic when the iron fist of government and military strikes down.

Of all the emerging film industries around the globe over the last two decades or so, few have proven more vibrant and daring than the Latin American cinema of Mexico, and no other has produced as impactful an array of filmmakers in the Hollywood sphere. With the likes of Guillermo del Toro, Alfonso Cuarón, Alejandro González Iñárritu, and Emmanuel Lubezki capturing the imagination of critics, audiences, and award shows alike, on their way to becoming some of the premiere filmmakers of their time.

Now one of their long-time heir apparents threatens to truly join their ranks as writer/director Michel Franco (After Lucia, April’s Daughter) trades tender but comfortingly frank human dramas for a complete shock to the system. Fixing his artistic eye for dark human behaviour on a society in turmoil and a culture in decline, slapping the audience across the face with a contemporary social realist urban parable about the darkness of human nature and the consequences of being drawn to extremes—delivering a violent and nihilistic, socio-politically relevant warning tale that feels as plausible as it does dystopian.

Naian González Norvind stars as young Mexican socialite ‘Marian’, celebrating her wedding to fiancé ‘Alan’ (Dario Yazbek Bernal) with her powerful parents and brother ‘Daniel’ (Diego Boneta) at their opulent modernist family home, where the great and not so good of Mexican society gather. But her nuptials soon become a nightmare when a wave of angry social unrest sweeping through the city violently crashes on the family home, as her fate is thrown together with that of the their domestic servants including ‘Cristian’ (Fernando Cuautle) and his kin, all while the government responds to the mayhem by shutting society down and policing it with ruthless intent while callously tying up loose ends, leaving everyone in a struggle to survive a coup d’état and this brave new world.

If there’s a current movie more reflective of the dire global mood out there than ‘New Order’, we certainly can’t name it. And even though Franco couldn’t have predicted the global pandemic which would define the time in which his dystopian nightmare was released, there’s been more than enough social unrest and political turmoil in the last few years, over the last decade, and indeed throughout this century to make this a dismally resonant film, but hopefully not a prophetic one.

It’s evident that in terms of themes and to an extent style—which includes a sleek modernist aesthetic and extreme contrasts between the opulent and the deprived, but an unstylized spartan ethos—‘New Order’ shares plenty with Bong Joon Ho’s unforgettable meditation on class separation and inequality ‘Parasite’. But Franco’s film is an even darker affair which works more on the macro level, where personal quirks and general humanity are overpowered by the darker elements of human nature, and both personal and collective amorality.

Indeed that losing battle of humanity versus systemic corruption and individual moral ambiguity is brought to bear in the film by the efforts of the cast, combining naturalistic performances by the more inexperienced yet no less genuine actors playing the domestic servants and working-classes, with the turns from the more professional actors playing the wealthy and ruling classes—as Naian González Norvind leads the line and bridges the gap wonderfully as the heiress with a heart and a conscience, who feels the full weight of the unleashed inhumanity and callousness. All performances which help to uncomfortably illustrate the thin veil of civility and deference between the haves and the have nots, which slips with the fall of society’s walls when anger and desperation take over and the fear of consequences evaporates . . . only to be ominously rebuilt by a rising new order.

Unfolding in many ways like a contemporary social-realist Greek tragedy, this is undoubtedly a shot across the bows of the ruling classes and resource hoarders, a warning about the consequences of continuing corrupt power structures and social inequality. But what really separates ‘New Order’ from the pack is its willingness to spread the responsibility for the collapse of society around, also warning the would-be anarchists and revolutionaries who would abruptly bring down the whole system at any cost about their role in a bleak future, and the resulting reckoning which may come for them . . . and us all.

It wasn’t that long ago when a warning against the dangers of political extremism and social radicalism might have been seen as completely reasonable, but so quick and abrupt has been the ideological shift in the mainstream of western society, or at least its highly vocal sections that the film’s message might be considered controversial today. But Franco is in no mood to pull punches here, delivering an unflinching warning from a region which has witnessed first-hand the brutal failures of military dictatorships and authoritarianism, and the callous realities of communism and actual socialism, reminding us of the old adage and uncomfortable truth that democracy is the worst form of government . . . except for all the others.

You could argue that the film foregoes the complexities of society and that Franco’s depiction is applied abruptly through tunnel vision, and for some ‘New Order’ might prove too hard-hitting, at times horrific and brutal, at others bleak and nihilistic, ultimately leaving a bitter taste of hopelessness in the mouth—but that’s precisely what the writer/director is trying to achieve here. Resoundingly succeeding in painting a grim and urgent picture of a world which may be closer than we want to imagine, making Orwell and Huxley’s visions seem positively pleasant in comparison. A future that we should be trying harder to avoid, and if we’re not careful one into which we might end up steadily sleepwalking.

The Bottom Line…

An urgent, uncompromising, truly frightening vision of the near future which pulls no punches, ‘New Order’ slaps the audience out of its existential slumber and fires a warning shot across the bows of the ruling classes and the guardians of entrenched systems of inequality, while simultaneously dropping a grim and shocking warning to anarchists and would-be revolutionaries about tearing everything down. As Michel Franco delivers a prescient social drama for our dark angry times, and drags himself to the summit of daring filmmakers in global cinema today.

‘New Order’ is out now in Mexico, with no UK date yet.

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