''New Order'' ( es, Nuevo orden) is a 2020
thriller art film
An art film (or arthouse film) is typically an independent film, aimed at a niche market rather than a mass market audience. It is "intended to be a serious, artistic work, often experimental and not designed for mass appeal", "made primarily f ...
. It takes place in a
dystopian near future Mexico. It was written, directed, produced and edited by
Michel Franco
Michel Franco (born 28 August 1979) is a Mexican film director, screenwriter and producer. He is best known for his film '' After Lucia'' that won the Prize Un Certain Regard at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival.
His films typically deal with th ...
and is a French-Mexican co-production.
The film had its world premiere on September 10, 2020 at the
Venice Film Festival
The Venice Film Festival or Venice International Film Festival ( it, Mostra Internazionale d'Arte Cinematografica della Biennale di Venezia, "International Exhibition of Cinematographic Art of the Venice Biennale") is an annual film festival h ...
, where it won the
Grand Jury Prize
A film festival is an organized, extended presentation of films in one or more cinemas or screening venues, usually in a single city or region. Increasingly, film festivals show some films outdoors. Films may be of recent date and, depending upo ...
. Shots of darker-skinned underclass attacking a lighter-skinned elite provoked a furious backlash on Mexican social media when its trailer was released because of its perceived racial stereotyping. The criticism towards the film continued after its premiere in theaters and still remained after its release in streaming.
The film stars
Naian González Norvind,
Diego Boneta
Diego Andrés González Boneta (born November 29, 1990) is an American actor, producer and singer.
He gained wider recognition after starring in ''Rock of Ages'' (2012) alongside Tom Cruise and the ''Netflix'' biographical series '' Luis Miguel: ...
and Mónica Del Carmen.
Synopsis
In 2020, the gap between social classes in Mexico is increasingly marked. A high-society wedding is interrupted by a group of armed and violent rioters who are part of an even larger uprising of the underprivileged, and take the participants as hostages. The
Mexican Army
The Mexican Army ( es, Ejército Mexicano) is the combined land and air branch and is the largest part of the Mexican Armed Forces; it is also known as the National Defense Army.
The Army is under the authority of the Secretariat of National ...
exploits the disorder caused by the riots to establish a
military dictatorship in the country. It involves the kidnappings of young adults, extortion, assaults, torture of the kidnapped while being held, and execution upon receiving no ransom, some of it, or all of it, by the Mexican military.
Cast
*
Naian Gonzalez Norvind
Naian González Norvind or Naian Norvind (February 9, 1992; Mexico City, Mexico) is a Mexican actress, and writer. She is the daughter of the Mexican actress Nailea Norvind.
Early life
Norvind was born to Fernando Gonzalez Parra and actress Nai ...
as Marianne
*
Diego Boneta
Diego Andrés González Boneta (born November 29, 1990) is an American actor, producer and singer.
He gained wider recognition after starring in ''Rock of Ages'' (2012) alongside Tom Cruise and the ''Netflix'' biographical series '' Luis Miguel: ...
as Daniel
* Mónica Del Carmen as Marta
* Fernando Cuautle as Cristian
*
Darío Yazbek as Alan
* Eligio Meléndez as Rolando
* Roberto Medina as Iván
*
Patricia Bernal
Patricia Bernal (born 27 October 1961) is a Mexican actress. She has appeared in more than twenty films and telenovelas including '' Pobre rico, pobre''. Her sons Gael
The Gaels ( ; ga, Na Gaeil ; gd, Na Gàidheil ; gv, Ny Gaeil ) are an ...
as Pilar
*
Lisa Owen as Rebeca
* Enrique Singer as Victor
*
Gustavo Sánchez Parra as General Oribe
Production
Michel Franco started to develop the idea in 2014, and finished the script in 2017. Production concluded in May, 2019. The cast included
Naian Gonzalez Norvind
Naian González Norvind or Naian Norvind (February 9, 1992; Mexico City, Mexico) is a Mexican actress, and writer. She is the daughter of the Mexican actress Nailea Norvind.
Early life
Norvind was born to Fernando Gonzalez Parra and actress Nai ...
,
Diego Boneta
Diego Andrés González Boneta (born November 29, 1990) is an American actor, producer and singer.
He gained wider recognition after starring in ''Rock of Ages'' (2012) alongside Tom Cruise and the ''Netflix'' biographical series '' Luis Miguel: ...
, Mónica Del Carmen, Fernando Cuautle,
Darío Yazbek Bernal and Eligio Meléndez.
Release
The film had its world premiere on September 10, 2020 at the
Venice Film Festival
The Venice Film Festival or Venice International Film Festival ( it, Mostra Internazionale d'Arte Cinematografica della Biennale di Venezia, "International Exhibition of Cinematographic Art of the Venice Biennale") is an annual film festival h ...
where it was awarded the
Grand Jury Prize. It also screened at the
Toronto International Film Festival
The Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF, often stylized as tiff) is one of the largest publicly attended film festivals in the world, attracting over 480,000 people annually. Since its founding in 1976, TIFF has grown to become a perman ...
on September 15, 2020. Shortly after,
Neon and
Mubi
Mubi (; stylized as MUBI; The Auteurs before 2010) is a global curated film streaming platform, production company and film distributor. Mubi produces and theatrically distributes films by emerging and established filmmakers, which are exclusivel ...
acquired distribution rights to the film in the U.S., the U.K., India, Ireland, Latin America and Turkey, respectively. The film was released in Mexico on October 22, 2020, by Videocine. It was released in a
limited release in the United States on May 21, 2021.
Reception
Critical reception
''New Order'' holds approval rating on review aggregator website
Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...
, based on reviews, with an average of . The website's critics consensus reads: "In spite of solid performances, ''New Order''
's merciless brutality and unfocused gaze threaten to derail its message." On
Metacritic
Metacritic is a website that aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created by Jason Dietz, Marc ...
, the film holds a rating of 62 out of 100, based on 22 critics.
Peter Debruge of ''
Variety
Variety may refer to:
Arts and entertainment Entertainment formats
* Variety (radio)
* Variety show, in theater and television
Films
* ''Variety'' (1925 film), a German silent film directed by Ewald Andre Dupont
* ''Variety'' (1935 film), ...
'' said: "Essentially picking up where ''The
Joker'' left off, this ultra-provocative case of speculative fiction promises a view of what change might look like, only to succumb to a deep sense of cynicism as the scope of the film becomes unmanageable."
IndieWire
IndieWire (sometimes stylized as indieWIRE or Indiewire) is a film industry and review website that was established in 1996. The site's focus was predominantly independent film, although its coverage has grown to "to include all aspects of Holl ...
gave it a C+, as critic Nicholas Barber wrote: "It's a bold, angry, provocative indictment, but because Franco zooms back to the state-of-the-nation big picture, he loses sight of the characters who were sketched so sharply in the opening scenes. They’re still in the film, but they have so little agency and dialogue that they are reduced to counters on a board".
In Spain, newspaper ''
El País'' wrote: "The film does not come close to the fine class analysis that
Bong Joon-ho'
s ''
Parasite
Parasitism is a close relationship between species, where one organism, the parasite, lives on or inside another organism, the host, causing it some harm, and is adapted structurally to this way of life. The entomologist E. O. Wilson has ...
'' made, because it fails to increasingly develop the unbearable tension between rich and poor... His chaos scenes are closer to those seen in
Todd Phillips
Todd Phillips (né Bunzl, born December 20, 1970) is an American film director, producer, and screenwriter. He began his career in 1993 and directed films in the 2000s such as ''Road Trip (film), Road Trip'', ''Old School (film), Old School'', ...
' ''Joker'', but without an actor like
Joaquin Phoenix
Joaquin Rafael Phoenix (; né Bottom; born October 28, 1974) is an American actor. He is known for playing dark and unconventional characters in independent films. He has received various accolades, including an Academy Award, a British Academ ...
to understand the depth of the madness". The sociologist David Leupold also sees a strong parallel between the two films, albeit, arrives at a more positive evaluation:
"''New Order'' begins where ''Parasite'' ends ... In the case of ''Parasite'' we see the story unfolding from the perspective of the dispossessed family whereas in ''New Order'' it is through the perspective of an elite family subjected to violence by the dispossessed. What both films also have in common is the lack of clear moralizing attributes. Neither the elites appear as particularly vicious nor the disempowered as heroic ... It is clear that instead of self-righteous blaming, polemical simplifications and paternalizing moralizations, the directors are concerned with something else and much more decisive: exposing the acute structures of injustice and the imminent danger they harbour."
Backlash in Mexico
Prior to its release in Mexican cinemas, the film's trailer was received with an overwhelming negative response from the public and internet backlash as the scenes of the trailer was called by Mexican audiences on social media "Classist, racist and painfully stereotypical portraits of upper and lower classes in Mexico".
The racism accusations towards the film in Mexico worsened as director Michel Franco claimed the film was a target of "profound
reverse racism
Reverse racism, sometimes referred to as reverse discrimination, is the concept that affirmative action and similar color-conscious programs for redressing racial inequality are a form of anti-white racism. The concept is often associated wi ...
" and felt himself as a victim of "hate crimes" as a
White Mexican
White Mexicans ( es, Mexicanos blancos) are Mexicans who are considered or identify as white, typically due to their physical appearance and/or self-identification with their European ancestry. While the Mexican government does conduct ethnic c ...
. Franco would later post an apology on social media for his statements, claiming he was not aware of the impact of the terms he used towards the public's reception of the film trailer.
José Antonio Aguilar, executive director of RacismoMX, a nationwide initiative in Mexico to address issues of racism in the country said: “The film's trailer repeats many racial stereotypes: brown people are poor, they’re savages, they’re resentful and want revenge.”
After the release of the film, Erick Estrada from the website Cinegarage wrote: "
othe ones who wish
orevert
othe establishment,
t is
T, or t, is the twentieth letter in the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''tee'' (pronounced ), plural ''tees''. It is der ...
a warning about the consequences of their acts than calling attention to how it was before the country's militarization."
In Codigo Espaguetti, Nicolas Ruiz said the film is "
criticism with no empathy, from this cold distance that sees individuals as sheep and protesters as blood-thirsty zombies; it creates banal, shallow and Manichean representations".
Arturo Magaña Arce in Cine Premiere reiterated the same view when he said the film "gives reason to those who judge people who, in a desperate way,
eek toreclaim justice from the streets".
See also
*
Elite panic
References
External links
*
*
{{Venice Film Festival Grand Jury Prize
2020 films
Mexican drama films
French drama films
Films directed by Michel Franco
Films set in Mexico City
2020s dystopian films
Films about coups d'état
Films about social class
Mexican independent films
French independent films
Venice Grand Jury Prize winners
Neon (company) films
Film controversies in Mexico
2020s Spanish-language films
2020s French films
2020s Mexican films