Marianne (Naian Gonzalez Norvid) and Alan (Dario Yazbek Bernal) are having their wedding at Marianne's parents home in the high-end Polanco Mexico City neighbourhood. All of the beautiful people are in attendance as dignitaries come by to give their wishes and drop off envelopes with cash that the bride's mother Rebeca (Lisa Owen) puts in the family safe. The event is underpinned by working class servants. At the front door appears former beloved employee Ronaldo (Eligio Melendez) who's wife needs surgery at a private clinic looking for funds to assist. The matriarch gives him some money then he gets Marianne's ear. She is willing to help and seeks out her brother Daniel (Diego Boneta) and her husband to be for assistance. Daniel takes the lead gathering some more funds then chasing Renaldo off the property. Beautiful people go back to the party but Marianne wanting to help enlist Cristian (Fernando Cuautle) an employee who knows the former to go with her to pay for the surgery direct.
One on the road the viewer gets a better picture of what's occurring in the city. The pair are turned back by roadblocks and people chanting in the street. They are eventually surrounded and green paint the tool of the protesters to show their disdain for the rich on the front windshield of the car. They eventually make it to Cristian's home where they can hold up. Back at the house the judge finally arrives to officiate the wedding telling the story of her struggle to get to the home. Now the family realizes that Marianne is not there as they search for her armed protestors show up having scaled the perimeter walls and shots are fired.
Director Michel Franco's fictional account of a Mexican uprising and over through of the rich pulls no punches and leaves no one unscathed. The wedding is ransacked people are pulled by their hair on the ground, spray paint flies as the terrorized guests get a true sense of the danger that they are in. Franco splits the participants into the rich, the workers, and the army as a third. Some of the latter decide to go off book running their own operation seeing the opportunity to profit from the terror and fear the situation created.
New Order is an essay on what could occur if the working class truly has had enough and turn on the upper class. The protected class could have nowhere to turn as the ones they rely on could side with their brothers and sisters leading the protest while the military pulls the strings openly and behind the scenes. There would also likely be the rare few, Marianne and Cristian here who have no entrenched allegiances. But if Franco's narrative is to be believed the good among us will likely find themselves in the most jeopardy.
***1/2 Out of 4.
New Order | Michel Franco | Mexico /France | 2020 | 88 Minutes.
Tags: Wedding, Cash Gifts, Heart Surgery, Servants, Martial Law, Uprising, Home Invasion, Robbery, Looting, Martial Law, Blackmail, Prisoners, Ransom, Videos, Coup d' Etat.
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