New Order

Mexico City. Limousines and luxury cars line up to drop off guests at a grand villa in an exclusive neighbourhood. Inside we find the country’s economic and political elite to celebrate the wedding of Marian and Alan. But all the entrepreneurs, politicians and military men are talking about, are the giant traffic jams, caused by massive protests, delaying the arrival of the important party guests. When a former servant, Rolando, comes begging for money at the front gate for a lifesaving operation for his wife, Marian is the only one willing to look for cash. In the meantime, the media show the powerlessness of law enforcement and how protesters have started looting in the near vicinity. New guests arrive in cars and clothes covered in green paint, and even in the bathroom the water from the tap looks green. When the noise of the crazed mob comes closer and closer, people start to panic. Meanwhile, Marian is trying to find a way through the protesters to get the money to Rolando.

Class warfare brutally explodes in Michel Franco’s Nuevo Orden, where the furious and uncompromising lower social classes stand up to the corrupt dominant class. Mexico is painted red and green, colours representing the outermost colours of the Mexican flag; green representing the protesters, and red representing blood. The servants turn violent against their masters and seek revenge for years of injustice and humiliation.

But the new order the director portrays, is a dystopia in which almost everyone loses and a new privileged class rises up of people in high functions in the army.

Just like his previous films, Michel Franco likes to provoke and in Nuevo Orden he is more cynical than ever.