Senseless and merciless rebellion and other ideas of the film New Order (2020): plot summary, meaning ending, analysis, similar films.
Country: Mexico, France
Genre: Thriller, Drama, Crime
Year of production: 2020
Directed by: Michel Franco
Actors: Nian Gonzalez Norvind, Fernando Cuautle, Diego Boneta
Awards and nominations: In 2020, the film presented at the Venice Film Festival received two Golden Lion awards
Any system is tested for strength sooner or later. Almost always this happens against the backdrop of a deep gap between different classes. In particular, this can happen when people who are forced to do hard work and do not allow themselves any excesses are no longer going to tolerate their masters. But there are no bloodless revolutions.
The plot of the film New Order (Nuevo orden) tells the story of a wealthy house that got in the way of angry demonstrators, as well as those who skillfully took advantage of the just indignation of ordinary people.
What is the movie about
Brief description of the content of the film New Order. The film tells a fictional story about a coup d’état in Mexico. The action begins with the wedding of representatives of high society – Marianne and a promising architect Alan. All the “cream of society” walk at the wedding, because Marianna is the daughter of one of the most influential businessmen in Mexico City.
Nian Gonzalez Norvind as Marianne. Frame from the film.
The girl gives the guests money gifts to her mother, and she puts them in the safe. Meanwhile, it becomes known that unrest has begun in the city and the rebels, embittered, resolutely opposed to rich people, are a few blocks from the house where the wedding is being played.
Soon a high-ranking government official, Victor, arrives at Marianne’s parents’ house. He gleefully declares that he was able to obtain permission to build an important facility. This means that soon all interested parties will become even richer.
Having learned about the proximity of the rebels, the official decides to pick up the family from the wedding as soon as possible and take them to a safe place.
At this moment, Rolando is on the threshold of the house – an old man who, together with his wife Eliza, worked for the owners for a long time. He asks for help: he and his wife were in the hospital for a planned procedure, but chaos erupted on the streets and everyone present was asked to give way to the wounded.
Rolando wants to take his seriously ill wife to a private clinic and asks his former owner to lend him 200,000 pesos (about $10,000). Returning to the banquet, the woman tries to collect the required amount, but she fails, and she brings Rolando only a part – 35,000 pesos. In desperation, the old man turns to Marianne for help. The girl, ready to give Rolando all the wedding gifts, tries to open the safe, but she fails – her father and brother have changed the password and are not going to tell her. The girl is trying to withdraw money from a credit card and at that moment she discovers that the old man has already left …
Diego Boneta as Daniel, Fernando Cuautle as Christian. Frame from the film.
Marianne calls one of Christian’s servants and the two of them quietly leave the party. The girl wants to withdraw money from the card and take it to Rolando.
However, they are not able to go far, because the special forces blocked the road: the military is trying to hold back the pressure of the rebels. Forced to drive back, Marianne and Christian hear on the radio about the atrocities that the rebels are doing. At the same time, the government does nothing, and the police are idle at some posts.
The protesters, whose clothes are somehow covered in green paint, manage to break into the mansion. The rebel leader shoots one of the guests. Felipe, the head of the security service, decides to betray the owners and goes over to the side of the rebels. It is he who forces the old mistress, Marianne’s mother, to open the safe, and then kills her in cold blood. Rebellious servants take everything of value out of the house.
Only a woman named Marta, Christian’s mother, remains faithful to her masters.
With great difficulty, Marianne and Christian make their way to Rolando’s house. It turns out that the old man is the uncle of the young man. He is also frightened by everything that is happening, but he is glad to see the guys. The girl promises to take Eliza to the hospital.
Meanwhile, the radio reports that the military managed to establish control over some parts of the city.
Martha, a survivor of the rebel attack, wakes up to find two more survivors of the wealthy family she served for many years – Ivan and Daniel. They try to establish contact with Marianne, but the girl does not pick up the phone.
Frame from the film.
When Christian goes outside to assess the situation, he is suddenly grabbed by the military and told to take them to Marianne. They claim they want to bring the girl home. Marianne, thinking they can be trusted, gets into the van. However, the “rescuers” immediately take away her phone and jewelry and take her not to her home, but to a military base.
Soon the girl realizes that she was kidnapped. Next to her in a cramped cell are several other girls from wealthy families. The captives are forced to give out their personal data and phone numbers of relatives in order to use them for extortion.
Rolando tries to get to the hospital with his wife, but the military kills him. And Marianne’s fiancé, Alan, receives a message from the military demanding a huge ransom.
Christian tries to save Marianne. The military, “unofficially” demanding from him to get 800,000 thousand, release him into the city. The young man comes to Daniel. He gives him the required amount, but the military says they need another million. Meanwhile, the relatives of one of the captives are collecting money and handing it over to the military. They promise to release her, but they kill her. At this moment, Marianna realizes that she will not get out of here alive …
New Order Ending explanation
Explanation of the ending of the picture. Closer to the end, it turns out that the local military staged a coup – that’s why they did not interfere with the rebels. They took advantage of the unrest to make money and establish a dictatorship. Having ceased to be soldiers, they became militants and traitors…
Marianne’s relatives connect all their connections and start working directly with the new government. Several military men take Marianne and Christian to a small hotel. The girl is then shot in the head and the young man is forced to take a gun to get his fingerprints. Everyone wants to present it as if it was he, in collusion with Martha, who held the girl hostage. After that, they kill him too. Martha, accused of extremism, is hanged in the square.
At the very end of the film, the military express their condolences to Alan in connection with the death of his fiancée. Probably the meaning of the ending of the film New Order is that the time has come for another power and the crimes of the military will never be investigated …
Obviously, the main idea of the “New Order” is to show the future that may come in connection with the growing stratification of society and the aggravation of social conflict. The inevitability of the formation of a military dictatorship when the military gains power is, unfortunately, a very likely and natural outcome.
By the way, according to one of the interpretations, the government official Victor was behind the bloody events – this is probably the key to his quick departure from the wedding. He survived and was almost unharmed. But the innocent suffered, including Marta and Christian, who turned out to be scapegoats …
Frame from the film.
The meaning of the film New Order
When New Order was shown in Mexican cinemas, it was heavily criticized. Moreover, no film has ever provoked such protests before. People who did not like Franco’s picture accused the director of racism and of following stereotypes. Some in their analysis noted too realistic cruelty and stereotypically presented images of wealthy people.
When Franco (a white Mexican) said that he saw reverse racism in the hate of his offspring, they began to stigmatize him. In principle, there was a sense in the active rejection of the “New Order” by the Mexicans – in their opinion, they were exposed as money-hungry thieves. Of course, everyone knows about cartels. But in this film, it was by no means thugs from criminal gangs who were outrageous …
To understand the essence of the film, you need to figure out what genre it can be attributed to. This is not a horror movie or a true story adaptation. The “New Order” is a socio-political dystopia, and quite a generalized and abstract one at that. Despite the fact that the action takes place in a specific country, the story cannot be called a specific Mexican one.
The picture begins with a kind of “overture”: to Shostakovich’s symphony “1905”, the viewer is shown nightmarish shots depicting dead people. There is a special, hidden meaning in this, because when writing music, the composer was inspired (if this word can only be applied in this context) by the events of “Bloody Sunday”.
The main character, Marianne, from whose wedding the film begins, falls “out of the fire and into the frying pan”. What saved her from attacking the house was that she went to Rolando, whose family was probably very dear to her. However, there she met with representatives of the new government.
Frame from the film.
This is explained by the fact that as a response to everything that is happening, the power in the country was taken by the junta – the military, the security forces. That is, there was not a popular revolution, but a right turn.
The film is called New Order. The meaning of the name is simple: after everything that happened, you need to put things in order, and without repression this is impossible. In this case, everyone becomes a victim – both the rich and the poor …
According to some viewers, this plot twist refers both to the Mexican Revolution of 1910-1917 and to the October Revolution. He also refers us to the “agenda”. According to Michel Franco, the idea to make such a movie came to him during the yellow vest movement in France.
For all its harshness, New Order is filmed quite delicately – there are no overly naturalistic mise-en-scenes in it. Every spectator completes the nightmare of everything that happens in his mind himself. This is not a counter-revolutionary movie – first of all, the film is directed against forceful (totalitarian and authoritarian) methods of government.
The picture is saturated with symbolism. For example, Marianne walks throughout the film in a red dress, and the protesters in rags smeared with green paint. Red and green are the colors of the Mexican flag. The director hints that this is still a “Mexican” story, but it is clear that this is a screen, because such events can happen in any country.
Frame from the film.
Similar films
Here are a few pictures similar in meaning to the movie New Order:
- “Parasite” (South Korea, 2019). The poor Kim family gets a job at the rich Pak house. This leads to unexpected consequences.
- Joker (USA, Canada, 2019). Faced with injustice several times, comedian Arthur transforms into the sinister Joker.
- “Hotel Rwanda” (Great Britain, South Africa, Italy, USA). The film tells about the tragic events of 1994 in Rwanda. Once the conflict between the two peoples, the Tutsi and the Hutu, fueled by the colonists, turned into a terrible massacre.
