Michel Franco leaves no room for sympathy or redemption in this violent, cynical thriller, a vivid warning against the consequences of inequality
Michel Franco’s film-making has always had an edge of cold steel; here again is his icy stab and lacerating chill. New Order is an ordeal nightmare, imagining a violent uprising against Mexico’s super-rich. Connoisseurs of highbrow arthouse shock will note the fact that the film’s titles and credits, with the letter E in reverse, show the influence of France’s adulte terrible Gaspar Noé.
For decades, this has been the kind of provocative cinema that has faced opposition only in the easily ignored (and maybe secretly welcomed) outrage of conservative print media, but Franco has ironically faced his own uprising from online offence culture in
Mexico when the trailer’s depiction of vengeful darker-skinned revolutionaries was condemned as racist. Franco wound up having to offer an apology after mishandling the response and claiming his film was suffering reverse
racism targeted at what he inelegantly called the “whitexican”. It was an object lesson in how the “discourse” cannot absorb complexity or nuance.