Les ordres

It really happened. it was October 1970. Wartime law was voted in Canada. Not Bosnia, not Congo, not Cosovo, not Albania. Canada. At dawn, 400 individuals were arrested in Montréal and held in jail for weeks without charges nor explanation. This masterpiece by Michel Brault tells about it. Wether you see it to understand current canadian news or to reflect on freedom or to see an excellent thriller, I doubt you'll regret it. A must for communication students.

Les Ordres: made in the infancy of Canadian cinema, as far as feature films go. Canada's official submission for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film for 1974, and not nominated. It's easy to see why, and indeed, I imagine a country putting this up against the cinema of the entire non-English speaking world would have raised a few eyebrows in the Academy. Okay, so you have a historically significant event (at least significant to Canada). But that's all you have. The direction has all the creativity, imagination and style of a TV movie. That's all it looks like, it never rises above that level for the entirety of the film. The sole "innovation" you have is interviewing the actors about the characters in the film itself- but that's a stunt just ripped off from Ingmar Bergman's The Passion of Anna (1969). I didn't particularly care for it there, either, but at least Max von Sydow had something to say. None of these television actors know what they're doing here, except to say "My name is X, and I play Y..." It would have been more accurate to say "I'm nobody, and the 'character' I play is barely a character at all."

It's not enough to have a human rights violation as a subject matter (and as far as world history goes, a few days in prison is small potatoes). You have to *do* something with it to have a film.

I can see why this would have made the Toronto International Film Festival's Top 10 Canadian Films of All Time when that list was first assembled in 1984. There were a lot less good films to choose from then, and Les Ordres having inexplicably won Best Director at Cannes in 1974, I might have felt obligated to write the film in, too, for its strictly historic interest. Whether it deserved to stay on the Top 10 in the 1993 update is more debatable. Why it didn't fall off in 2004 is puzzling. The fact that it's still wasting space on the list in 2015 is laughable, especially when far worthier films like Les Bons Debarras fell off and Incendies and Mommy didn't make it at all. If this, and Mon oncle Antoine, were really the best we could do as a country, that's not inspiring- that's embarrassing.

One of the great engaged movie of the seventies. This a real drama with its atmosphere from such a Kafka. The filming is very simple and precise. The actors are convincing and sincere. This particular way of sharing movie and documentary is very interesting and powerful. Michel Brault gave us once a cinema lesson in the University of Québec in Montréal. He told us to direct movie with the stomach, not only with the head. So I realized that even a great director like him could create through emotions more than spirit. So feel the movie and you'll discover soon enough what you understood through the movie. For every person who loved this movie, I recommend "Punishment Park" directed the same year by an English guy in USA, Peter Watkins. You can find this rare movie on IMDb.

Les ordres (Orderers) is about a dark period of Canada (more specifically Quebec) that the rest of the world might not be familiar with. Its message is so universal, it points out how precarious our rights are, and how even in a free, and democratic country such things can happen. It takes a lot of original choices concerning the use of color and the introduction of characters, but it is also what makes that film unique and memorable.

This movie is not about action, it is not about special effects, it is about injustice. The persons portrayed in this movie did not die, nor did they suffer tremendous pain. But, for no valid reason, their liberty was taken from them because of the law instated to counter terrorist acts happening during "la crise d'octobre". You cannot compare this movie to a war film because it isn't, neither can it be compared to a drama because it is not that either. It is made in a documentary structure, sometimes showing us the people involved, sometimes, showing us the impressions of the actors playing them, and how they were disturbed by the whole idea.

This movie is based on testimonies of people detained without recourse during the crisis of October 1970. This film is meant as a reminder for everyone that, as much a government can be civilized, as much it can abuse its power to protect itself with fear.

If you watch this movie, do not expect twists and turns, do not expect violence, do not expect special effects... do not expect anything but humanity. The mere fact that someone can be deprived from freedom, even just for a few days, can leave a sour taste. I don't think this movie was made to be a statement, but rather to be disturbing, as the events it tells.