Film Review: Executive Order

Writer: Lazáro Ramos and Lusa Silvestre

Director: Lazáro Ramos

Executive Order, directed by Lazáro Ramos, is set in a dystopian Brazil where anyone of Black ancestry has been recast as a ‘High Melanin’. Executive Order 1888 is announced whereby Black people are encouraged to ‘return’ to Africa. There is bland talk of this being a voluntary scheme, devised as reparation for slavery. But very quickly repressive measures are put in place and anyone of noticeable African descent is arrested in the street and deported.

Executive Order has been developed from a Brazilian stage play, Namíbia, não! by Aldri Anunciação, which focused on two characters: Antônio, a lawyer, and journalist André, who are effectively prisoners in their own apartment since arrests can only take place in public. They work to find ways to report the truth to the wider world.

There are evident issues turning an intimate theatrical work into a film. Alfred Enoch presents Antônio as a man of unimpeachable integrity and Seu Jorge is likeable free-spirited André. But without a huge budget, the film has difficulties suggesting the larger stage on which their drama is played out. For a start, the forces of government are reduced to two villains – the cold-hearted Isabel Garcia (Adriana Esteves) who implements government policy in her district and new minister whose cupidity is presented in overly simplistic terms – he is over-weight and we see him gorging on chocolate ice cream. We are given little sense of how fascism has repressed the entire country or how this could have come about without the world taking notice.

Antônio’s wife, Capitú (Taís Araújo), is a doctor, her operating theatre raided by the police when she is mid-procedure. She runs for the hills outside Rio together with a Black woman and white child. They subsequently find sanctuary in a secret “Afro-bunker,” which “used to be a slave depository and a hiding place for lovers.” It’s a semi-magical place of bright carnival colours and music where black people live in harmony.

The film cuts constantly between the two locations, the need for dramatic tension requiring us to believe that Antônio and Capitú are unable to make contact. Antônio, we are also told, is diabetic, his insulin running out. The water supply to their flat is cut off. André, the freer spirit, makes forays into other apartments, frequently satisfying his own thirst and hunger before bringing back supplies for Antônio. At one stage he paints his face with hideous white clay in an attempt to disguise himself.

Meanwhile Capitú, who at the start shared news of her pregnancy with Antônio, now contemplates abortion. She raids her dispensary, looking thoughtfully at a packet labelled ‘CAREFUL! ABORTION PILL’. But each time she does, someone intervenes to remind her of the importance of new life.

Early on the film raises the issue of how the country will get on if all those of Black origin are expelled – who will do the menial work? But the question is not further explored.

Despite all this, there’s lots to like in the film. The camera work by Adrian Teijido is a lively mix of handheld action shots and tightly focused close ups, giving the whole the unpredictable feel of a pop video. The end credit sequence, in particular, is spectacular. The original music music throughout the movie by Kikio de Souza, Plínio Profeta and Rincon Sapiência is gorgeous.

Signature Entertainment presentsExecutiveOrderon Digital Platforms 18th July.