MAY REVIVAL: Executive Order Film Club Notes

**SPOILERS**

The film opens with attorney Antonio and his plodding presence, powering through his steps and muscling through his speech. Exasperated, perhaps even at ease in his exasperation. Happily misleading us into thinking that he, Antonio - played by Alfred Enoch of Harry Potter and How to Get Away with Murder fame - will be the star and the savior of the film. As one of our members pointed out, the film - thankfully - neither has a savior, nor a white savior, nor a primary protagonist. It is networked work, and resistance.

Antonio is just one of many Black people arguing for - and looking forward to - a new indemnity (or reparations) for “highly melanated” people. The film is set in a culturally dystopian near future Brazil where Black folx have recently become known as “highly melanated” people, and a government of white conservative buffoons is in power. Or are they white? We’ll get to that later.

“How did we let it get to this?”

Roles are important in all narratives, but especially so in dystopian ones. It is always useful to have someone well versed in the law… as well as someone well versed in medicine and someone well versed in, say… communications? or perhaps let’s call it information sciences. So in this film, the networked protagonists are something of a three-in-one structure - Antonio the attorney, Capitù the Surgeon, and André the journalist. Or put another way - Antonio the ethical protector, Capitù the creative carer, and André the mischievous messenger. They are Black (or “highly-melanated”) and highly skilled and in deep community with one another. And still, the film centers on this conundrum - which André gives voice to when he asks “How did we let it get to this?”

“It must be a visual identification” …

The conservative buffoon government has managed an okie doke - pushing for repatriation to Africa - anywhere in Africa - rather than actually offer the indemnity. Actually, one early highlight is the carousel montage scene of Black folx naming their destination of choice to the government bureaucrats sending them off. The repatriation is, at first, voluntary but highly encouraged. It then becomes compulsory with Black folx either giving themselves up, being rounded up, or going into hiding. It is at this point the film disperses our protagonists and centers on the resistance.

Watch Executive Order to see how it all comes together and ends. And, we’ve got much more to dig into. First, let’s start with their complexion. How they actually look. All three performers are accomplished and recognized. And all of them look Black. Antonio and Capitù may look mixed race - if slightly darker skinned versions of mixed race - in the United States. But they are clearly Black in Brazil. And then there’s André - played by musician and actor Seu Jorge - who is dark skinned and unquestionably Black, wherever you go. I was happy to see something similar for the Black stars of Mars One, which we watched last summer in Film Club.

“No violence Isabel, I don’t want any heroes.”

“Its cheaper to collect a dead body then to send them out of the country.” - The Minister of Deportation.

One film club member noted how interesting it was that the white people at the end of the film look forward to an all white city. All the Blacks are gone, its now its an all white city. Erasing everything in between. So we wondered together about what constitutes a Black presence. I found myself worried that Blackness would be erased in the film. However, when this becomes a real possibility, I see how impossible it would actually be to erase Blackness altogether. Particularly when what constitutes physical whiteness in the film, doesn’t exactly look white. It looks all mixed up.

But this film, like many things engaging with anti-Black oppression in the Americas, ignores what is beyond the Black / White binary. There is an Asian character, Kaito, played by Paulo Chun, a Brazilian-Korean performer and influencer who I completely unrelatedly follow via social media. As one of his (wife’s) followers, I see him as a husband and father, and quite a handsome one at that. And yet it was so sad to see him as something of a stereotype in this film. And unfortunately - one which I recognized. A small statured, goofy, Asian man who is a hanger one to our main to Black male characters, and who is ever so amorphously suggested to be less masculine than Antonio and André as well.

Could this be orientalist? This is just one of the questions I had as a Black American watching this Black Brazilian film. The rest of the film club noticed this seeming stereotyping as well; but then another film club member pointed out that it is Kaito who plays a very important role in linking Antonio and André to the resistance.

community as love

Another film club member pointed out that they way the film film contends with whiteness is not immediately obvious, but then becomes more and more clear as the film progresses. This plays out most interesting with the characters of Ivan and Santiago. Ivan is a Black leader of the resistance who is in a relationship with Santiago, a white aide in the new Ministry of Deportation. There is a case, a family meeting let’s say, to work out who Santiago actually is, and who he ultimately can be, to the Black citizens of the Afro-Bunker. The film club also had these same questions about Kaito’s character. André is also in an interracial relationship, which is quietly present and comes to an interesting, and still quiet, conclusion. His partner pay just offer an example of the role non-Black partners in interracial relationships should play, for those who care to pay attention.

Antonio and Capitù are themselves in a relationship. And with the introduction of resistance into the film comes Capitù’s character development. Her character is nicely fleshed out and really anchors the film, particularly as a film based on a play. An the Afro-bunker is her stage. Curtis points out that it is still a luxury to have a woman character develop away from her male partner. He wondered out loud whether this was due to the fact that Taís Araújo, who plays Capitù, is married to Executive Order director Lázaro Ramos. Or perhaps because she is a noted presence in entertainment herself. Either way, he hoped it wasn’t incidental the space which her character took up, and that this would further be afforded to any Black Brazilian performer who is to play Capitù and any other Black Brazilian femme character. I also want to note that the filmmaker is himself an unquestionably Black man. Surprisingly so for this film club leader.

community as lineage

“Our struggle didn’t start today. Its only just become visible.” - Dona Elemita.

We also noted that, just when it looks like Capitù will fall into a trope-y savior character, we see her meet Dona Elemita. Dona Elemita begins the film, as the first Black Brazilian who is set to receive the indemnity. She is Black - medium Brown skinned - with cornrows (i.e. not the curly, bouncy mixed race hair). She is a Black woman elder; and she and Capitù recognize themselves in one another - Dona Elemita is clearly an elder held in regal regard by Capitù, accomplished, and still practical, Black woman who holds it all together.

Capitù is a leader, not a savior; an anchor, a foundation stone, but not a lone wolf. The leaders of the Afro-bunker are Ivan and Capitù, and it is not heteronormative. They do not fall into one another parasitically. He is queer and in love and in community as Capitù is not a lone wolf and is operating in sync and in lineage. There also seems to be an archivist in the resistance, residing in the Afro-bunker!

The Quilombo Lineage (?)

“So we’re in a quilombo?”

“No, Afro-Bunker. Quilombo is too 18th century.”

And this constitutes another major question we had as a film club made up of Black Americans watching this Black Brazilian film. We just didn’t get this exchange! Particularly given that we are in a time when marronage and maroon histories are really sentimentalized and glorified. We note this as an inter-diasporic conversation we’d like to have. So, stick a pin, let’s say?

Executive Order as multimedia Offering

The film is based on the play Namíbia, não! by Aldri Anunciação (2011). Thankfully, the film is grounded in it’s origins as a theatrical offering. This helps the dystopia never lift too far off from our social configurations, and likely also made the film more achievable for those possibly with fewer resources. But then the film really soars when it is sealed with a collage of stills and moving image protest scenes, which wouldn’t surprise us if it were a standalone piece of art.

Executive Order isn’t always the most cohesive; however it is always what it needs to be. And just when Antonio seems to be falling back into a savior trope - we see that he can’t walk alone. He can’t resist alone. He can’t be left alone. It is a great example of what the Black Americas needs from one another; and which others can take in, but not take, if they dare.