Orders (1974)

October, 1970. The Canadian government, supported by most officials in lower levels of government, has just instituted the War Measures Act in Québec, ostensibly martial law, in face of political kidnappings. Immediately, the police, without needing to give a reason or without needing to provide a warrant to enter or search a property, round up scores of people. While most are questioned, processed, then released, four hundred fifty are jailed without charge or any reason necessarily stated to them for their jailing. Five in this latter category include: St Henri social worker Claudette Dussealt, who fights for what she considers is right for the welfare of her clients; thirty-two year old unemployed and minimally educated Richard Lavoie, who takes care of his two infant children while his wife works as a diner waitress; physician Dr Jean-Marie Beauchemin, the head of a community health clinic for those with low income, he who had once run as a socialist candidate in an election; Marie Boudreau, who looks after her husband and their three teenage daughters, but may return to the workforce when the girls are out of school; and Marie's country bumpkin husband Clermont Boudreau, who works on the floor in a weaving factory, sees the union as a key to a better life in the city, is suspended in doing his work as a job steward for the union, and is driving a cab until his suspension is lifted. While in their incarceration many have child care issues, Clermont has the further issue of his ill father in Lac St Jean, who he has not seen in five years and who he learns from his mother may not have much time left. What is then shown is the psychological abuse by the prison guards on them all in order to demean and humiliate them so that they will divulge all to the interrogators even if they know nothing, they in turn not knowing how to fight back in not knowing for what they are charged.