Pacifiction
In Albert Serra’s avant-garde political drama, an award-winning Benoît Magimel plays a French high commissioner in Tahiti.
The London Film Festival continues to feature a section that goes under the heading ‘Experimenta’ and I would have expected that to be a natural home for Albert Serra's latest feature, Pacifiction. It was screened at the festival last year which is hardly surprising given that it has won no less than thirteen awards. The honours that it has received have been particularly prominent in France where it gained three Lumière Awards (best director, best actor, best photography) and two Césars (best actor, best photography) while the Cahiers du Cinéma named it Best Film. The acting prizes were for Benoît Magimel who plays the central role and is perfectly attuned to what Serra requires of him and similarly Artur Tort, who has worked with Serra before, provides photography which suits the film admirably. However, Pacifiction is even more challenging than the one Serra film that I had seen previously (that was 2016’s The Death of Louis XIV): being longer by a full fifty minutes, it comes across as more self-indulgent by far. It's patently clear that whatever appeal Pacifiction has is of a specialised nature and, if the London Film Festival didn't choose the best category for it, to place it under ‘Dare’ was at least a reasonable alternative to ‘Experimenta’.
The title itself is one that tries to be clever by blending "Pacific" – this is a work set on the island of Tahiti in Polynesia – with "fiction", which here takes the form of a stylised portrayal of a time and a place. That aspect combined with substantial length and the rejection of any real plot puts one in mind of Abdellatif Kechiche’s Mektoub, My Love (2017). But, where that film at least had characters in their late teens and early twenties with whom some audiences could identify, no comparable hook is to be found here. Instead, Serra gives us a character study viewed in context. Magimel’s role is that of a French high commissioner who may be the country's top residing official on Tahiti but who, despite his standing, has no power over events whatever. This man, De Roller, spends his time mixing both with the locals and with visitors seeking to suggest that he has influence and playing up to them. This he does both at daytime meetings and in his regular evening visits to the Paradise, a bar run by the expatriate Morton (Sergi López). It's an establishment of a louche kind with half-naked staff and dancers where the patrons include a French admiral (Marc Susini), and a Portuguese diplomat (Alexandre Melo). We also see De Roller making a formal address in praise of a writer (Cécile Guilbert) and consorting with a local activist (Matahi Pambrun).
The opening shots in Pacifiction are striking in the way that they utilise camera movement and music to set up an almost dream-like and languid tone. However, a long work like this calls out for more than atmosphere and for a degree of development beyond what Serra's screenplay supplies. Early on there is talk of rumours that plans are in preparation to resume nuclear testing on the island and De Roller becomes increasingly obsessed with this possibility although in getting any clear evidence of it he proves totally ineffectual. His inability in this respect has its comic aspect but, as the film contrasts the futile comings and goings of De Roller and the others with the permanent power of nature (a surfing sequence is particularly memorable), there is an increasing sense of banal men totally unable to control what is happening in the world, something that could indeed be interpreted as a view of colonialism and/or of political power struggles. But for this to come across effectively one would look for a shorter work by far and one that doesn't just linger over the repetitive routines of its characters. Over and above the other subsidiary figures, we have a greater prominence for a trans choreographer who seeks to become De Roller’s assistant. This is Shannah played by Pahoa Mahagafanau who has real presence. How intimate their relationship becomes is left obscure and it appears that Serra is proud of that, but it is all too characteristic of a film which relishes being oblique as it deliberately turns its back on the satisfactions of good storytelling.
Even if it is difficult to succumb to what Serra is offering, there is enough of a personal vision here to carry the willing viewer along for much of the time. But then the final hour of Pacifiction makes the film even more difficult to accept. Two things stand out here. First, there is a scene in a very different style which finds De Roller delivering a monologue about politics being cut off from reality – he refers to "the masters who think they control everything but control nothing". This insight is Serra’s rather than De Roller’s: it's a blatant spelling out of what has already been implied and which should have been left that way. But, far from being the end, the film goes on and on becoming ever more stylised as it puts a strong emphasis on filters and offers a long, long sequence of music in the Paradise bar. By the time that the admiral is seen on a secret mission which implies that a nuclear apocalypse is indeed likely, we can't really tell if this is part of De Roller’s paranoia or the real thing. Stretched out to 165 minutes, Pacifiction is surely an acquired taste and one which I found it increasingly hard to appreciate the longer the film went on.
MANSEL STIMPSON
Cast: Benoît Magimel, Pahoa Mahagafanau, Marc Susini, Matahi Pambrun, Alexandre Melo, Cécile Guilbert, Montse Triola, Michael Vautor, Lluis Serrat, Mike Landscape, Mareva Wong, Sergi López.
Dir Albert Serra, Pro Albert Serra, Pierre-Olivier Bardet, Montse Triola, Dirk Decker and others, Screenplay Alberty Serra with Baptiste Pinteaux, Ph Artur Tort, Art Dir Sebastian Vogler, Ed Albert Serra, Artur Tort and Ariadna Ribas, Music Marc Verdaguer and Joe Robinson, Costumes Praxedes De Vilallonga.
Idéale Audience Group/Andergraun Films/Tamtam Film/Rosa Filmes/ Arte France Cinéma/Ciné+-New Wave Films.
165 mins. France/Spain/Germany/Portugal. 2022. UK Rel: 21 April 2023. Cert. 15 .
