‘Pacifiction’: Film Review | Cannes 2022

The good news is that Pacifiction, the latest feature from Catalan auteur Albert Serra, who’s only in his 40s but directs like a grand old man of the 1960s avant-garde, is quite watchable, even sort of plot-driven — for a Serra film.

It’s got a fun central performance from Benoît Magimel and a spectacular Tahitian location. There’s even a surfing scene, the closest Serra may have ever gotten to an action sequence. On the other hand, it is still a 162-minute slog. And that aforementioned plot is a very attenuated, listless creature, telling a murky — in every sense — tale of political intrigue and municipal power struggles that refuses to be resolved or reveal any mysteries by the end. It’s like a Polynesian version of Chinatown but made by a cast and crew stoned on rum and ketamine. Forget it, Jake, it’s Papeete.

Highbrow viewers who like Serra already are likely to dig this fresh swerve into the present day just as much as his period-set endurance tests, such as his slice-of-end-of-life stories The Story of My Death about Casanova, the self-explanatory The Death of Louis XIV and aristos-dogging-in-corsets porno Liberté. If this sort of thing is your bag, then it should rightly be seen in a darkened cinema so as to eliminate the temptation to surf social media or take coffee breaks throughout, which would tempt most people viewing it at home.

But only the most noble and purest-of-heart cinephile theater owners and festivals will take the risk of programming this in their line-ups when you could fit [takes out calculator] 1.8 screenings of Pacifiction‘s fellow Cannes competitor Tori and Lokita by the Dardenne brothers into the same time slot, or even 2.4 screenings of the much more fun Fogo-Fátuo (Will-O’-The-Wisp), screening in Directors’ Fortnight. Do, as they say, the math.

That’s sort of a shame because if you took away Serra’s practically troll-like commitment to making his films as syrup-slow, abstruse and bourgeoisie-épater-ing as possible, they’re more interesting than they sound on paper. That’s especially true of this one, which really is on to something fresh and compelling with its sidelong look at the frictions between the frayed remains of French colonialist rule and the growing calls for further autonomy coming from the indigenous people of French Polynesia, which is still kinda sorta part of France. (It’s complicated: The multi-island collectivity’s citizens can vote in French elections, but they also have their own president and are officially designated a country.)

The French state is represented effectively here by oleaginous High Commissioner De Roller (Magimel), a European long based in Tahiti. Wearing a very Graham Greene-ian white suit throughout over what appears to be the same tropical-patterned shirt every day, De Roller is an arch schmoozer, adept at telling people what they want to hear in order to get his way. He’s also given to lofty disquisitions on political science, monologues that, according to the press notes, were fed to Magimel through an earpiece but which he delivers with admirable naturalism and ease.

Hopping from island to island, hanging out at his palatial residence, the beach and local dive bars alike, De Roller liaises between Paris thousands of miles away and key figures on the islands — including indigenous community leaders like Matahi (Matahi Pambrun), visiting military officers such as the Admiral (Serra regular Marc Susini), and local business owners such as nightclub proprietor Morton (Sergi López). Lately, he’d like to know whether the French navy have a secret submarine in the area that’s bringing prostitutes aboard every night, and if there any truth to the rumors that they’re going to resume nuclear testing nearby.

This a subject that greatly worries the local population that Matahi represents, especially because the tests done in the 1950s left their grandparents’ generation riddled with cancer and children born with birth defects. At a meeting at De Roller’s home (apparently shot at the real high commissioner’s residence on the island), Matahi makes it clear that he’s not going to be fobbed off with the blithe reassurances from the French representative; he intends to protect his people. De Roller later tries to shore up support from the local mayor, but it’s not clear to what end.

Meanwhile, back at Morton’s nightclub, De Roller also helps choreographer Francesca (Monste Triola) rehearse the club’s dancers, dressed in the traditional ceremonial garb of the islands, create a performance piece that seems even more like a cockfight, with real chickens fighting onstage. (This footage is going to be rightly problematic for some certifying bodies abroad, such as the U.K., due to laws about animal cruelty.) When not working the stage, the dancers and staff also waft around the club entertaining the guests in the skimpiest of white bikinis for the women and thongs for the men, and there’s a woman DJ who plays the dullest droning EDM imaginable (the score is by Marc Verdaguer and Joe Robinson) while topless.

One of the most interesting supporting characters in the film is the stunningly beautiful Shannah (Pahoa Mahagafanau), who dresses like a woman but was born male, a third gender identity widely accepted in Polynesia and called RaeRae or Mahu. At first a receptionist at a local hotel, Shannah comes to play an increasingly key role when she catches the high commissioner’s eye and they become close, although it’s not clear if they are lovers, or what’s going on between Shannah and another drug-addled foreigner called simply The Portuguese (Alexandre Melo).

Either way, Shannah has presence to burn and brings a joyful, feline energy to the film, always reacting to what’s being said. She almost becomes the audience’s stand-in when she’s shrugging, not quite sure what the hell is going on herself, the very picture of amused bemusement.

The film was reportedly shot during COVID in 2021, which might explain in part the spaced-out feel to its atmosphere, and is apparently the first feature film to be shot on the tiny Canon Black Magic Pocket cameras. No doubt these dinky digital rigs kept the production costs down in some ways, but to be honest the cinematography, supervised by DP Artur Tort, is a bit disappointing given how insanely photogenic the landscape is. It lets the film down most in the night scenes, which indeed look low-budget and snapshot-like.

In case this review hasn’t made it clear already, the editing is deliberately, pig-headedly slow and protracted. But you have to have some sympathy for Serra’s co-editors, Tort and Ariadna Ribas, who had to comb through hundreds of hours of digital footage.