Pacifiction

Albert Serra (The Death of Louis XIV) shows he is one of the most distinctive and boundary pushing directors working today with his latest epic, Pacifiction, a heady fever dream of post-cold war paranoia with mesmerising cinematography by Artur Tort. Set entirely on the island of Tahiti, the film follows the louche, immaculately white suited French High Commissioner De Roller (superbly played by Benoît Magimel) as he schmoozes local bigwigs and mingles with the locals at shady nightclubs. But rumours of French nuclear testing create dischord and he starts to feel his control slipping away.

The film is pure fantasy – it touches on the political, it touches on the contemporary, and it touches on the human and human relations, but in the end, I like the idea that it’s exotic, artificial and unbelievable. All of these relations between these two people – De Roller and Shannah – are almost grotesque… I only made one trip, and I was supposed to shoot immediately, and then COVID-19 happened. I prefer the friction of going there and not knowing anything, and being with the whole crew. The friction, the clashes, the shock. This creates innocence and spontaneity. There are lots of things that aren’t under control – it’s the total nightmare of industry people. They want to keep everything under control because it’s a huge industry and there’s time pressure. But with this, you only get one thing or the other – you are economically comfortable, but you are artistically f***ed.

Director Albert Serra, from an interview for Cineuropa