Pacifiction

Hype has blinded me again, folks... I love slow burn thrillers like The Day of The Jackal, where the actions are shown in the movie step by step, but without losing its suspense and intrigue. I knew that Pacifiction would be slow... but not THAT slow!

This was a huge dissapointment, almost 3 hours of nothing. Serra is nothing more than a pretentious and a egomaniac director, and this movie shows that.

Pure boredom, there wasn't a mystery or even a bit of suspense to keep watching this thing... nothing.

The visuals are the reason why I gave this film a 5/10. Too good for a waste of film this is.

The visuals were so good... that led me to watch this atrocity to good cinema.

God... I'm so angry right now. This is the kind of trash that makes people go watch Marvel instead, the same stupid movie everyday instead of searching for something new and original. Because of the fear of finding a pretentious and boring film like this.

Benoît Magimel is the easy going French High Commissioner "De Roller". Charged with representing the French Government on it's Polynesian outpost of Tahiti where he travels the island in his chauffeur driven Mercedes glad-handing and pretty much going from party to party. The arrival of an admiral (Marc Susini) and some rather hunky sailors on his island soon has tongues wagging, though. Before he knows it, his placid existence is being disturbed by increasingly popular - and disturbing - rumours that the French are to restart nuclear weapons testing nearby. Of course he is assured not, and makes similar assurances to the population himself, but when local girls start to go missing the presence of the military and a general sentiment amongst the locals seems to encourage a view that it's time to assert their own independence. This creates more problems that begin to cause our diplomatic quite an headache. Can he sort it all out? Is there even anything to sort out? The thing with this film is that it is far, far too long. The story could easily lose an hour and no harm would be done. The plot, political mischief and island intrigues, would benefit from that tightening up too - perhaps sparing us from the many shots of his car! Magimel delivers an efficient characterisation here, but he is largely left to his own devices as the supporting cast struggle to build upon a rather thin storyline that needed a bit more shoring up to sustain the interest as it rambled on. It has it's moments, but sadly just not enough of them. Oh, and it's pretty wet down there!

There are some serious qualities there. First of all, who doesn't want a trip to Tahiti?? There are "beautiful shots", as they say: waves, skies, nature, Benoît Magimel pensive on the beach, sometimes on an absolutely magnificent music score. It's a film that can be just admired as is.

It's also a film that can be used to admire Magimel, to hear him speak, wavering, a little mushy, always on the verge of tripping over his feet... It's quite fascinating.

But his performance is not enough to compensate for a slow mise-en-scene by default, rigid, flat, desperately sterile. It is the disease of a certain European-Asian festival cinema which under-cuts its mise-en-scene out of ease and habit. Despite everything, there are some exciting ideas here and there, never to be forgotten, a woman framed in a certain way for no particular reason, that's something but that's not much.

And then what do Magimel and the others really have to say anyway? The story is of very questionable interest. He is a high commissioner of the French Republic who navigates between local councilors against a backdrop of rumours of a resumption of nuclear tests in the region... I've heard of more exciting stories.

Serras thriller is visually exuberant as it is subtle and minimalist in terms of plot. Making good on its lead motto that 'politics is like a nightclub', for almost three hours the viewer sees barely more than Benoît Magimel in his role as bon vivant politician De Moller philandering around the island of French Polynesia, lending an ear to its manifold inhabitants, drinking, feasting, and preaching about his limited administrative role in the grand order of things, interrupted only by stunning episodes of visual allegories on geopolitics. Yet, I found watching De Moller in his ambiguous social interactions infinitely charming and astonishingly engrossing. On its allegorical level I found this movie truly mesmerizing - and I am not easily mesmerized. It is a gloomy thriller about nuclear balance of power, about ants in a battle of elephants, but only behind the curtain and only the abstract. It will therefore appear slow and uneventful to the ones who are looking for some concrete down-to-earth action.

Taking place on Tahiti, "Pacifiction" takes a long time to set the story in motion, though director Albert Serra gives us some images to think about. The images are beautiful and the camera dwells on many sets far too long. When I finally got to the end of the film I was tired and regretted that I could not feel as I should.

Well, here is the story: The High Commissioner of the Republic of France, De Roller, has little power but tries to keep peace on the island, when some native representatives inform him of a rumor, that nuclear testing is returning to the region.

Of course, everyone is upset by this idea, though no one seems to know anything in particular. But as De Roller starts to investigate, he finds a number of strange things going on, a group of sailors plus their captain, a Portuguese visitor who's passport has been stolen, foreign shady characters are popping up, a submarine has been sighted and so on.

The more De Roller pokes around, the less he can make any sense out of it but he begins to believe that there is truth in the rumor. In between he manages to coach a local dance group for their performance at his favorite night club, where he also chats with Shanna, a transsexual. Shanna has high hopes to become the secretary of the Commissioner, and De Roller certainly gives him reason to think so by taking him along on some of his visits. This relationship does not seem to be sexual, but the film gives no explanation to what it is that draws De Roller to Shanna.

I don't want to go into more details, but the film is certainly too long, I would say by an hour! Running 2:45 right now, there is no reason not to cut it down, some sidelines don't really advance the story. But despite the length, we hardly see any Tahitians who are not wearing costumes and perform for tourists. Which I don't think is close to reality.