Albert Serra has made the most defiant historical films in recent years – perhaps the most known one is the morbid THE DEATH OF LUDWIG XIV. Serra‘s new film PACIFICATION goes against that, it‘s as if an Alan J. Pakula thriller (THE PARALLAX VIEW, 1974) had too many Mai Tais in the tropical heat. Serra‘s film is a very contemporary, muggy fantasy about South Sea colonialism and the nuclear tests in French Polynesia. In big compositions, often filmed with grandiose lighting at sunrise and sunset, the film unfolds into a panorama of paranoia in bars, hotels and investment ruins in Tahiti for over three hours. M. De Roller (Benoît Magimel) is the French high commissioner in a white suit with a paisley shirt, blue sun glasses and the haircut of an aging French pop star in the 80s. His office seems to be in the rehearsal room of a local dance troupe, but De Roller is permanently working. Every encounter is a mix of palling around and business, seduction and threat. At times he needs to to sweet talk the local council, other times he needs to threaten a priest, telling him that his church could also work well as the cultural center of the community. But De Roller has nothing under control. There are rumors that the nuclear tests on Mururoa which France conducted until 1996 will start up again. A marine admiral shows up with his seamen in the “Paradies“ bar. Suspicious businessmen have contact with the admiral. Allegedly, there‘s a submarine without navigation lights right by Tahiti where women are brought in by boat on the weekends. M. De Roller‘s colonial paradise doesn‘t just oppose the gradual, rotten decay like Lucrecia Martel‘s film ZAMA. There‘s threat of complete obliteration.

Tom Dorow (INDIEKINO MAGAZIN)

Translation: Elinor Lewy