“It is mind-blowing to capture the world as it is today, not from any political point of view; […] I’m only interested in the pictures.” Albert Serra says this in a press release about his new film Pacifiction. There is more than a hint of impossibility about this but Serra’s latest work does almost exactly that, effectively becoming its own idea of pure cinema where the power of the medium surpasses all else. As he puts it, “This was our idea: suppress upon editing everything which, as it referred to a social issue, didn’t fit in with pure cinematographic license.”
The resulting film is an enigmatic and immersive epic that literally puts you into a trance through cinema. Pacifiction wears the outward appearance of a political thriller like The Parallax View or The Conversation but it is only an external cloak for an illusion — a hypnotic and ghostly study of trouble in paradise. It’s slow and often confusing but that’s how true hypnosis works.
In Pacifiction, there is one government official known as De Roller who has got his title because obviously ‘high roller’ has some connotations. He is The High Commissioner of Republic – a mysterious French performing diplomat on Tahiti with some influence over local life also representing France itself. Tahiti belongs to French Polynesia – cluster countries and atolls with certain autonomy yet severely influenced by French politics. This highly contradictory modern European colonialism serves as the main background for Pacifiction.
De Roller strolls around authoritatively looking like rich Parisian on vacation in his white suit, sun glasses and smiles while Tahitians wear Hawaiian shirts or grass skirts or very little at all. A Frenchman stands out for good reason (both De Roller’s and Serra’s). He holds court at this dimly lit nightclub sitting dark shades on like Corey Hart song asking questions giving advice and asking around about what’s going on. In this gloomy atmosphere, there is the presence of prostitution, corruption and drugs; everything is sordid.
They are naval officers who have practically camped at the coast, hidden in the waves by their submarines. At night, they bring prostitutes from the island to their submarine before returning them ashore in the morning with more bruises and marks than they started off with. De Roller gets caught up in a far larger and more complicated political intrigue than he had originally thought when he starts looking into it.
The military men in Pacifiction are not only drunk hooligans but also reportedly planning nuclear tests on the island. That would be understandable for residents who have been subjected to generations of radioactivity through nuclear fallout since France actually detonated 41 above-ground atomic bombs in French Polynesia between 1966 until 1974 thereby exposing about 90% of population to radiations.
The island is haunted by a military presence that goes unseen but is led by an apocalyptic admiral. He was not able to engage the admiral in conversation when De Roller approached him and spoke with several other local leaders; he even realized that he wasn’t more than an insignificant, pathetic individual who is part of an invisible bureaucracy; although his life could already be at stake due to the stronger political powers.
But if it sounds exciting, remember – it isn’t, or at least not as one might imagine. Pacifiction may have all the intrigue of a conspiracy thriller but it’s no where near The Bourne Identity or Enemy of the State for example; in fact it makes Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy look like a Michael Bay film with its icy minimalist style. No, Pacifiction is slow as molasses, and does not derive sensationalism from suspense or set pieces but from its truly cinematic, profoundly hypnotic construct and fascinating politics.
Serra might only be in his 40s but he directs films that would make one think of a wise old arthouse hand like Michael Haneke or Béla Tarr. As for Pacifiction: it exists somewhere between Serra’s previous death obsessed films (The Story of My Death, The Death of Louis XIV) and his most recent sex obsessed one (Liberté), which seems appropriate because the threat of nuclear Armageddon comes to prostitutes and nightclubs on this tropical paradise. That’s why there’s this vague swing between hopeless death and sexy beauty that makes Pacifiction so enchanting.
Actually, Serra’s image of the island enables us to see something which can never exist in reality (a portmanteau word). French Polynesia inherently represented self-contradictory notion hence governments used such definition just to appease certain countries. Yes indeed Tahiti cannot be France (likewise Puerto Rico cannot be America etc.) because a hammer cannot be a nail.
Colonialism, under different names and approaches, has attempted to change itself over time to become more tacit and politically correct while according to Pacifiction; this is an oxymoron. The film belongs to that liminal space where old imperial politics are decaying and only the dead body of ideology’s left to stink up what were once paradisaical locales under occupation.
In one of the scenes in the movie, De Roller affirms “Politics is a nightclub.” This statement serves as a metaphor throughout Pacifiction. It doesn’t explain much but it does convey its meaning through abstraction and conveys disgust through debauchery while maintaining hopelessness without being patronizing.
Still, I would like to quote other parts of Serra’s press release: “Everything is hazy in Pacifiction. [] I think contemporary films tend to be terribly explanatory and didactic. I sometimes feel that they are talking to kids who always need things spelled out for them.” Ultimately, Pacifiction turns into a paranoid tone poem—a beautiful canvas upon which audiences could paint his own ideologies.
Serra had edited 540 hours of footage (180 on each Canon Black Magic Pocket camera) into this nearly three-hour long film that, once submitted to, can make a viewer feel as if it is never going to stop, like becoming part of the strange and gloomy fantasy world where real politics have turned. Serra manages to use all the techniques in cinematography yet somehow he never makes a traditionally stimulating or exciting film that almost hypnotizes one.
Other than the Tahitian tunes accompanying some beautifully cut sequences with relentless drums, Marc Verdaguer and Joe Robinson’s mostly electronic score is barely noticeable throughout until it becomes even more trancelike when pushed up to the surface in certain rather disturbing night club scenes. This matches Artur Tort’s photography which captures not only the immense beauty of these islands but also at times renders them out of this world, occasionally reducing characters to dots on a map bigger than any human being could ever hope to encompass (or at least far different from what they previously believed).
The acting (and Serra’s extremely unprecedented approach to directing actors through earpiece devices and spontaneous utterances) aids in mesmerizing. People often talk in riddles here or with so much superficiality that their duplicities confess something closer home. Whispers and glances are ubiquitous throughout the movie which intensify the sense of paranoia and suspense; yet every single member of cast beautifully maintains Serra’s restrained mysterious tone.
Benoît Magimel is fantastic as De Roller because he can be haughty regarding his high hierarchical position while staying curious about himself; thinking over his own emptiness on an island. He is a captivating character who wants to transcend his own mediocrity and meaninglessness (“I instantly spotted in [Magimel] a rarely found capacity to be both genuine and shallow,” said Serra).
In Pahoa Mahagafanau Shannah emerges as one of her best roles ever. This is surprisingly her only role, which turns out to be respected as one of the warmest and most enjoyable characters in this dark, conspiratorial film.
From all these points coming together so smoothly, Pacifiction’s 160 minutes become pure cinema under a spell. It has been suggested that if someone doesn’t want to be hypnotized then no one will be able to do it with them and Pacifiction itself is like hypnosis (viewer’s openness or even total submissiveness required). For example, since there is such thing as hypnotic susceptibility (even Harvard and Stanford have scientific scales for this), ‘cinematic susceptibility’ should also be understood—a viewer’s readiness for pure cinema without much exposition, plot or drama. And any audience with high cinematic susceptibility would definitely succumb to the hypnosis of Pacifiction.
This is exactly why Serra had to trim each and every fat from political thriller narratives to the point where even the flesh beneath was completely taken away from those bones. The filmmaker has gutted out the genre making it dull for most mainstream moviegoers; however, what he exposed beneath is an exquisite polished skeleton that serves as an enchantment on cinemaphiles and patrons of arthouse movies.
Pacifiction, a motion picture by Idéale Audience Group, Andergraun Films, Tamtam Film and Rosa Filmes; coproduced by Arte France Cinéma with Bayerischer Rundfunk and Archipel Production , is produced through Grasshopper Films and Gratitude Films. Pacifiction has had a showing previously at the Cannes Film Festival as well as the New York Film Festival.
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