Pacifiction

Benoit Magimel

Albert Serra's Pacifiction is a lengthy, sinuous portrait of political skullduggery and corruption in French Polynesia. A merging of French indolence and Tahitian androgyny, the film, like much of Serra's work, is better at setting a mood than at telling a story. It is a good hang, sort of like Altman's more meandering character studies such as California Split. However, the film is not emotionally affecting. The audience has no one to root for, certainly not the lead, a louche French (oxymoronic?) commissioner drolly played by Benoit Magimel. That may be part of the point.

Magimel performance is terrific and holds together the motley collection of scenes and scenic asides Serra has assembled. By day, we watch Magimel's official schmooze with the locals, trying to mollify their concerns about nuclear testing and their desire for a casino. By night, the protagonist hobnobs with shady underworld figures and naval officers. He seems to have financial interests in a hotel and nightclub where the staff members and hangers on fawn over him. The nightclub scenes are a visual delight, bathed in moody blue lights that paint the club into a murky arena of sexual tourism.

En toto, I don't think Pacifiction adds up to much. The film ends with a French admiral spouting a militarist speech that yearns for the days of French power and prestige. I'm chuffed that Serra does not have nostalgia for the days of French colonial power, but think the rise of a new OAS is extremely unlikely. Pacifiction is gorgeous to look at and that is something, but its intimations of meaning are as vaporous as a Tahitian ocean spray.