Directed Albert Serra | France, Spain, Germany, Portugal | 165 mins
Pacifiction, the title a curious neologism, is a contemporary tale set on the French Polynesian Island of Tahiti, focusing on the High Commissioner of the Republic (Benoît Magimel, in an epochal performance) hunkering down as geopolitical and personal affairs threaten to set him permanently afloat. The film is a major breakthrough for Catalan filmmaker Albert Serra, whose previous films, both deadpan and philosophical, such as Birdsong (2008), Story of My Death (2013), and The Death of Louis XIV (2016), dealt, however irreverently, with more classical myths. Respectively: the Three Wise Men of the New Testament, Casanova and Dracula, and the famous immediately pre-revolutionary king of France (played by French New Wave icon Jean-Pierre Léaud as a prim despot on his grim deathbed).
If the passage and movement of phantom epochs and their myth-systems have always been part of the flavour of Serra’s cinema, his ravishing new contemporary vision, an unambiguous triumph at the level of aesthetics, seems altogether more chilling for its poignancy and prescience right now. All that we’ve been through as a global citizenry since the shutdowns of 2020 et cetera seems uncannily indexed by this film about a non-existent future that can’t come slowly enough to people who surely don’t even deserve or really desire a future. Praised by figures as unlikely as David Fincher, Pacifiction is an unusually significant diversion from a major contemporary filmmaker.
Rating: 14A for Nudity.
In the spirit of respect, reciprocity and truth, we honour and acknowledge that this screening takes place on Moh’kinsstis and the traditional Treaty 7 territory, as well as the oral practices of the Blackfoot confederacy: Siksika, Kainai, Piikani as well as the Îyâxe Nakoda and Tsuut’ina nations. We acknowledge that this territory is home to the Métis Nation of Alberta, Region 3 within the historical Northwest Métis homeland. Finally, we acknowledge all Nations, Indigenous and non, who live, work and play, as well as help steward this land, honour and celebrate this territory.