Pacifiction – Tourment sur les îles

Albert Serra, Pacifiction – Tourment sur les îles, (France/Spain/Germany/Portugal, 2022, 163 min)  

With: Benoît Magimel, Pahoa Mahagafanau, Matahi Pambrun, Marc Susini, Sergi Lopez, Alexandre Mello, Montse Triola, Michael Vautor, Cécile Guilbert, Lluís Serrat, Mike Landscape, Cyrus Arai, Mareva Wong, Baptiste Pinteaux  

Production: Ideale Audience Group, Andergraun Films, Tamtam Film, Rosa Filmes, Arte France Cinéma, Archipel Productions   

In competition at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival 
 
“In Tahiti in French Polynesia, High Commissioner De Roller, the local equivalent of a prefect, represents the state, the French Republic. He is hot in his white suit, the uniform of a white man posted overseas. He represents, and even seems to do nothing but that, from meetings to receptions in this postcolonial space managed by representations, “paradise” governed by images, holograms of senior civil servants transmitted from a distant mainland. But the film soon shows that all he represents is himself: it is his doubt, his drama, his problem. He is caught, like everybody else, but worse: between himself and the state, between his body and his position. In this divide, he can do nothing but think, and say that he does so. It is the portrait of a man who thinks. It is this thought that unfurls, unwinds and whirls, both supreme (sublime) ridicule and a final chance of salvation.” Luc Chessel, Libération, 27 May 2022