Pacifiction (2022)

June 12, 2024 2:13 AM

On the French Polynesian island of Tahiti, the high commissioner of the Republic and French government must investigate an ongoing rumor: the sighting of a submarine whose ghostly presence could herald the return of French nuclear testing.

This is the latest film from Albert Serra who makes radical but also hypnotic films with a unique directorial style. In 2009 the Harvard Film Archive wrote:

In the course of just two feature films, Catalan director Albert Serra (b. 1975) has established himself as one of the most uncompromising and exciting filmmakers of the early 21st century, the newest member in a luminary constellation of filmmakers – Lisandro Alonso, Pedro Costa, Lucrecia Martel, Béla Tarr – that defy the ever-darkening skies of contemporary world cinema

Since then Serra has continued to make films and film projects such as installations for the Venice Biennal.
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From the BFI:

The Catalan director gets away with this swagger because he is a charismatic showman – and because, as one of the boldest visionaries of 21st-century cinema, he never fails to deliver.

He founded his own production company, Andergraun Films, in 2001 to support his uncompromising vision, and makes films that combine the playful and absurdist with the deep and spiritual in a constantly surprising manner. His work bears echoes of Dalí and Warhol, Bresson and Pasolini, but it is always utterly, radically distinctive.

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His latest film Pacifiction at 4columns.org

Pacifiction willfully disorients; having viewed it twice while furiously taking notes, I still cannot quite parse what happens during long stretches of this long film. But prosaic plot specifics are ancillary to what Serra and cinematographer Artur Tort are after: creating unfading images, like De Roller on a Jet Ski, the viewers so close to the action that we seem to be undulating on the swells with him; or the glow of the violet, magenta, and sapphire neon lights at Paradise Night, a squalid club frequented by the statesman. Similar to Claire Denis’s L’intrus (2004)—which also features an enigmatic white Frenchman with mysterious business in Tahiti, where the film partly takes place—Pacifiction concerns itself more with sensation than sense.

posted by vacapinta (2 comments total)

This one needs to be seen on the biggest screen possible for total immersion, photography you can get drunk on. Amazing amazing film, the contrast between the spectacularly idyllic surroundings and slow-burning paranoia is masterfully developed. And very pointed commentary on colonialist exploitation.
posted by remembrancer at 5:34 AM on June 12

I have seen interviews with Serra who I must admit has a unique directorial style. He doesn't work from a precise script, no script is provided for the actors. He employs multiple cinematographers and shoots 100s of hours of film.

The film is then created in the editing room. Serra has said that he is the worlds greatest editor, not director. He conjures the movie up in the editing room.

One of his films, Birdsong, for example, is about the three wise men and their journey to find Jesus. There's a particularly entrancing shot of the three men wandering in the distance. In an interview, he explains what happened on the set:

The magic of this shot … When I began editing I was scared that people would get bored watching this shot, but what I’ve discovered is nobody gets bored. [Laughs.] Nobody. Nobody! Even the most primitive, stupid spectator keeps looking and keeps wondering, “What’s happening?” And it’s ten minutes. No, eleven. Eleven minutes!

So, why does it work? The entire film, but this shot in particular, has the right percentage of freedom inside mixed with the right percentage of necessity or structure. How did I do this? This is important to understanding the whole film. I gave the actors a walkie-talkie and told them, “Go away. I will tell you what to do. You will listen and react.” The rules on set were: “Never look at me, never talk to me, and never stop acting. You’re tired? Fine. Get a drink. Or fall asleep. Do what you want to do, but never look at me, never talk to me, and never stop acting.”

So, I sent them off walking across the desert with the walkie-talkie. And there they go. Walking. Walking. And then I started speaking jumbled words. And I could tell they were saying to each other [whispers], “Mother? Wall? Tree? What is this? The walkie-talkie must not be working.”

I’m saying something that’s completely unrelated, you know? But they have to react. Each reacts in his own way. And, five or ten seconds later, I say, “Please! A mother! Tree! Sky!” And they all stop and think, “Tree? Sky?” But they stop and look off at the sky.

So, in this shot, I got the right percentage of real freedom – because they really don’t know what to do – but at the same time there is some kind of necessity because you feel that they are following something. They are following my absurd instructions. They didn’t understand what I was saying, but there is something imperative in their walk.

The above applies to all his films, the ones I've seen at least. There is a narrative flow but also turbulence within that flow that defines his films. He has a great eye for beauty and for wandering off in search of it, whatever the story he is telling. True of Pacifiction as well where we sometimes linger too long in the nightclub it seems, but as Serra has said, he just found the scenes in there too compelling to not show them to you.
posted by vacapinta at 5:21 AM on June 14 [1 favorite]