Opiniones de usuarios

Taking place on Tahiti, "Pacifiction" takes a long time to set the story in motion, though director Albert Serra gives us some images to think about. The images are beautiful and the camera dwells on many sets far too long. When I finally got to the end of the film I was tired and regretted that I could not feel as I should.

Well, here is the story: The High Commissioner of the Republic of France, De Roller, has little power but tries to keep peace on the island, when some native representatives inform him of a rumor, that nuclear testing is returning to the region.

Of course, everyone is upset by this idea, though no one seems to know anything in particular. But as De Roller starts to investigate, he finds a number of strange things going on, a group of sailors plus their captain, a Portuguese visitor who's passport has been stolen, foreign shady characters are popping up, a submarine has been sighted and so on.

The more De Roller pokes around, the less he can make any sense out of it but he begins to believe that there is truth in the rumor. In between he manages to coach a local dance group for their performance at his favorite night club, where he also chats with Shanna, a transsexual. Shanna has high hopes to become the secretary of the Commissioner, and De Roller certainly gives him reason to think so by taking him along on some of his visits. This relationship does not seem to be sexual, but the film gives no explanation to what it is that draws De Roller to Shanna.

I don't want to go into more details, but the film is certainly too long, I would say by an hour! Running 2:45 right now, there is no reason not to cut it down, some sidelines don't really advance the story. But despite the length, we hardly see any Tahitians who are not wearing costumes and perform for tourists. Which I don't think is close to reality.

There are some serious qualities there. First of all, who doesn't want a trip to Tahiti?? There are "beautiful shots", as they say: waves, skies, nature, Benoît Magimel pensive on the beach, sometimes on an absolutely magnificent music score. It's a film that can be just admired as is.

It's also a film that can be used to admire Magimel, to hear him speak, wavering, a little mushy, always on the verge of tripping over his feet... It's quite fascinating.

But his performance is not enough to compensate for a slow mise-en-scene by default, rigid, flat, desperately sterile. It is the disease of a certain European-Asian festival cinema which under-cuts its mise-en-scene out of ease and habit. Despite everything, there are some exciting ideas here and there, never to be forgotten, a woman framed in a certain way for no particular reason, that's something but that's not much.

And then what do Magimel and the others really have to say anyway? The story is of very questionable interest. He is a high commissioner of the French Republic who navigates between local councilors against a backdrop of rumours of a resumption of nuclear tests in the region... I've heard of more exciting stories.

Benoît Magimel is the easy going French High Commissioner "De Roller". Charged with representing the French Government on it's Polynesian outpost of Tahiti where he travels the island in his chauffeur driven Mercedes glad-handing and pretty much going from party to party. The arrival of an admiral (Marc Susini) and some rather hunky sailors on his island soon has tongues wagging, though. Before he knows it, his placid existence is being disturbed by increasingly popular - and disturbing - rumours that the French are to restart nuclear weapons testing nearby. Of course he is assured not, and makes similar assurances to the population himself, but when local girls start to go missing the presence of the military and a general sentiment amongst the locals seems to encourage a view that it's time to assert their own independence. This creates more problems that begin to cause our diplomatic quite an headache. Can he sort it all out? Is there even anything to sort out? The thing with this film is that it is far, far too long. The story could easily lose an hour and no harm would be done. The plot, political mischief and island intrigues, would benefit from that tightening up too - perhaps sparing us from the many shots of his car! Magimel delivers an efficient characterisation here, but he is largely left to his own devices as the supporting cast struggle to build upon a rather thin storyline that needed a bit more shoring up to sustain the interest as it rambled on. It has it's moments, but sadly just not enough of them. Oh, and it's pretty wet down there!

Serras thriller is visually exuberant as it is subtle and minimalist in terms of plot. Making good on its lead motto that 'politics is like a nightclub', for almost three hours the viewer sees barely more than Benoît Magimel in his role as bon vivant politician De Moller philandering around the island of French Polynesia, lending an ear to its manifold inhabitants, drinking, feasting, and preaching about his limited administrative role in the grand order of things, interrupted only by stunning episodes of visual allegories on geopolitics. Yet, I found watching De Moller in his ambiguous social interactions infinitely charming and astonishingly engrossing. On its allegorical level I found this movie truly mesmerizing - and I am not easily mesmerized. It is a gloomy thriller about nuclear balance of power, about ants in a battle of elephants, but only behind the curtain and only the abstract. It will therefore appear slow and uneventful to the ones who are looking for some concrete down-to-earth action.

One of those movies that has raving critic reviews but where the audience just doesn't seem to like it.

The movie didn't work for me. I enjoyed the beautful locations and the mood. The acting was good. But the plot just didn't go anywhere. Some scenes seemed to go on forever without adding anything to the movie. I kept up for about an hour and then I just started daydreaming.

When I left the cinema, someone was complaining to me in the bathroom that it was such a bad movie. Another movie-goer put it nicely when walking out the doors: "well, this was 3 hours of my life I'm never getting back".

Great contemplative film that carries something from Apocalypse Now without apocalypse (unless it's the ghostly presence of Marlon Brando playing tricks on me) and Below the Volcano. A port, a nightclub, the sea, sailors, dancers, receptions - all elements linked by Benoît Magimel. It's a poisonous film whose motives (a submarine, a rumour, political and social relations, violence, colonization, etc.) initiated do not give any tension to the film (it's not a thriller as it has been written), the film is on the contrary a sort of stable state, stirred by waves. The photography is sublime. A magnificent film.

Having seen Liberte, I was somewhat ready for the longeurs in this, and the prioritisation of mood over drama and plot.

However, there is a plot of sorts (and even several groups of "plotters" if you go along with the nuclear context and the local determinists) and even a conclusion - no matter how much one might be hoping for something more dramatic. Whether the improvisation-heavy dialogue helps is a moot point.

I've never been to the island in question, but can easily visualise the it's-always-cocktail-time mood and surfeit of ennui that comes across here, making me sorry for everyone trapped in this environment.

Not recommended, as such, but interesting.

This is a truly boring film. It's long, seemed pointless, had scenes that went on forever to no good purpose, had essentially no characters to speak of, and made little sense. I can enjoy long, leisurely paced films, like "The Traveling Players" or "Satantango," but there has to be a reason to be patient and a payoff for doing so. There is neither here.

At the screening I attended, the director, beforehand, said that the last 45 minutes was really special. That was a bait and switch, since they were just like the rest of the film. If anyone goes into this film expecting anything at all like a thriller, they will be disappointed, and disappointed for a rather long time.

The director, speaking afterwards, said he wanted to avoid cliche. In one respect, he failed miserably. The dialog, I believe, was improvised by the actors, rather than being scripted. As a result, it was banal, repetitive, and pointless. There is no more tedious cliche than weak improvised dialog.

It's common for one reviewing a long film to say something like "there's a good 90 minute film in there." Here, there's a mediocre ten minute travelogue in there. There are some pretty shots of Polynesia, and a good surfing sequence, but you pay a heavy price to get to those, and if you're willing to watch a long, weak film to see some nice shots of Tahiti, you're better off with the 60s version of "Mutiny on the Bounty."

After I got home from the screening, I cleaned my cats' litter boxes. I found that experience both more entertaining and more intellectually stimulating than "Pacifiction."

All of Serra's films feature an actor in various roles that seems to form an extremely bizarre thread between his films. Lluís Serrat. From "Liberte" I went back in time to observe it better and now, "Pacifiction" confirms my own thesis. Lluís Serrat is the "Witness". He is the silent observer sent by Serra in each film as his own alter ego. The "witness" just needs to find out in order to be able to continue the thread of Serra's cinematic bizarreness. He speaks little to nothing but always looks around, often tilting his head as if he has an obstacle in front of his eyes, or maybe because he wants to see the same moment from another angle. Lluís Serrat is in himself a likeable, even bucolic apparition of an annoying neutrality. He doesn't seem to change anything, he doesn't get involved in anything and when he should (like in Pacifiction) he falls asleep near the car driver. Like almost all of Serra's films, Pacifiction takes its time. The narrative is (only apparently) monotonous, with long moments of silence (as in Liberte). And if Liberte was set in a night setting, in a tangled forest, in Pacifiction Serra proposes a completely different setting, an exuberant one (Tahiti) meant to mislead. The theme of the film is colonialism brought up at one point by the main character played excellently by Benoît Magimel. Again shocking (in a positive way) is Serra's ability to use non-actors (or quasi-unknown actors?) such as the transvestite Shannah. What I love about Serra is how he consistently refuses to force any kind of fracture in the flow of the action. It seems that from the first frame he leaves the filming studios and only calls Lluís Serrat on the phone from time to time to ask him how things are going. And if he is silent, then it means that everything is ok. Excellent film, 9.

Hype has blinded me again, folks... I love slow burn thrillers like The Day of The Jackal, where the actions are shown in the movie step by step, but without losing its suspense and intrigue. I knew that Pacifiction would be slow... but not THAT slow!

This was a huge dissapointment, almost 3 hours of nothing. Serra is nothing more than a pretentious and a egomaniac director, and this movie shows that.

Pure boredom, there wasn't a mystery or even a bit of suspense to keep watching this thing... nothing.

The visuals are the reason why I gave this film a 5/10. Too good for a waste of film this is.

The visuals were so good... that led me to watch this atrocity to good cinema.

God... I'm so angry right now. This is the kind of trash that makes people go watch Marvel instead, the same stupid movie everyday instead of searching for something new and original. Because of the fear of finding a pretentious and boring film like this.

This movie is better than most commentators say. Who has what power is important.

French Marines turn up at a nightclub in Tahiti. Rumors arose about new nuclear tests. The newly posted French Commissioner on the island seemingly carelessly searches for information. Does he know more? Sometimes he is very focused in the conversations and feels for information. From a cockfight, a battle arises that in reality is played more like a shadow play and everyone slowly slides past each other.

The film has a hypnotic atmosphere and melancholy. The landscape, the waves and the skies also draw you into the story. There is beauty in taking the time for the film and the puzzle piece to slowly unravel - as if everything falls apart almost naturally through time - without any effort.

Everyone can still remember the violent protests around the world when the newly elected French President Jacques Chirac ordered nuclear bomb tests to be carried out in the Mururoa Atoll in 1995. The people of French Polynesia can remember this particularly well. The French High Commissioner (Benoit MAGIMEL) in Tahiti constantly feels this, as he tries to hear the grass grow in Papeete through his constant presence and constant conversations with all possible sections of the population. The French film star Benoit MAGIMEL (CANNES 2001: Silver Palm for LA PIANISTE) plays this brilliantly in his white suit, which has almost become his uniform. In individual set pieces, we as viewers experience how precarious life must be in the holiday paradise of Tahiti. Whether in the homoerotic atmosphere of Morton's (Sergi LOPEZ) bar or during breathtaking surfing on the beach. These last-mentioned shots are so magnificent that you can almost feel the waves just by watching them.

With this film, Spanish director Albert SERRA takes us on a nearly three-hour trip into the heart of French darkness. With the fantastic Benoit MAGIMEL, we stand on the dream beach of Tahiti and use binoculars to search the surface of the Pacific for a submarine that could provide the first indication of suspected impending nuclear weapons tests.

This film was nominated for the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival in 2022. If you like films like APOCALYPSE NOW, QUERELLE and TROPICAL MALADY, you shouldn't miss this event.

Pacifiction could look like a thriller when you watch the trailers however this plotless story will end up deceiving you on several aspects. As a matter of fact, you quickly realize there is no lesson to extract from this aimless story whose director seems to have had fun deceiving his spectators. All in all, it's a massive disappointement, for a total of 2h45 minutes of soulless and unattractive filming.

When you read the synopsis, one would expect a political explanation about Tahiti, this French "département" with special rules, and let's say an atypical population. Or maybe one would expect a focus on the problems of the islanders or some sort of a a criticism towards this new colonialism represented by this high commissioner called Monsieur De Roller (the main character of the film). However, nothing happens as expected in this film; worse; nothing happens AT ALL !

The so called high commissioner wanders around the island, speaks to his mates, argues with some unions guys, seduces some travestite dancer who is as admirative as suprisingly dumb, but the worst is that you just can't find out any logic to all his actions. You feel left in the lurch, and abandoned by the director after an hour or so as you clearly understand the film is going nowhere.

You never end up understanding who is this Monsieur De Roller (I believe he was a politician for real, but I have never found out his legacy), you never find out why he drives around the island aimlessly, by himself, without any goal, without any vice even (except the one of listening to himself), without charisma except his megalomania and narcissism. The film is full of scenes with long silences punctuated by De Roller's long speeches which are after the second one a massive bore.

Did you say suspense? There is NONE ! We understand quite quickly that the hallucinations of the high commissioner are only the results of his excesses and the contempt of the French government towards the natives.

A real pity if you think about the expectations one could have after having seen the trailers. I wonder if the director did not feel a bit of contempt towards his spectators by leading them astray on purpose with no taste for aesthetics what so ever.

I would keep one scene though... the surfers contest with impressive (one scene only) waves and impressive landscape. Don't waste your time please !!!!

It's another critics 5 stars trap of a movie not worth watching.

Apart from the absent story line and poor character dynamics, the editing even fails to capture the beauty of the island and its inhabitants (except maybe 1 sunset shot and a big wave).

Also I found the movie making a few indirect sick suggestions that did not add to my overall appreciation of it. Experimental or not, it did not excite, thrill or manage to raise any kind of emotion.

Basically said it is the worst cinema I have encountered in a long while and would not recommend anybody to waste 3 hours watching this total crap!

There are several well constructed, respectful and honest reviews of this movie here. They all give it between 5 and 1 stars. Then there are a few really positive. 8 and 9 reviews. They, like the film, must be satire. I cannot believe it is a coincidence that the positive reviews share so much with the film itself. They are obviously working very hard to sound intelligent and intriguing. As if the reviews themselves are beautiful, experimental, artistic expression. What ends up happening in these reviews is the same thing that happens in the movie. They are pretentious, nearly incomprehensible, massively over long and verbose, jumbled messes. I honestly can't believe these reviews or this movie are not intentionally awful and obtuse. Let me add, after watching this movie, and then reading these ridiculous positive reviews, I was finally motivated enough to create an IMDB account. My grammar might now be perfect but it's 1000% better and less pretentious than this film and it's positive reviews.

Sorry I don't want to go back over the last 3 hours of this drivel. I need to write something to get my review posted so here it is in brief. There is hardly a depiction of anything I could consider an enlightened handling of 21st C societal issues in this way too long movie.

Having been dragged through hours of scenes of what must be the worst night club music on the planet, (Good God, who would sit in a club listening to that shite?) we end up watching the drunk admiral trying to her two scantily clad blokes dancing together. What a perve.

A really awful film full of creeps and exploiters. Yuck.

I was bored today and decided to look up the most recent Cesar Award nominees and winners. That's how I ended up with this "motion picture" and I decided to go ahead to see it because I WRONGLY thought i would be thrilled for the 2hrs45mins but Alas!, tis was not to be.

It should have been made into a documentary enlightening viewers of the French nuclear tests that were conducted in Mururoa and the physical and environmental consequences that followed. Rather than making this a feature length film and putting us through this travesty. My rating is this high only because of the scenery.

It felt like a bad April fools day prank.

Is this film satire? Or a documentary? It's really hard to tell. Did they just say right, ad lib and walk around and we'll film your every move.

It's honestly one of the most boring films ever made. Quite literally nothing happens for 3 hours. A man in a white suit walks around does a few speeches, has a few drinks flys on a plane and goes jet biking. Call the whoop doctor, there's some hard surf action, we'll sort of, you don't actually see any surfing as the camera is too far away. That is it. Nothing happens.

The only way the film manages to interpret the fear that clouds the island is the paranoia of a very creepy man in glasses. Is he the Pink Panther? It's hard to tell. I was kinda waiting for that character to say to "I need a womb".

The film is centred around a night club and the final scene is surreal which actually stopped me from given it a 2 out of 10.

The dude behind was in such a deep sleep that when it ended and the lights came (it was 11.30pm and the staff wanted to go home) they had to wake him. I'd love to know what he thought, I'm guessing he really enjoyed Hos snoozebuster. As I'm sure you will.