Pacifiction (Tourment sur le îles)

Wednesday 15 October at 7.30pm

Albert Serra | France/Spain/Germany/Portugal | 2022 | 162 mins | M nudity & sexual content

In co-operation with the Institut Français and the Embassy of France

Arthouse maverick Albert Serra takes us on an unsettling tour of the French Polynesian tropics with this anti-epic tale of political paranoia set against a backdrop of picture postcard sunsets.

“Pushing against the grain of grand, exotic storytelling in strangely hypnotic ways, Catalan director Albert Serra has enhanced his singular cinematic résumé with a contemporary thriller echoing Graham Greene and John le Carré—but in a sensual and structural form all of his own unconventional making. Insidious in a tailored white suit and floral dress shirt, Benoît Magimel stars as De Roller, a shady high commissioner… As De Roller saunters around the island, flexing his bureaucratic muscle and leering at the locals like a modern-day Gauguin, there are even more sinister machinations afoot: comings and goings at a seamy nightclub, and in the nearby waters, a submarine and rumours of nuclear testing… The slow creep of Pacifiction’s commentary on imperial corruption and colonisation is deeply unnerving, while its mixing of prosaic documentary realism with vibrant widescreen visuals and deliberately opaque narrative—alongside occasional flourishes of chilling humour—is nothing short of uncanny.”—Tim Wong, New Zealand International Film Festival 2023