International Cinema
Tuesday, April 4th at 7:00 PM
Albert Serra’s
PACIFICTION
Members $10 | Public $15
Catalan filmmaker Albert Serra reconfirms
his centrality in the contemporary cinematic landscape with this mesmerizing
portrait of a French bureaucrat (a monumental Benoît Magimel)
drifting through a fateful trip to a French Polynesian island with increasing
anxiety. Pacifiction charts the various uneasy
relationships that develop between Magimel’s autocratic yet avuncular High
Commissioner, De Roller, and the Indigenous locals (including nonprofessional
actor Pahoa Mahagafanau in a hypnotic breakthrough as De
Roller’s trusted right hand and maybe lover) who operate essentially under his
faux-benevolent thumb, many of whom we meet at a resort that caters to the
prurient exoticism of foreign tourists. Serra’s gripping, atmospheric thriller
is a slow-building fever dream that lulls before catching us by surprise with
the depths of its darkness, a film that allows its incisive social commentary
about the remnants of colonialism to surface through quiet observation and
aesthetic audacity. (2022, France, 162 min., color, DCP, French with English
subtitles | Dir. Albert Serra)
