Pacifiction (2022) – 3/5

The lead performance carries this elaboration on thunder in paradise

I guess it would be accurate to say that „Pacifiction“ is a new French movie, even if it is not super new anymore, but a 2022 release, but what I am mostly referring to there is the word „French“ because, if we look closely, this is a co-production between France, Spain, Portugal and my country Germany. The latter surprises me a bit here as I did not see any German impact. The Spanish component surely comes from experienced filmmaker Albert Serra being in charge of both direction and script here. That it turned out more of a French film, also given the language spoken in here from beginning to end, is also no huge surprise as Serra has over the years worked on other films that focus on France rather than his home country. His co-writer here is Baptiste Pinteaux, apparently mostly in charge of the dialogues, and now that is one French-sounding name, so it surprises me that his only other real release has a German title. Maybe he is a bit of an up-and-comer. I am curious to see what the future will being for him. This movie we have here is an extremely long movie as it comfortably finds his way over the 2.5-hour mark. I would not say that it did not drag at all, but given the running time the dragging was not too frequent and very acceptable in total. This film also racked up some nice awards recognition. According to imdb, we find almost 50 awards nominations and the film won almost 15 of them. Maybe, when awards season is fully over, I can cut the two „almosts“. The film was for example nominated for the Palme d’Or in Cannes.

But its biggest success were perhaps the Césars, the national film awards of France, where the movie scored nine nominations and won two of them, two categories, namely for lead acting and for the cinematography. Both was deserved I would say without having seen all the competition obviously. I would like to mention Benoît Magimel here especially because it is quite spectacular that he won the César for lead acting twice in a row now. Can he extend it to three during the next edition? We will see. But here, as you can see from the title of my review, I liked him a lot indeed and he was the key reason for the highest heights the film reached, even if they were admittedly not mountain-high either. But they made the film worth seeing. Here, in the movie theaters where I go to, they showed the film only during the weekends and maybe also just one day of the two, so the release was not huge, even if here and there you can also find other screenings in movie theaters I am not extremely familiar with. Then again, it is a big city and still it is a somewhat limited release. I mean it is understandable. There were maybe 20 people there during my screening today, maybe more even, which is not super shabby for a Sunday before noon, but still, a French film that runs for almost three hours is not exactly a crowd magnet. At least here. As a consequence, I would say that the film definitely went a bit under the radar, at least outside of France. I am not sure how many people saw it there, but nice to see it got the attention from awards bodies. I cannot say anything about the cast almost, simply because I am not familiar with the cast members or at least I do not remember having seen them in other films. As for Magimel, he reminded me of a mix between Detlev Buck and Tim Roth in terms of his looks. He will turn 50 next year and is perhaps during the most successful stage of his professional career at this point. I would love to see him more in international films in the (near) future. Also interesting to see how he started his career back in the 1980s as a child actor. There is one French film that many consider among the finest French films ever made.

As for the rest of the cast, I still want to mention Sergí Lopez. I know and like the actor and I think he has solid recognition value, but I must still say I did not recognize him here. I guess he is quite a chameleon indeed. His inclusion makes sense though because this is where Serra’s influence came a bit more into play. You will see many Spanish actors in the cast here, a cast that is still not super big given the film’s running time. I would have expected more actors in here, more actresses maybe too. This is a really male-dominated film and if there is a female character (or „female“), you can also not be really sure if „she“ is not actually played by a guy. Well, „she“ is of course as you can see by the very special bra, if you wanna call it that, that she is wearing. But let’s not get any further into detail there to make sure certain people don’t get too worked up. One thing that deserves talking about instead is the title here. It is a really nice play on words from no fewer than three perspectives even. One is the area where this is set, namely Polynesia in the Pacific Ocean, the second is the link to pacifism with riots and military conflicts being a clear and present dangers and the third and final aspect is the idea of fiction as after all we are watching a movie here and I think the characters you see in here do not really exist in real life. It was interesting in some scenes when we see the main character talk to a man who is not the one with whom he has been talking about before, but that new kid on the block if you wanna call him that is more of a hothead and Magimel’s character is not really willing to take it anymore at some point when he puts the young guy in his place and tells him what he thinks about being taught life lessons from somebody half his age. This was one of the more memorable moments for me at least. Of course, we never know what is really going on. The main character also does not know if it is Russia, America or somebody else behind all this. He only knows the aforementioned hothead is mostly of a string puppet and nothing really beyond that, even if he likes to pretend he is.

This is maybe why there is also always this American character around, the one with the glasses who looks as if he is out of an American 1970s movie. Actually, he reminded me of Richard Belzer from L&O SVU. Maybe I am only saying this because Belzer died a few days ago, but I feel like I would have said it otherwise too. A quick rest in peace to Belzer before we return to this French film here and go on with some brainstorming. Another interesting inclusion for me then was when we see what the main character really thinks about this place, that has been his working environment for a long time now. How he really hates it there and has enough of it all and cannot wait to get away and transfer his power and influence to another character. Maybe he was also slightly worried that he might get killed at some point as we have people talk about the possibility of people getting killed and that it is almost a given that people will be injured in what is about to happen. He is not really getting any respect and he could be the next target. It would not have been a huge surprise if the man had died in this movie. Look at the aggression already coming from his opponents when he is reminded that what he is eating is the beauty of their home. Or when there is talk about how the natives are not allowed into the casinos. The main character is fairly good in cracking a joke here and there to remove some of the tensions, but he cannot do it all the time. Eventually, the scenario just gets too serious. The major conflict then is linked to nuclear tests potentially going to happen there and well, when can he do. He is not really a crucial part of the decision and maybe they are expecting too much from him and he could never interfere with these plans or stop anybody from pulling through with them. There is a shadow over the island. Thunder in paradise.

This shadow eventually also catches the protagonist, even if it is not safe to say if he is really on the downward spiral that the other guys (including the Belzer lookalike) say he is. But his words about the island are pretty telling too. Like how he say he will bake them all crispy. This was almost funny to read. Yep, I read subtitles while watching this (and listening to it) in the original French-language version. It was towards the end already. He was talking there to the fella who barely heard anything of what Magimel’s character was saying. Oh well. I will just do some brainstorming finally for the rest of it before the review ends: This film also won a César for its cinematography and sounds like a valid choice, even if the area where this got made is definitely thankful environment. The first shot already with the ruby-red sky was haunting. Beautiful, but also in a way threatening and sobering with these gigantic containers that literally get in the way of nature there on the island. It was a but surreal there, so we had a surreal framework as there is no other way to describe the ending. It was almost a psychedelic ending even with what they had it look like. Not really easy to rasp and understand, but it felt like a surreal dream sequence then from a Jefferson Airplane music video with the people on the boat there. Surprising way to end the film and surely different and I did not expect the closing credits to roll in when they did. Magimel’s character was a bit out of the picture there already. Some of the earlier pub scenes were also surreal, not only because of the light-and-dark effects. So bizarre. This adjective also fits nicely the elaboration on soldiers or scientists in submarines waiting for prostitutes to be sent to them, sent down into their submarines. The main character was trying to find out what was going on there exactly, but in the end he was also just a string puppet and could not do anything to prevent all this, even if he had found them. France is nothing compared to Russia and America. Anyway, this is it then. This film gets a thumbs-up overall and I recommend checking it out. I am glad I went to see it tonight, even if, except Magimel, there was nothing superb to it.