Eight minutes of applause from Cannes for “Pacifiction”, the long-awaited film by Albert Serra which has been screened this Thursday in competition and with which the filmmaker from Banyoles aspires to enter the list. In a session preceded by great anticipation – it was a unique official joint screening by the public and critics – “Pacifiction” did not leave indifferent the audience of the festival, which Serra, very excited, described, in a few words at the end of the session, as “the best audience in the world.” The filmmaker from Banyoles he was accompanied by the entire film crew, led by the great protagonist, the French actor Benoît Magimel and the producer Montse Triola. The gala session, which took place at the Grand Auditorium Lumière in Cannes, was also attended by the Minister of Culture. Miquel Icetathe Minister of Culture, Natalia Garrigathe director of the ICAA, Beatrice Navas and the director of the ICEC, Michael Curantaamong other authorities.
“Pacifiction” incorpora many recognizable elements of Albert Serra’s cinema. It’s a movie airtight, mysterious, riskyhypnotic, unclassifiable, very free, eschewing plot conventions or narrative clichés. The theme of the film is De Roherbeautifully played by Benoît Magimel, the French government’s high commissioner for Polynesia, worried about rumors among the indigenous population of the resumption of nuclear tests that took place years ago in the archipelago.
For 2h40min, Serra unfolds his unmistakable style following his character, while they appear, more suggested than underlined, and with a deeply pessimistic, gloomy and almost apocalyptic look, major current issues such as the collapse of values, the perversion of politics, the degeneration of power or environmental disasters. Albert Serra continues to film the landscape in a sublime way. Her way of capturing Polynesia is unlike any other portrait about this space seen so far. The camera of the director from Banyoles seems to want to capture this paradisiacal landscape as if he were aware that it is threatened and that it may disappear. At Pacifiction, we witness this fascinating journey as a journey into the heart of civilization, of a wounded and threatened civilization. It’s an unpredictable film, one that constantly plays with the viewer’s expectations to turn them upside down. A film that does not support halftones, like most of Serra’s cinema. Cannes seems the ideal context for a film like this to be truly appreciated. This Saturday we will see if the jury has also been caught by the hypnotic gaze of the director from Banyoles.