There is something about Shore of Syrtesthe novel by Julien Gracq, in Pacifiction – Torment on the Islands. In the literary work, the kingdom of Orsenna is worried about emerging rumors around a resumption of war after several centuries of peace with Farghestan, land on the other side of an unknown sea. In Albert Serra’s tropical thriller (The Death of Louis XIV), it is Benoît Magimel, the High Commissioner of Polynesia (the equivalent of the prefect) who investigates for 2h45 around unspeakable rumors about a resumption of nuclear tests in the waters of the Pacific.
The film had all the ingredients to be a success. The idea of hovering over the paradisiacal lagoons the threat of a resumption, in the greatest secrecy, of nuclear tests is attractive. The Polynesian population was traumatized by the atomic bombings that were carried out on the islets of the archipelago between 1966 and 1996. In this case, the slightest political clumsiness revives the still painful wounds of the inhabitants.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=66WG0Bis5v0
Benoît Magimel fulfills his role as High Commissioner De Roller to perfection, both lunar and warm. In his creamy white suit, he strolls to meet the locals to try to unravel the truth from the false of the rumor that swells. He rubs shoulders with a transsexual woman, her informant, an admiral who can’t drink alcohol, a nightclub manager stunned by years of night work.
The dialogues interrupted by silence (on the set Albert Serra has the habit of whispering the lines into the earpiece of the actors) seem to be filmed with a hidden camera, so much the realism is refined. But Albert Serra stretches discussions around restaurant and bar tables to boredom. The Spanish director wants to show the dark side of local politics without saying much about it. The filmmaker ends up losing us.
Downtime prevents pacification to increase in tension. Albert Serra films a Polynesia of great beauty and when Benoît Magimel goes on a jet-ski to observe a surfing competition, the power of the waves freezes the viewer. But by dint of leading to nothing, the dialogues turn the thriller in circles.
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Gender : Thriller
Director: Albert Serra
Actors: Benoit Magimel, Pahoa Mahagafanau, Marc Susini
Country : France, Spain, Portugal, Germany
Duration : 2h45
Exit : NOVEMBER 9, 2022
Distributer : Diamond Films
Summary: On the island of Tahiti, in French Polynesia, the High Commissioner of the Republic De Roller, representative of the French State, is a man of calculation with perfect manners. In official receptions such as shady establishments, he constantly takes the pulse of a local population from which anger can emerge at any time. Especially since a rumor is insistent: we have seen a submarine whose ghostly presence would announce a resumption of French nuclear tests.