Popular reviews

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  Review by Josh Lewis ★★★★ 3

  I guess colonial power, geopolitical maneuvering and apocalyptic anxiety in the modern age is sorta like being at the club with zero idea what's going on outside of the intense visual/sonic vibrations. Albert Serra's Too Old to Die Young? Miami Vice? Or maybe Zama? I don’t know, but completely gorgeous, glacial, hypnotic, and rambling anyway, and probably the closest he'll ever get to a commercial movie, which is a hilarious thing to say all things considered.

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  Review by Will Sloan ★★★★½

  The good kind of boring. Felt like I was being slowly lulled into hell as this charming fucker kept talking and talking.

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  Review by Sam B.

  An unspeakably gorgeous, paranoid ghost story of apocalyptic dread. colonialism is radioactive, it’ll fuck up the moon. did not know Serra had something so beautiful and so sincerely sinister in him. blew me away.

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  Review by Neil Bahadur ★★★★★ 4

  Kind of astonishing & beautifully constructed, and much more pensive and contemplative than it is obscure and mysterious. As an aside - it's fascinating to me how this is really the first of Serra's films to really feel like a movie than an art installation which wandered into a movie theatre. Not that the latter is bad in any case, certainly not ever in Serra's ouevre, but it's kind of eye opening in how much clarity and added information it brings here as opposed to that prior work. Admittedly there's an intellectual capacity here that I hadn't clocked in the prior works despite my admiration for them and more than provocative, it's genuinely brave in it's explored connections between colonialism and…

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  Review by Filipe Furtado ★★★★ 6

  This feels like a culmination of sorts for Serra. It is predicted in two of his favorite moves, the tension between character and environment and the promise of a death ceremonial, but Magimel colonial bureaucrat comes off much closer to him and less a symbol as in most of his movies. So, the whole movie plays as much more immediate than usual which I assume is why this has been far more popular than usual. It is still a conceptual provocation, that’s what he does, but the emotional response seems stronger. It looks great and like most Serra work it goes much easier when one accepts Serra’s is funny and not ponderous as he might try to look. I don’t know if it has much to say about colonialism, but it does seem to want to say a lot about artistic self-annihilation.

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  Review by SilentDawn ★★★½ 7

  70

  Submerges itself into an intoxicated mix of tropical menace, land disputes, nuclear threats, and commodified bodies - all while an aloof lackadaisical figurehead is desperately turning up the charm in order to feel something. There's a harrowing foreboding quality to this movie, as if it can't escape its own inevitable conclusion. Apocalyptic dread is recontextualized with the trembling energy of a boardroom meeting, with the decisions already made ahead of schedule. A conspiratorial haze lingers over the ravishing sunsets and sunrises, subduing the reality of the situation until its final act tumbles into punishing darkness and despair. Albert Serra's mode of extensive coverage shooting may fall unevenly between improvisation and more precise experimentation, but at its best, Pacifiction is both seductive and monotonous, with a thick helping of paranoia to seal the deal.

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  Review by Paul Gallagher

  There's a scene in this where our main character sits in his car and monologues, seemingly endlessly, to the man sitting next to him, who is desperately fighting to stay awake. Watching this film, I was that man.

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  Review by KYK ★★

  As long as there's an Albert Serra Q&A I suppose I will continue showing up, but I keep wondering how a man so funny and charming keeps churning out such boring, faux-vocative movies. A few breathtaking shots of sunsets and the sea, but otherwise I'm not sure what I just saw and I don't know if Serra really knows what he made and I'm prettttty sure Benoit doesn't know what he starred in.

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  Review by Matt Neglia ★½ 1

  A near three hour long meandering stroll through the island landscapes of French Polynesia that is undeniably pretty at points, mostly baffling at others. Almost nothing to latch on to emotionally but intellectually there is a lot at play here. It’s just unfortunately scattered and buried beneath all of the rambling monologues and languished filmmaking.

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  Review by Darren Carver-Balsiger ★★★★ 4

  Drenched in atmosphere, Pacifiction is a strange, disorientating, politically disturbing thriller. Told elliptically Pacifiction leaves us as confused as the characters, with hard to follow plot strands unwinding and then coiling together throughout the entire movie. Much is left unanswered and the film leaves out many key events. Pacifiction is a dry movie, with nobody speaking plainly and everything left implied or unsaid. Yet beneath it all Pacifiction is an obvious nightmare of colonial secrets and political intrigue. It becomes a descent into paranoia, as French nuclear politics becomes more domineering within the plot. With beautiful cinematography and a dark mystery at its centre, Pacifiction slowly reveals itself to be a sunswept horror film, though it is in actuality a terrifying drama. It's a movie that seems designed to frustrate and lose you, but simultaneously it pulls you in and shocks.

  2023 Ranked

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  Review by daniel goldhaber 1

  Tag yourself. I’m the sleepy guy in the Hawaiian shirt who doesn’t really know what’s going on.

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  Review by MJsays ★★★★★ 1

  Serra’s trip into tropical oblivion is a glacially-paced, eerily hallucinogenic and pretentiously engrossing mood piece that says more about political ignorance and spiritual disconnect in the modern world more than any other film in recent memory. An all too rare but much-needed form of cinematic recalibration for the psyche.