Named the best film of the year (2022) by Cahiers du Cinéma, Albert Serra's mesmerizing and hypnotic PACIFICTION is a deceptively quiet observation of colonialism, and an audacious commentary on gentrification.
On the French Polynesian island of Tahiti, the calculating French bureaucrat De Roller (Benoît Magimel) blithely rubs elbows with the elite of the island, while also frequenting local haunts where he cozies up with the Indigenous population. Tensions rise when a persistent rumor swirls around the island regarding the sighting of a submarine whose ghostly presence could herald the return of French nuclear testing. In French with English subtitles.