Albert Ser­ra wish­es you were here in the trop­i­cal trail­er for Pacifiction

Those famil­iar with the work of film­mak­er Albert Ser­ra may approach news of anoth­er fea­ture with some mea­sure of trep­i­da­tion, know­ing of his pen­chant for extreme con­tent pre­sent­ed in a mode of high-and-dry irony. (Lib­erté, his last effort, treat­ed view­ers to min­utes upon min­utes of des­ic­cat­ed, geri­atric nobles hang­ing out in the woods and engag­ing in every act of deprav­i­ty imag­in­able.) But a teas­er for his next project could very well play as a tourism ad, if not for the hint of men­ace in the air.

There’s some­thing off about the trop­i­cal vis­tas on dis­play in the first trail­er for Paci­fic­tion, which arrived online this morn­ing in advance of fur­ther fes­ti­val play at the New York Film Fes­ti­val. Among the sun­sets, beach­es, and local dance par­ties one might find on a post­card, there’s a spir­it of unease, of adrift exis­ten­tial anx­i­ety, per­haps even animosity.

That’s because the scenic views come to us from French Poly­ne­sia, where the island of Tahi­ti rep­re­sents a cold-war­ring bat­tle­ground between the encroach­ing colo­nial­ists and the natives attempt­ing to adapt to their pres­ence. The great French thes­pi­an Benoît Mag­imel leads as a High Com­mis­sion­er sent by the empire to keep an eye on the ter­ri­to­ry, which grad­u­al­ly turns into a Beck­et­t­ian wait­ing game in a pur­ga­to­r­i­al no-man’s‑land not so far removed from the shores of Zama.

Lit­tle White Lies edi­tor David Jenk­ins was enthused about the film in his ear­ly review from its pre­mière at Cannes, relieved to find that Ser­ra hadn’t soft­ened with his entry to the festival’s Com­pe­ti­tion sec­tion. ​“Paci­fic­tion is a 100 per­cent pure uncut Ser­ra,” he wrote, ​“accept no sub­sti­tutes. It is chal­leng­ing and dream­like in its pre­sen­ta­tion, a grand tragedy chart­ing the down­fall of a man and, quite pos­si­bly, mankind in toto.” He went on to add that ​“It’s a film that is con­nect­ed very much to the geopo­lit­i­cal now, and the notion that how­ev­er big or impor­tant we may feel we are inside a cer­tain sys­tem, there’s always some­one big­ger, stronger, and pos­si­bly mad­der lurk­ing in the shad­ows, wait­ing for their moment to put you in check.”

The trail­er below hap­pens to be in unsub­ti­tled Span­ish, but when deal­ing with a film that com­mu­ni­cates in pure imagery more often than dia­logue, that’s not such a press­ing issue. The Cin­e­maS­cope-rem­i­nis­cent panora­mas speak for them­selves, demand­ing to be beheld on the biggest screen available.