The Pacific Ocean got its name because Portuguese navigator Ferdinand Magellan saw the sea beyond Latin America as peaceful: "Pacific" compared to the stormy Atlantic.
It's true that huge waves sometimes pile up in the Pacific, but Magellan's word has prevailed.
And the corresponding ideas have also been transferred to the islands, which one comes across very sporadically in the vast blue: Fiji, Tonga, Bora Bora, Tahiti, all little paradises where mankind could remember how a carefree life under in the sun and under coconut palms.
The fact that the Pacific was also a fiction from the beginning is reflected in the title of Albert Serra's new film: "Pacifiction".
However, the play on words turns out to be more complex.
Because it could even be that the Pacific produces its own form of fictionality.
So “Pacifiction” would be something like a genre: South Sea dreams, and surprisingly restless ones at that.
Serra tells of a French diplomat in Tahiti: Monsieur De Roller represents the state authority of the former world power in the overseas territory.
His service uniform is a white suit, under which a massive body can be seen, the figure of a man who has already taken hold of the good life.
Benoît Magimel turns this character into a memorable type: a European in the greatest possible foreignness, in the midst of local people who define themselves through a rooster dance and speak a cracking language.
De Roller doesn't seem to notice the difference at all.
He is affable with people, he sees himself as a real diplomat, as a mediator, he also knows when to call on the forces he can count on if necessary and when to be relaxed.
A priest who would like to forbid his flock to visit a local casino, he drives into the parade quite harshly, this discrimination would incidentally also be detrimental to tax revenue.
Campaigner against political correctness
In a somewhat confused speech, he introduces a writer who was sent on a reading tour to French Polynesia as a pioneer against political correctness, only to then mention in detail that he is also a writer himself, with notes and records, in which, in his opinion, manifests considerable intellectuality.
After the speech, which was superbly improvised by Benoît Magimel, one would rather not get to know De Roller's self-reflections in more detail.
They then find another form anyway, namely one with which Serra successively turns the inner life of his protagonist outwards.
It wasn't long before the first signs of strange happenings began to appear in De Roller's day-to-day work.
This day-to-day life basically consists in sitting at the table all the time, in different circles, and spending the rest of the days in Paradise Night, a club where the waiters walk around in white underpants, and where not only the DJ of ambiguous sex is.