Always Good Movies

Direction: Albert Serra
Country: France / Spain / other

This demanding but engrossing political drama-mystery directed by Catalonian director Albert Serra is set in the exotic island of Tahiti in French Polynesia, where big blue waves are surfed with intensity, and the red and orange tones of the sunset sky are gloriously captured by cinematographer Artur Tort. The film lives from rumors, conspiracy theories, and paranoia, being dramatized with hints of queer-ish fantasy, intrigue, and strangeness.

Benoit Magimel is terrific as Mr. de Roller, a popular High Commissioner of State (a mix of civil servant and politician) who considers himself a man of action. This tormented French politician, caught between paradise and fear, lives obsessed with control and power, seeing ‘dangers’ all around him while walking in circles. He plays on both sides of the fence and his major worries consist of a casino to be build soon against people’s will; a little boat often seen with foreign men and local girls that is assumed to be in contact with an invisible spy submarine; a Portuguese diplomat (Alexandre Melo) who should be plotting against him with the help of a depraved admiral (Marc Susini) in secret mission; and a local organized movement against nuclear testings that is acting without his consent. There are few people he relies on, one of them being Shannah (Pahoa Mahagafanau), a transgender hotel receptionist whose assignment is to extract more info from those he suspects of conspiracy.

Serra has a very personal cinematic touch that reached a peak with the historical drama The Death of Louis XIV (2016). In the contemporary Pacifiction (a portmanteau of Pacific and fiction), his minimalist stance is as powerfully suggestive as the atmospherics that, lean or lush, permeate the film and can numb you into an abstruse, dark dream. This is a different kind of thriller that, capturing the sad constancy of political restlessness in a particular circuited context, feels like a delirious mania, sometimes annoying in its compulsory idée fixe.

Directed by Albert Serra
Country: France / Spain / Portugal

The purist cinema of Catalan Albert Serra was never easy to assimilate whether due to its deliberate fluctuating pace or challenging topics, yet, in my eyes, it’s always fascinating. If last year’s “The Story of My Death” managed to aggregate a few more followers of Serra’s singular indie style, the heavy historical drama "The Death of Louis XIV" will divide audiences since the prolonged cheerlessness related to the unhealthy state of the cited French king, who reigned for 72 years and died slowly of gangrene at 76, can be frustrating, gloomy, and distressing.

The script, penned by Serra and Thierry Lounas, was inspired by the Duke of Saint Simon’s memoirs, focusing exclusively on the last days of the King. You'll witness his gradual disappointment, whimsical exasperation, and occasional despair, as well as the vain efforts of a group of experienced medics who were trying to solve the puzzle related to the sovereign’s ailment.

The first scene of the film got stuck in my head. Louis, flawlessly performed by Truffaut/Godard’s protégé Jean-Pierre Léaud, sunk down in a huge chair with a weary expression on his face, saying he would love to join the guests in his grandiose salon but couldn’t find the strength to do it. His prostrated eyes only sparked when his dogs were allowed to come near him, a very rare situation since Dr. Fagon (Patrick d'Assumçao) has prohibited any contact with the animals.

A group of loyal friends, stationed around his bed, applauds gleefully whenever his appetite returns, but his unresponsiveness for the court’s matters is quite visible, especially when the Duke of York insists about unlocking funds to finance a security construction plan.
Feverish and nauseated, Louis grows weaker each day that passes and his leg problem has no immediate solution. Both Fagon and Blouin (Marc Susini), the king’s most devoted servant, end up agreeing in summoning the best doctors of the Faculty of Paris. However, and since their theories also reveal to be useless, the last hope is Le Brun (Vicenç Altaió), a confident healer from Marseille, whose vague mystical creeds are regarded with deep suspicion by the medical team.

The lugubrious, dusky atmosphere encircling the story requires patience and nerve, but is also poised, touching, and mature. The settings, impeccably mirroring the era, were depicted with a keen eye for detail and it's noticeable the triumphant aptitude to combine colors and shadows within the impressionistic image compositions. Each Rembrandt-like close up gives us instant access to a particular state of mind, such is the power of the human expression captured by the frames. While Jonathan Ricquebourg’s jaw-dropping cinematography is purely revivalist, the direction, one of the most accomplished I’ve seen these days, is filled with incantatory rigor.

Totally shot indoors in a conscious yet agonizing delirium, "The Death of Louis XIV" is a long, slow, and arduous walk toward an inevitable death.