88
Pacifiction uses its thin narrative elements as a pretense to explore the texture of uncertainty, suspicion, and inaction.
What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
100
IndieWire by Christian Blauvelt
Pacifiction is not a vicarious experience of luxury; it is an experience of life. Set to its own tidal rhythm, it is one of the most beautiful and rigorously introspective movies of this or any year, a film that makes you deeply ponder the fate of humanity itself.
70
Pacifiction is a film in many ways about floating, through life and water and power, inviting the viewer to idly drift right along with it.
70
For resilient audiences, it provides a truly original cinematic experience. ‘Cinematic’ is a key word: the film was lavishly shot using three 4K Canon Black Magic Pocket cameras and comes with a rich soundscape that pushes the oneiric envelope and takes certain scenes into paranoid-thriller genre territory.
60
The Hollywood Reporter by Leslie Felperin
Quite watchable, even sort of plot-driven — for a Serra film.
80
The Guardian by Peter Bradshaw
Albert Serra’s bizarre epic is a cheese-dream of French imperial tristesse, political paranoia and an apocalyptic despair. It is a nightmare that moves as slowly and confidently as a somnambulist, and its pace, length, and Serra’s beautiful widescreen panoramic framings – in which conventional drama is almost camouflaged or lost – may divide opinion. I can only say I was captivated by the film and its stealthy evocation of pure evil.
100
The Film Stage by Rory O'Connor
Pacifiction draws you in with its sense of mystery and surrealism and leaves you ultimately agog.
67
Pacifiction is a movie to experience. In the end, it’s all an analogy between politics and nightclubs and the assumption (fiction?) of power and persuasion. But that’s my guess. Your guess is as good as mine. And to that effect, ours is as good a guess as even Serra is willing to offer.