[Critique] "Paiction", or the death of the young king

Although it does not form a binary, The death of Louis XIV (2016) and Hello. Torment in the islands They seem to echo each other. In the first, as its title suggests, we witness the last hours of the Sun King, interpreted by Emperor Jean-Pierre Laude. In the second, the events of the film revolve around the allegorical death of a French ambassador established in Tahiti, embodied by royal grace Benoit Magimel, who was crowned Best Actor on the last evening of the César Gala. Recall that the latter played the young Louis XIV in The king is dancing (2000), by Gerard Corbeau.

in the like th The death of Louis XIV, this new feature film by the Spanish director Albert Serra demands the patience of an angel from the spectator, because this long, slow, enchanting journey to which he invites him sometimes takes the appearance of an endless night of sleeplessness. Highly campy on sultry Tahiti nights, where sweaty bodies lurk in the shadow of a nightclub or lush vegetation spying on each other, when not under the blazing sun, this atmospheric and speculative political drama follows the patient pursuit of a high commissioner for the Republic. De Roller (Magimel).

Believing he rules this heavenly corner of French Polynesia, De Roller still wears a cream suit resembling a French colonial outfit, his gaze veiled by bluish glasses, thus creating distance with the people he claims to be interested in, who has only one thing in mind: to see if The rumors of new nuclear tests were true. Through his observations on culture and politics, which he dispenses generously when no one has asked his opinion, he sees a sly but not without humor critique of colonialism.

Every time he speaks to his wary local assistants, including the imposing and charming Shannah (Pahoa Mahagafanau), to diplomats, including the Portuguese (Alexandre Milo), or to expats, like Morton (Sergi Lopez), De Roller displays smugness and pretense. respect. However, his interlocutors are sometimes taciturn, sometimes evasive. The more time passes, the more de Rouler fears that the admiral (Marc Sosigny, who played Louis XIV’s butler Bloin) will carry out his mission after 20 years of hiatus.

Radical and singular, Albert Serra creates fantastic twilight and nocturnal paintings, in which powerful insect tones and wind rustling in the leaves struggle to replace the monotonous industrial music of a topless DJ. It also grinds the solar beauty of the landscape even thirstier and carefully composes a languid atmosphere with noxious aromas. The problem is that it doubles down on scenes and brings absolutely nothing to the narrative.

In the latter part of the film, where we plunge into a full waking nightmare, thus evoking the pain we experienced in Kurtz’s horrifying lair.End of the world now, by Coppola, stretches the footage of the sequence to the point of satisfaction, threatening to make the spectator lose the thread of the story or exhaust them entirely from the stakes, risking abandoning the hero to his fate by quickly leaving the room before the end credits. Sometimes there is a fine line between hypnosis and anesthesia.