Catalan artist and director Albert Serra (The Death Of Louis XIV, Liberte) returns to Cannes Film Festival Official Competition with a rarity for him, a contemporary feature film, not what we have come to expect from this filmmaker who usually works in period pieces.
And even though he is not French he has made a fascinating movie all in French and set in the colorful French Polynesia island of Tahiti.It works on many levels, taking its time in two hours and forty five minutes to create a portrait of an enigmatic man named De Roller (Benoit Magimel) who seems to say whatever thought pops in his head at any given moment, an odd duck not necessarily playing with reality, or so it appears.
He is the top ranking French official in the Islands, the High Commissioner of the Republic who mainly describes himself to the locals as just a “representative of the state” as he endears himself to many of them.
There are times he pours on the charm, always asking, “is there anything I can do for you? Let me know”. And he seems to be all-knowing on the surface, and constantly turning up everywhere, a whirling dervish if you will.
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