Serra channeled the energy of New Hollywood paranoid thrillers such as Night Moves (1975) and The Conversation (1974) into a wonderfully rambling portrait of a well-intentioned but ultimately ineffectual French diplomat trying to deter a possible nuclear threat to the Polynesian islands. Shadows gradually emerge that shift the tone of Pacifiction; tropical Technicolor gives way to a creeping darkness that eventually engulfs the film. Once-prominent French star Benôit Magimel delivers a wonderful, offbeat performance inflected with comic touches yet imbued with the melancholy of faded stardom.