REVIEW: Tabu [2012]

“You will not escape your heart” There are definite thematic similarities between Miguel Gomes‘ Tabu and F.W. Murnau‘s Tabu: A Story of the South Seas from its forbidden love to its descriptions of paradises lost. The structures are even identical—albeit in reverse—showing the joy of romance and the pain of losing it. If I were to compare the black and white Portuguese drama with anything else, however, its predecessor of seventy-years wouldn’t be it. No, the aesthetic my mind kept comparing Gome’s film to was Wes Anderson of all people.…

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REVIEW: Tabu: A Story of the South Seas [1931]

“The island of Bora-Bora: still untouched by the hand of civilization” It’s a “Romeo and Juliet” by way of French Polynesia to be commended first and foremost for its use of island natives as cast and crew (the latter a result of cost-saving efforts not-withstanding). Conceived by F.W. Murnau and Robert J. Flaherty as a reprieve from the pressures of studio pictures, Tabu: A Story of the South Seas was born as a collaboration before an irreparable fracture gave the former full control once production got under way. Murnau chose…

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