Actuakers One of my all time favorites.

SeeQuant Blending excellent reporting and strong storytelling, this is a disturbing film truly stranger than fiction

Derry Herrera Not sure how, but this is easily one of the best movies all summer. Multiple levels of funny, never takes itself seriously, super colorful, and creative.

Casey Duggan It’s sentimental, ridiculously long and only occasionally funny

m-sendey A retired, religious woman Pilar (Teresa Madruga) endeavours to assist her sensitive, enigmatic and fidgety neighbour Aurora (Laura Soveral) whose both psychological and physical health is growing gradually worse and worse. Once Aurora dies, Pilar and Aurora's maid set off in search for a certain man named Ventura (Henrique Espírito Santo) who appears to be a bond between the presence and Aurora's shady past… This unorthodox tribute to silent cinema and F. W. Murnau's Tabu from 1931 is atypical even by art-house standards and despite being relatively flawed, it succeeds in overcoming its foibles by its sheer eccentricity and stunning cinematography. The movie is initiated with an outlandish prologue recounting a separate story about a suicide of an explorer devoid of hope for a better future which is entailed by his wife's demise. This prelude constitutes the introduction to this black-and-white motion picture whose general theme is about incapability of leading life without love. The flick proceeds to the first part called Paradise Lost which is about superstitious Aurora's struggles with her paranoid temperament and loneliness on account of being stranded by her ungrateful daughter. At this point, mise-en-scène by Gomes is invariably baffling. This is the weakest part of the film which is extortionately digressive and, apart from the main subject tackled in the ensemble, inauspiciously attempts to encompass such issues as metaphysic, depression of senile citizens in the modern society, passion for cinema as well as faith. As a consequence, it is not much of anything and by briefly alluding to these matters, the atypical drama leaves us with a sense of insufficiency, superficiality and instead of plunging into the major topic, it virtually mummifies the entire concept. Nevertheless, the scatter-brained aspect does not perplex that much and the instant the plot drags, the auxiliary visuals come in handy and prevent the material from becoming lifeless.Once Tabu transmutes into a strand of flashbacks derived from Ventura's memory (a part called Paradise), it embarks on being uncannily engrossing and bounteously asserts its aesthetic beauteousness by exposing landscapes of Portugal colonies with its eye-pleasing black-and-white photography. Narrated with an assistance of Ventura's voice-over, the pic acquires an exceptionally poetic and contemplative relish and genuinely resembles a piece of silent cinema. This is likewise the moment in which one might discern the evident sway of aforementioned Murnau's opus and the parallels between both works are decidedly far from coincidental. It is not that Gomes endeavours to counterfeit Murnau's classic, but the afterthought conveyed from the perspective of colonisers and not a native collective is analogous by commenting on the inability to fulfil one's love owing to social convenances. The creation of Gomes reverberates some relations from Portuguese Colonial War, but Gomes seems to be uninterested in delving in this phenomenon and prefers to frame waterfalls and majestically picturesque plantations. Notwithstanding, the glossy, sumptuous appearance does not conceal the fact that Tabu is rather a pure stylistic exercise than a very prosperous psychological or political depiction of occurrences transpiring on the screen and the narrator just roughly indicates a development regarding his relationship with Aurora in his psyche. It is the extravagant stylisation and the offbeat, non-linear composition which renders the décor appealing and the entire movie jolly palatable.The acting is very dexterous throughout the utter film. Teresa Madruga is plausible as a middle-aged prude who craves to console Aurora who is also well played by Laura Soveral. The remainder of the cast is highly enjoyable as well, but there were instants in which some performers felt slightly stiff and somewhat somnolent. Cinematography by Rui Poças is exceedingly ravishing and its tranquil nature captivates the audience from the onset to the very end and its sweetness and subtle charm works symbiotically with some delicate piano riffs which embellish and endow Tabu with several exultations.Whilst the flick is acclaimed and highly rated by majority of film critics, I am inclined to believe that this abundant, structurally unusual motion picture serves its purpose and delivers a great deal of fabulous shots, but I am far from stating that it is a flawless, timeless and sublime trove. Indubitably, there are some ingenious aesthetic touches, but what Tabu lacked for me was the textural integrity, insightfulness as well as some concretism.

thisglimpse-1 Sometimes I think critics include a movie on their top 10 lists simply because it's the last one they remember seeing. That might be the case with "Tabu," which showed up on more than one list, but isn't nearly as interesting a film as it pretends to be, or as the critics who rave about it seem to think it is."Tabu" is full of auteur tricks and cinephile homages. It borrows its name from an obscure FW Murnau silent, it's filmed in black and white and utilizes two different film speeds, and the entire second half has no dialog, only voice-over. But underneath all those tricks is a surprising conventional film. Well, more precisely, two films.After a brief interlude involving an intrepid explorer, a ghost and a crocodile, Part 1 begins, which is titled "Lost Paradise." It's about three women living in present-day Lisbon -- Pilar, her neighbor Aurora, and Aurora's African caretaker, Santa. Aurora is wildly dramatic, and probably senile. She sneaks away from Santa to gamble away any money she comes across. She corners Pilar one day and shares her fears that Santa is a servant of the devil who has imprisoned her and cast a curse upon them all. Of course the truth is much less dramatic, but Pilar still feels obligated to try and do something for her aging neighbor. And when her health takes a turn for the worse and Aurora asks her only friend to track down a man she once knew, of course Pilar obliges her.The man's name is Ventura, and he's not very hard to track down. The second half of the film, titled "Paradise," is his recounting of his relationship with Aurora; the entire thing is narrated by him but acted out like something from "Unsolved Mysteries" -- the actors on the screen speak but we never hear their words, only ambient sounds around them. It is an interesting way to portray a memory, to keep us aware that this isn't happening, it's being remembered. But really - an hour of flashback? The contrivance grows old fast, and we never transition out of it into more immediate and direct storytelling.The memory takes place in Mozambique, back when it was a Portuguese colony. Aurora is the beautiful bored wife of a rich merchant, and Ventura is a rake and a roustabout. He looks an awful lot like pirate Johnny Depp in "Chocolat." Of course this is the kind of guy you should never trust around your women, but Aurora's husband is out of town quite a bit, and there's the matter of a constantly escaping pet crocodile. Pretty soon they are in bed (Aurora and Ventura, not the crocodile) and not long after that they are in love. But she is pregnant, and the baby is her husband's, not her lover's. This is a love story that can only end in tragedy. (Which, of course, we already knew, because this is all being tragically remembered, mind you.)So essentially, we have two movies -- the two parts are too stylistically different to be considered anything else. The first half is a quiet, borderline boring Euroflick about aging and loneliness. It has a vaguely Almodovarian feel, though there are no transvestites or ghosts, only a cadre of middle-aged women. The second half is more classical, and also more formulaic, reminiscent of sweeping, exotic romances from the golden age of Hollywood without ever approaching that kind of grandeur. (Indeed, it uses pretense to steer clear of that kind of grandeur and emotional intensity. Of it was as overheated and melodramatic as the movies it's emulating, it would probably be unbearably campy.) Both halves are decently made short films -- probably better than average, but I think for "Tabu" to really work, the two halves need to connect on a deeper level than the plot. And that never materializes. I want the two halves to comment on each other, to enrich each other in some way, but it's just not there. So really, all it amounts to is, "hey, you know that crazy old lady next door? She's got a quite a story, set in Africa, about infidelity and murder and crocodiles. Imagine that!""In all my films there is an urge for fiction," Mr. Gomes said in an interview with Slate. "There is a first part that begs for another film to appear, and it does because of our common desire." I'd say he's accomplished about half of that goal, twice over. While watching "Tabu," I kept waiting for another film to appear, a more interesting, more subtle and complex, more deeply layered film. But it never does. So I guess I'll move on to the next thing, and keep looking.

georgep53 "Tabu" is a rather odd but beautiful little film that defies easy classification. The first part is a drama about three women in an apartment building in modern day Lisbon. Aurora started off life as a woman of privilege who later marries a well-to-do landowner. The years haven't been kind to her and she seems to be losing her grip on reality. Her daughter employs a woman, Santa, to look after her but otherwise has no contact. Santa hails from a former Portuguese colony and is trying to adapt to western culture. A third woman, Pilar is a concerned neighbor who demonstrates on behalf of social causes. Together the three women represent different ways of coping with Portugal's history. Aurora for whom the past was a kind of golden age; Santa who has chosen to remain in Portugal and adjust to her new world and Pilar who appears to embrace activist political causes perhaps as a way of atoning the past.The second part is a steamy melodrama that unfolds as a memory sequence involving a young and beautiful Aurora who's stuck in a dull marriage to a rich man in colonial Africa. Later she meets a man and begins a passionate relationship which could threaten both of their futures. There's also a crocodile who first appears in a prologue when it consumes a despondent man whose love has passed away. A crocodile appears again as a gift to Aurora from her husband. That crocodile would haunt Aurora in her later years as if it were an avenger seeking the souls of those who've been unwilling or unable to accept life's lack of concern for our emotional attachments. This idea of the past as perhaps best forgotten is heightened by the callous disregard the younger generation displays for the older. "Tabu" is not for everyone. Those who gravitate toward plot-driven story lines will be frustrated but if you enjoy a thoughtful, introspective character drama this is a treat.

octopusluke This is a tough film to discuss in 500 words. It's so multifaceted, textural and moody. I'll try my hardest, but from the off, I must suggest that you just experience Tabu for yourself. You may have a different experience or opinion to me, you may feel the exact same. Either way, you won't regret it.Borrowing the name, two-part structure and love affair-plus-colonisation premise from F.W. Murnau's 1931 classic, Miguel Gomes' Tabu is a film of unmistakable vintage. But it's magnificently subversive too. With one foot in the past, one in the future and a head orbiting in it's own artistic universe, it's a little thing of beguiling beauty.Tabu opens with a tragicomic prologue centring around an exasperated explorer trekking through the harsh jungles of Southern Africa. Through Gomes' voice-over narration, we learn that he is distraught over the death of his wife some years ago, and this lost adventure will be his last. No crocodile tears on display, but there is an ominous little croc that lingers through the sequence - and the rest of the film - with cold, mournful eyes. In a word, stunning.From here, we begin with the chapter "A LOST PARADISE". In something that resembles a present day Lisbon, we meet our leading lady Aurora (Laura Soveral). A compulsive gambler whose memories are slipping away from her, yet images of hairy monkeys and African farmers still manage to pervade her dreams. Whilst she tries to recall her youth with altruistic next-door-neighbour Pilar (Teresa Madruga) and Santa (Isabel Cardoso), a black woman whom Aurora often woefully calls a housemaid/tyrannous witch, the fatalism of the prologue suggests that Aurora will only be able to relive her glory days in the afterlife.Cue part 2, "PARADISE". Told through vivid flashbacks and narration from former lover Gian- Luca Venture, we're finally made aware of Aurora's past once lost. Married to a wealthy farmer in the idyllic rural setting of Mozambique, Aurora embarks on a fiery affair with the devilishly handsome nomad Ventura, after her eager pet crocodile crossed the forbidden line into his neighbouring garden. It's a time of lost innocence and furtive whispers, so Gomes decides to strip away all forms of diegetic sound, leaving just the bodies and faces of incredible actors Ana Moreira and Carloto Cotta to express this simple, enduring love.Like Leos Carax's comeback success Holy Motors, Tabu is a film entrenched in film history and scholarly technique (unsurprising considering that they both started out as film critics). But Gomes goes one step further. Filmed in intoxicating black & white by cinematographer Rui Poças, Tabu is beautifully photographed; from the alarmingly stark opening image of a sweaty explorer looking lost in an African jungle, to the final image of a baby crocodile turning away from the camera and crawling out of frame. In an inspired touch, the two halves are filmed in different film stocks – the first in familiar 35mm, and the second in exquisitely old-fashioned 16mm. They mingle together to create a film with a perennial quality, existing as a piece of cinematic artifice but with a modern, reflexive twist.Similarly, the sound construction is unnervingly good. Mixing the deadened silence with ambient sounds, poetic narration and a Portuguese rendition of "Be My Little Baby" (made famous by The Ronettes) the composite sonisphere speaks for the unspoken, tabooed love to exceptionally powerful effect.Because the film's aesthetic is so dazzling, it's easy to lose track of the whimsical storyline. Based on diary entries and private letters, it has a very nostalgic feel, similar to Chris Marker's Sans Soleil. Just like that film, Tabu isn't a perfect movie, there's pacing issues and Gomes seems to be wrestling with three separate endings. But there's enough moments of unforgettable virtuosity, grace and intellect to make Tabu unmissable.More reviews at www.366movies.com