Tabu [DVD] [2012]

AN EXCELLENT AND AVANTGARDE PICTURE WHICH DESERVESTHE BEST AND GRATEFUL AUDIENCE

This is probably the only film where a crocodile and a ghost sit side by side next to a river. "Tabu" is quite an oddball effort, divided into two parts - one is Lisbon in winter and the other is the steamy landscape of colonial Africa. Though both are in black and white, the African sections are filmed as silents, even using a different film stock to make the transition to an older time feel more distinct. The connecting link is the story of Aurora, now a dying woman who asks a friend to inquire about her former Italian lover.It's a film - like a moving impressionist painting - about loneliness, longing, memory - of forgotten love affairs and dangerous places - in the world and in the heart. Since this movie does not follow any typical familiar Western narrative structure, you simply will have to experience it as...texture, music, and mood. Portuguese "Fado" is like that. I particularly looked forward to the African sequences which have no dialogue other than the old lover's monologue and background sounds, even some popular music.In summary, the director, as artist, is dramatizing how our imperfect memories reimagine the past. Now "that" is using cinema in a creative way.

A 2012 Portuguese drama begins with a sort of metaphorical prologue about an adventurer, which is followed by the main story, told in two parts. In the first part, Aurora (Laura Soveral), an eccentric eighty-something old lady, often gambling in the casino, asks her housemaid Santa (Isabel Cardoso) and neighbor Pilar (Teresa Madruga) to find a man named Gian-Luca Ventura. Aurora is clearly dying.Cue to the second part, where the story goes back in time to fifty years ago somewhere in Portuguese-colonized Africa. We meet young Aurora (Ana Moreira), married, who meets a traveler Gian-Luca Ventura (Carloto Cotta). Told entirely in a voiceover (without dialogue), the melodramatic story follows the fates of Aurora and Gian-Luca.Portuguese critic-turned-film director Miguel Gomes pays tribute to "Tabu," F. W. Murnau's final film made in 1931 (which also has a two-part narrative structure). Film critics would have a field day with this new film that seems to consciously play on many narrative conventions, with each shot carefully framed. But to me, Gomes' "Tabu" is a typical case of style-over-substance, though I admit I am impressed with the photography (especially that of the second segment) meticulously re-creating the black-and-white images of the classic films.The acting cannot be faulted. Ana Moreira is excellent as young Aurora. Two Ronettes cover songs ("Be My Baby" and "Baby I Love You," both sung in Portuguese) are effectively used. Her performance and the Ronettes songs, albeit briefly, bring in something emotional that is missing in "Tabu," a film that is beautiful to look at but too self-conscious for us to fully enjoy.

"Tabu" is not a bad film, at least, entirely. It is made of an introduction presenting a sort of legend about a lady ghost and a crocodile, and two short films. While different in plot, according to what I read, "Tabu" is inspired by a 1931 film with the same title and split in two parts with the same names as well.The first one is called "Lost Paradise". In my opinion, it is this short film the one that ruins the entire experience. First of all, the black and white doesn't work, at least for me, for a story set in modern times. The place is Lisbon, and it's the story of Pilar and Aurora: two older ladies who suffer from loneliness. The major problem with this first part of the film is the acting and the dialogues. Everything feels stiff and mechanical. The actresses representing Pilar and Aurora are good, but I think it's the script what conveys an atmosphere that comes across as listless rather than melancholic, as it pretends to be. The girl who plays the friend of Pilar's daughter is the worst of all; she even sounds and moves like a robot, although, fortunately, she plays a short part. To be honest, this first part is a "lost" case without any redemption. I thought it was boring and I would not watch it again.The second part is called "Paradise". It is this part, in my opinion, the one that modestly saves the film. The plot, which has to do with Aurora's youth, has been done before over and over, so there is nothing new here. However, perhaps it is the African setting, perhaps it is the narration, this story of unrequited love set in colonial times, where the black and white actually works, is very romantic in an old fashion kind of way. It is completely narrated with no dialogues at all, but it is almost like a poem with a silent film feel to it. This part of the film I would watch again.This was my first Portuguese film, and while I am not utterly impressed with this one, I am still curious to watch more Portuguese films. All in all, a film whose second part is worth watching is you're in the mood for an old fashion story of unrequited love done in modern times.

A strangely haunting, atmospheric and disturbing film about obsession. This film demonstrates how the destructiveness of obsessive-compulsive thinking can take hold in one's own life, and through us, lives of others, both in the present and the future. In this case, the obsession changed its focus from sexual obsession to gambling, the latter conducted as if in a dream.The crocodile represents the symbolic aspects of both repetitively returning to something familiar, alongside an omnipresent self-destructiveness and threat. The creature is there, half submerged, representing the conscious and the unconscious aspects of the behaviour of the protagonists: particularly the female lead.If ever there was an argument for Freud's theory of the unconscious in the sense that what is not consciously known, and therefore an aspect of the 'unthought known' can and will be acted out in another form, this is it.

Tedious and predictable from the opening frame. Ennui sets in rapidly, then aggravation. Wish I could say less. However, the two shorts were fascinating.

Made me want to learn Portuguese. Fab music. Not sure what genre you might put this movie in. All ways up, a pleasure.

I love it! It has very quickly made it to the forefront of my all-time fave films, right up there with Babette's Feast and Tokyo Story.It's that rare film I can, and will, watch again and again.I've bought several copies of the DVDs as surprise presents for my friends. Incredibly talented works like this must be shared, and savoured.

Good film.