Tabu, Miguel Gomes 2012
Tabu would have to be my favourite film from 2013.
At the start of the year I was walking in to my local Palace Cinema and was arrested by the powerful imagery of the large film poster erected at the cinema entrance. It's a beautiful portrait of the young couple and I expected that the actual film may possibly pail in comparison to the poster, but fortunately for the history of cinema, I was wrong.
Tabu is enchanting, mesmerising, and all those cliche terms which tend to induce eye-rolling on my part.
 |
| Ana Moreira |
 |
| Carloto Cotta |
Told in two parts and photographed in black and white (with both parts being shot on different film stock), the film begins ('Paradise Lost') in present-day Lisbon, with the second chapter ('Paradise') moving to mid-century colonial Africa in a village at the foot of Mt Tabu.
 |
| Laura Soveral as Aurora in part one |
Part one follows the daily happenings of Pilar (Teresa Madruga), including her role as caring neighbour to the elderly and troubled Aurora (Laura Soveral). When Aurora becomes critically ill, a man is summoned to her bedside, and his identity is eventually revealed as a long-lost love from Aurora's younger years.
Although the first half of the film is well done, it is the beguiling 'Paradise' which draws you in deeper and takes
Tabu to a new realm.
This second part charts the duration of the love affair between Aurora and Gian Luca (now played by Ana Moreira and Carloto Cotta) amid the leafy, humid foothills of tropical Tabu.
Gomes masterfully omits all dialogue from this second part of the film, although leaving all other diegetic sound on track. The audience hears the sounds of the tropics, the rustle of trees, calls of wildlife; and the scratchy sound of '60s rock 'n' roll playing on a turntable. This stylistic choice helped me to actively focus on the characters, reading their faces and body language to decipher emotion, rather than simply listening to a character's dialogue.
A beautifully composed, stylish, nostalgic film with touches of both melancholy and comedy. Aesthetically rich and filled with great beauty,
Tabu effectively conveys a strong sense of place, time, young love, and loss.
