Miguel Gomes is a Portuguese filmmaker with a knack of re-tingling the spine of cinematic arts. His style of infusing his images with their own narrative qualities, and upholding the importance of music as equal to dialogue, has procured a list of innovative works usually falling under the phrase “uncategorizable”. His latest piece Tabu, shares the same sentiments. You can read the following summary for more details (via Berlinale 2012):

“Aurora, an elderly Portugese woman and her Cap Verdean housekeeper live next door to Pilar, who has made it her aim in life to do good. Not that she receives any gratitude for her efforts – and certainly not from the notoriously mistrustful Aurora, who prefers to spend her remaining years losing her meagre savings at Estoril casino. When the old lady dies, Pilar discovers among her belongings a letter addressed to an old lover. Pilar decides to post the letter, thus ushering in a flashback to the second part of the film – and adventurous amour fou set in colonial Africa.

Making a film without referring to film history is unthinkable for director Miguel Gomes, and it’s no coincidence that his film has the same title as Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau’s Tabu. In his third feature film outing Gomes playfully interprets and rearranges historical events. Whilst the first part of his film is in black-and-white and portrays a society wallowing in nostalgia, the second part delivers everything they long for: stirring melodrama, slapstick, juxtaposition and passion.”

Watch the full trailer embedded down below! No english subtitles at the moment.

Tabu, 2012


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