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The brainchild of German genius F.W. Murnau and documentary innovator Robert J. Flaherty (of Nanook of the North (1922) fame), Tabu uses the beautiful, untouched landscape of the South Pacific and employs non- professional natives to tell the beautiful story of love found and lost, and ultimately the death of paradise. Murnau died in an automobile accident shortly before the film's premiere and, thus, was his last gift to the movie-going world. Though it doesn't come close to the iconic expressionist horror of Nosferatu (1922) or the dark, satirical humour of The Last Laugh (1924), Murnau's epitaph is a simple, yet heart- wrenching cinematic poem.

The best spear-fisherman on Bora Bora is a handsome young man billed simply as The Boy (Matahi). His legendary status and unparalleled skill makes him popular amongst the islanders, and soon he has caught the eye of The Girl (Reri - who went on to star on Broadway as Anne Chevalier). They romance each other, but their affair is soon halted by the arrival of emissary The Old Warrior (Hitu), who proclaims Reri as the sacred maiden. She is 'tabu', and cannot be looked upon by any man unless he wishes the punishment of death. The couple brave storm and sea to escape, an arrive in a French-colonised island, where Matahi start work as a pearl diver. But their happiness is fleeting, and Reri is soon haunted by the image of Hitu, terrified she may have angered the gods.

The plot is hardly anything new, but Floyd Crosby's Oscar-winning cinematography makes Tabu more socially aware that the film may have you believe. The subtle yet crucial involvement of the French colonists, finding amusement at Matahi's lack of understanding regarding money and material wealth, is a clear swipe at the creeping of Western civilisation. Bora Bora won't stay pure for much longer. And that adds a gravitas to Matahi and Reri's plight - not only is their romance doomed, but so are their traditions and society. It is one of the last great silent films, a reminder that sound can be an unnecessary distraction, and that picture's can sometimes genuinely speak louder than words.

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In one island of Bora Bora lagoon, a young fisherman, Matahi, is in love with Reri. But she is chosen to be the holy maid and therefore becomes "tabu". They ran away from that tradition. Will they be happier and luckier in the more "civilized" society?

Sadly, this was to be F. W. Murnau's last film. Despite a short life, he made many great films (including this one)... and then came a car accident that left us without another three or four decades of genius.

On the bright side, cinematographer Floyd Crosby won an Academy Award for Best Cinematography for his work on this film. Crosby went on to work for a great many years, bringing out the best in such directors as Roger Corman. In "Tabu", he uses the camera to tell a story without words -- body language and eye movement tell us almost everything we need to follow the plot.

The film was not a box office success upon release, grossing just $472,000 worldwide, which failed to recoup Murnau and Paramount's investment. This seems odd today, when it is considered a classic, but there is no secret that critically successful films and commercially successful films are not always the same thing.

The Image DVD features commentary by film historian Janet Bergstrom, which is quite excellent. Other editions feature other commentary, but I have not heard it and cannot compare.

For discerning fans of classic filmmaking, the surviving work of director F.W. Murnau remains some of the most significant and stunning of the silent era. Filmed entirely in Tahiti, `Tabu' would prove to be Murnau's last film (he died in a tragic car accident on March 11, 1931, just weeks before the film's premiere) and most unusual - he actually collaborated with director Robert Flaherty (`Nanook of the North') in this tale of two doomed lovers that unintentionally transports `Romeo and Juliet' into the South Pacific. Unlike his landmark expressionist titles such as `Nosferatu' and `Faust,' Murnau's `Tabu' is set mostly outdoors and features dazzling images of beautiful young native men and women at home in their Polynesian paradise in the first part of the film, with haunting images used to chronicle tragedy and paradise lost in the second half of the 81 minute classic.

Although no members of the cast were professional actors, the performances by Matahi (as a young pearl fisherman) and Reri (as the `tabu' island girl) are moving. More than 70 years after its release, `Tabu' remains essential viewing, and UCLA's restoration of this classic has been a highlight of the schedule of new DVD releases in 2002. In fact, the film's luxurious black-and-white cinematography garnered cameraman Floyd Crosby an Oscar. DVD extras include audio commentary by UCLA Film Professor Janet Bergstrom; outtake footage; theatrical trailer; still gallery; short film titled `Reri in New York.'

People with prejudice against silent films should see "Tabu"; it´s a masterpiece of cinema. The storyline is superb, a struggle not between good and evil, but between human will and fate; there´s a beautiful love story of natives of the South Seas, mystery and suspense; and, to boot, some of the most wonderful sights you´ve ever seen in a b&w flick. The anthropological genius of Robert O´Flaherty, and the creativeness of F.W. Murnau cannot be denied; this is the meeting of two movie titans.

The cinematography of this film puts most modern films to shame. You don't even notice it is a silent film because every scene is self-explanatory and needs little or no dialogue. The actors were great considering they were not professionals. The direction is superb. This is a must see film; silent or otherwise.

There has never been another film like "Tabu". This is a unique blending of ethnographic documentary and expressionist drama, from two directors who were masters of these forms.

The actors are real Polynesians and their ceremonies and rituals are faithfully captured, and interwoven with a tragic love story. The cinematography deservedly won an Oscar - it is truly beautiful. Murnau, away from his usual studio sets, manages to create the same sense of danger using natural light - especially moonlight - and real locations.

The performances are very strong - especially Chevalier as the girl, and the old man is as scary as Nosferatu as he haunts her dreams at night.

Sadly this was Murnau's last film - he died in a car crash just before the premiere. It is a little dramatically uneven, and certainly not the masterpiece that "Sunrise" is, but it is still very worthwhile.

"Tabu" is a visually arresting black-and-white silent...and that's a good thing because there's not much else going on here to occupy your mind. Heavy-handed "plot" about a doomed beauty on primitive Bora Bora who flees her island home and family with her lover, unable to escape her unlucky fate, is cast with real islanders so you cannot fault the authenticity; however, there's nobody in the film who leaves an impression. The movie began life as a documentary, but director F.W. Murnau pushed for a fictional storyline to propel the visuals, and this may have been a mistake. As it unfolds, one can see shot after shot of beautiful images that would look wonderful in a coffee-table book for the tiki lounge set, but the dated dramatics muddy things up. Floyd Crosby won a well-deserved Oscar for his cinematography. **1/2 from ****

The movie is no way near as a good as Murnau's most previous movies, mainly because it isn't really anything innovation. For his standards, this is a pretty standard piece of work. This no doubt also has to do with the fact that during the beginning of production acclaimed documentary maker Robert J. Flaherty (the man who also made "Nanook of the North") was also at the helm but slowly got pushed away by F.W. Murnau as filming progressed. Two captains on one ship just never work out, especially not when they have different expertise's. It's the reason why the movie at times looks as if its a documentary about the natives and at others the movie follows obviously a story. But having said that this is no way near close to being F.W. Murnau's best, says nothing about the quality of this actual film. It's a worthy enough last picture of the German director, who gave us movies such as "Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens", "Der Letzte Mann" and "Faust", before dying in a car crash, one week before the release of this movie. He was one of the most influential directors of the silent film era, even though this last movie doesn't fully does justice to this reputation.

The movie just wasn't always much interesting to me. Perhaps I just didn't liked or cared enough about its subject of a group of natives on Bora-Bora. The movie of course looks visually good and shows lot of the customs and lifestyle of the natives but the story just doesn't ever get off the ground. Perhaps this is also due to the fact that this is a silent movie, so without any dialogs but also without title cards as well. It only uses some monologues and a couple of letters that are being read and written by some of the characters within the movie.

A 'movie' that is worth a watch but don't expect anything typical Murnau.

7/10

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Watching as much stuff as I do, it was a matter of time before I got to another Murnau movie. Actually coming to think about it, it took way longer than one might have expected. That being said I doubt that this will touch a nerve as much as some of his other work did. Not because I think this isn't any good. No I'd say this is very well made, especially considering the circumstances and the time it was made (almost a hundred years ago).

This being b/w and "silent" already may make it something that some people will rather stray away from. You can't blame those for feeling this has not aged well. Technically speaking - but that is to ex-and suspected. If you can suspend your disbelief and concentrate on the (love) story ... on the story of fate and will ... this has mystery and suspense to boost to keep you on the edge for its entire short running time.

Director F.W. Murnau wisely stuck with the silent film medium he knew so well to cover this story of native islander life in the South Seas. The documentary style works very well for the first half of the movie. The landscapes are beautiful, and the daily life activities of the islanders are interesting to watch. The film loses momentum, though, when it begins to concentrate more on the narrative story of two doomed lovers. The storyline just never gets that interesting, despite being handled well by Murnau. Won an Academy Award for best cinematography, although the award probably should have been for best scenery. You can't really credit the DP for getting to shoot in such a beautiful location.

Tabu might best be described as ethnographic-fiction which combines Robert J. Flaherty's documentary style with F.W. Murnau visual sensibilities. The result is one of the last great silent era films. The naturalistic setting is perfectly matched by the realistic acting of the non-traditional cast, the local Polynesian people. As a tragic love story, the plot is deceptively simple, yet it is unexpectedly engaging. Murnau's expressionist background continues to be expressed through his artful use of light and shadow. His decision not to use inter-titles to explain dialogue was perhaps the most fitting to the story and the setting, leaving the majority of the plot development to the actions of the characters and the work of the camera (Klaus Ming November 2008).

It's a shame that director F.W. Murnau died in a car accident before the film opened and died at 42, and it's also a shame that this was last film, because it's of the expeditionary type that's bound to be conflicting, with the usual contradictory mix of cultural respect, condescension, and outright voyeurism. Oh, he elevates it, with the beautiful scenery made even more so with his angles and his framing, and the story he tells of a pair of young lovers (Anne Chevalier and Matahi) is one that has a universality to it underneath all of the culture-specific practices and the taboo which threatens to separate them. I doubt many think about the performance from Chevalier when they think of this film, but it's quite good, and the final scenes that lead up to the ending are brilliant.

At the same time, Murnau's lens spends a fair amount of time ogling topless young women, such as the extended scene of one dancing the hula, or something like it. There is unadulterated joy in her performance and the people in the cast (mostly natives) are truly beautiful, but at the same time, I cringe a little thinking of theaters packed mostly with men who were allowed to see nudity because those on the screen were viewed as somehow different from people, and all under the marketing of highbrow entertainment. It's kind of like issues of National Geographic in the 1950's-60's in this way. There were a host of these films in this period, some of which didn't include nudity (White Shadows in the South Seas, The Pagan, Bird of Paradise) but which are perhaps just as conflicting, and others which did (Tabu, Goona-Goona, Virgins of Bali) and often in salacious ways. It's fascinating and seen today, seems to reveal as much about 1930's America as it does about anything we learn about the customs of the islanders.

Regardless, this is certainly one of the better films of this type. I enjoyed it because the scenery was stunning and the story was a good one. The underwater sequence and shark had both camp value and drama. In addition to the sexy hula dance, there are little moments like an accordion player who jumps up and shakes his stuff in a way that was pretty funny. The figure of the old man enforcing the tabu (Hitu) who solemnly appears again and again is like a silent version of Death in Bergman's The Seventh Seal, and with similar gravitas in his screen presence. The knife cutting moment is breathtaking, and the film ends very strong.

"Taboe" is the last film of Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau. He made it together with Robert Flaherty, father of the documentary and ethnographic film. In my opinion the combination proves to be however less than the sum of the constituent parts. The film is not a real Murnau and also not a real Flaherty, but something stuck in the middle.

In 1927 with "Sunrise" Murnau had already made a film about a couple that seemed to be doomed. "Tabu" is not of the same quality as "Sunrise", although there are a couple of scenes that come close. I am thinking especially about the scenes of the initiation ritual of Reri (the girl), the wedding scene of Reri and Matahi (the boy) and the tragic ending scene.

The scene of the initiation ritual is somewhat cynical. We see young people performing a very sensual dance, but at the same time the purpose of the ritual is to declare a girl as holy virgin. After the ceremony a normal sex life will be strictly forbidden for this girl.

Tabu : A Story Of The South Seas (1931) : Brief Review -

A Suitable Classic End to the Legendary Filmography of Master F. W. Murnau. Tabu means Taboo (in English) and Murnau's tragic love tale set in South seas tried breaking a taboo set by other love saga which end typically either on happy note or sad one. The best explanation of this film in modern language is, it's a Romeo-Juliet tale with a haunting and taboo-breaking ending. On the South Pacific island of Bora Bora, a young couple's love is threatened when the tribal chief declares the girl a sacred virgin. The couple escapes and lives on some other Island far away from tribal community where they get exploited by western civilization. The film ends with an artistic expression but i am not sure whether everyone will understand the same meaning of it. Some might take it as a tragedy and some might find metaphorical touch related to the word 'Tabu'. I am going with the second theory because i liked it more and it was different from typical tragic end. Murnau's poetic and ornamental storytelling gives it a regional touch in which the entire tribal universe looks fascinating. He also trained natives to work in the film as crew members and actors to make it look more real. And all the actors in the film actually looked like living the characters as they didn't have to act professionally. Cinematography of Crosby won the deserving Oscar doll and one must notice how he shot those long shots on Seas and quick takes on shore. Unfortunately this was Murnau's last time and i feel very sad that we missed many classics he would have made later. But i am happy that even his last film suits the high standard of his legendary Filmography. Overall, Tabu is proper send off to the Master Director and even with his last he didn't fail to impress. He made a classy thing yet again and left so influences from this one too.

RATING - 8/10*

By - #samthebestest

This beautiful and simple story of a South Seas love and loss romance might be the last great silent from the era. Along with City Lights (made the same year) it may well be credited as the apogee of the silent period even with the writing on the wall ( microphones in the plants) since 1927.

On the island of Bora Bora experiencing the full bloom of youth and beauty a girl and boy find love. Her radiance however is coveted by the Old Warrior who holds huge sway over his people as he demands she be his next wife. The lovers run off, find safe haven and employment on a more "civilized island" where the locals and Asian merchants exploit their innocence. Bribing a local cop, he's allowed to stay on but the threat of the Old Warrior causes vacillation on the girl's part who struggles with the fact that the only way to save her lover is to leave him.

FW Murnau's last film was fraught with budget and personality difficulties as he and his co-director Robert Flaherty did not see eye to eye. Distilling to a native crew and relying on Floyd Crosby's outstanding capture of the island paradise, it's people and the unabashed joie de vivre of a life in the sun Murnau movingly follows his doomed duo stranded in Eden, hunted by a stoic resolve that builds to a dire crescendo. Trapped by tradition, exploited by modern society Murnau paints his pair of protagonists into a corner and in the process paints a masterpiece of simple storytelling of his own.

What a wonderful party the tribal people threw at the 25:00 minute mark and lasted till 32:00. This serves as the high point of the film Murnau composed. There's a bit too much operatic storytelling in this film, and not enough documentary observation on the life a South Sea islander lives.

An evening spent with a silent film is an evening well spent, especially when the film in question is as great as Murnau's swan song - a fatalist ballad of doomed, star-crossed lovers. From the very opening which is the only scene directed by the co-writer Robert J. Flaherty, it is apparent that we are in for a delightful treat.

Taken to an earthly paradise of the Bora Bora island, we are introduced to a group of indigenous fishermen one of whom will turn out to be the tragic hero. This young man by the name of Matahi falls for a beautiful maiden, Reri, but their romance gets nipped in the bud when the girl is chosen as the successor to the sacred virgin of the Fanuma tribe. From that point forth, she is tabu and to break that tabu means death, as we are informed by an elder, Hitu, who delivers his chief's message. Fleeing from the clutches of strict customs embodied by the said geezer, the couple arrives to another island, only to be unknowingly caught in the gnawing maw of western civilization which has already infested those parts. Initially, their escape appears successful, but Fate has something else in the bag for them...

Essentially, Tabu is a Romeo and Juliet story ably relocated to the breathtaking Pacific setting and transformed into a compelling piece of docufiction. Split in two parts aptly titled Paradise and Paradise Lost, it is both poetic and anthropological, and a fine example of the 'show, don't tell' method, with text cards utilized sparsely, as well as creatively, and with good deal of information being provided by virtue of the wonderfully captured imagery (many kudos to DoP Floyd Crosby). Murnau elicits outstanding performances from the non-professional cast who reveal a surprisingly wide range of emotions through their gestures and facial expressions, thus making their characters convincing, sympathetic and impossible not to root for. The chemistry between the leads is natural, and their struggle against the cruel side of tradition is deeply felt. As the viewer is immersed into the islanders' simple, sunbathed and ostensibly carefree everyday, the gloom gradually seeps in, dissolving the aura of joy and innocence that once surrounded Reri and Matahi.

Brimful of kinetic energy reaching its maximum in the lively hula dancing and boat rowing sequences, and imbued with ravishing, exotic beauty whose colors can be seen despite the monochromatic cinematography, Tabu progresses at brisk pace, putting motion (with capital M) in motion picture, with the evocative mixture of classical and traditional music operating as the propellant. Its universal appeal and undeniable timelessness are reflected in simultaneously candid and idealized depictions of those small, yet meaningful moments that people experience in their pursuit for happiness, whether they decide to break some rules or not...

Though beautifully shot, this is - in fact - rather a horrible film! Set on the peaceful and beautiful island of Bora Bora, we meet a young girl "Reri" (Anne Chavalier) who is selected by the chief to be the next sacred virgin. This is an honour, a position that will earn her respect and comfort but it will deny her that which she craves the most - her true love (Matahi). Desperate, the two decide to abscond and he finds himself eking a living in a more venal, European, community where his angry Gods lack any power but where his lack of familiarity with the very concept of money soon sees him, quite literally, swimming in a sea of debt. Meantime, the chief back home (Hitu) has declared that there needs to be a search for them that involves the police (Bill Bambridge). When the officer tracks them down and they face arrest, the young man resorts to even more dangerous diving - amidst sharks - to obtain the pearls he needs to pay off his creditors so they can skedaddle again. Of course, the best laid plans and all that, and when he returns to their shack, he finds that she has decided to sacrifice her happiness and return to their home... Can they reunite? This film cleverly marries a mixture of ritualism and emotion, and illustrates really quite clearly just how incompatible they can be. A young couple doing no harm to anyone, in a nation that would ordinarily embrace their affection, find themselves forced by superstition to flee, to compromise and to live in fear. The whole film has a futility to it that's writ large and is actually quite exasperating to watch. Leave them be, for heaven's sake! Find another virgin? I'm not sure if F. W. Murnau is having a go at religiosity, or at the fallibility of love itself - and that ambiguity makes this all the more interesting to watch. The fact that even they knew their relationship was likely to end in disappointing failure still didn't deter them from earning the enmity of their leaders and the authorities - yet instinct and their visceral need for each other overrode those palpably presented dangers. That the setting is so idealistic and benign seems to rub salt into their wounds and as love stories go, this is probably the one that most tugged on my heart-strings. It does look super on a big screen if you can, and the subject does give a rich bed for the accompanist to play both rousingly and tenderly.

In my opinion, Lang was always the superior German filmmaker. Murnau's films are simply boring when compared to other films of his era, and Tabu is no exception. Murnau expects us to care about the love story, but he rarely shows any intimate moments between the two other than their sleeping. The scenes are long-winded and spoon-fed. However, I have no doubt that just seeing a Polynesian island people on location was a spectacle for American audiences at the time who had probably never even seen a PI before, even in pictures. The film unfortunately can't decide if it's a documentary or a fictional love story. It had potential to be something different, like a critique of colonialism, but it never follows this potential.