Tabu

Tabu is a 2012 Portuguese independent black-and-white drama film directed by Miguel Gomes, the title of which references F. W. Murnau's silent film of the same name. The film competed at the 62nd Berlin International Film Festival, where it won the Alfred Bauer Award (Silver Bear for a feature film that opens new perspectives) and The International Federation of Film Critics (FIPRESCI) prizes. It won the Grand Prix at the 2012 edition of Film Fest Gent. Plot Prologue A narrator, Miguel Gomes himself, reads in voice-over a poetic and philosophical text that invokes a legend in which the Creator orders, but the heart commands: the suicide of an intrepid explorer who, somewhere in Africa, long ago, plunges into a turbid river after a frustrated love affair and is devoured by a crocodile. Many swear they have seen a beautiful woman and a sad crocodile on the riverbank and that the two share a mysterious empathy. Part 1—Paradise Lost Three disparate women dwell in an old building in Lisbon. Aurora, an octogenarian living off her pension, eccentric, talkative and superstitious, seeming more dead than alive, and Santa, her housemaid from Cape Verde, live at the same apartment. Santa is semi-literate, but proficient in the divinatory art of voodoo. Pilar, their neighbor and friend, a Catholic middle-aged woman, and militant social benefactor, involves herself in their psychodramas. Pilar has another friend, a romantic painter in love, a gentleman who insists on offering her tacky pieces of art. But Pilar is more concerned with Aurora: with Aurora's solitude, with her frequent escapes to the casino. She is even more worried about Santa, with her long silences and devil arts. Santa thinks it better to take care of oneself without annoying others, so keeps quiet.