7.6
Miguel Gomes recreates cinema’s selective memory for Europe’s colonial past in this unconventional black-and-white romance
Movie
Brazil, France
English, Polish, Portuguese
Drama, Romance
2012
MIGUEL GOMES
Ana Moreira, Carloto Cotta, Henrique Espírito Santo
120 min
TLDR
It’s always a pleasure to find a film that does something we haven’t seen before.
What it's about
While their friend Aurora has become ill with delusions, two of her neighbors, Pilar and Santa, learn about the lover that she left in Africa, the passionate affair she had as a farm owner in one of the Portuguese colonies.
The take
Something about falling in love in an exotic place makes it feel much more romantic, leading to plenty of classic black and white films centered on the idea, with a visual language and a set of aesthetics meticulously enacted in 2012’s Tabu. These classic films, however, rarely contemplate the actual reality behind these films– the reason that made these romantic trips possible in the first place. Tabu subtly critiques this indulgent imagination, with the silent memory melodramatically portrayed and narrated by the white lovers, but with the African natives and their homes and landscapes depicted naturally. Writer-director Miguel Gomes remixes classic cinema techniques to paint and reframe the lovers’ myopic memory, in such a striking fashion.
What stands out
Filming a silent film paired with narration to depict selective memory is such a brilliant move. It’s because of this experiment Tabu can’t be compared.
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