The good news is that Pacifiction, the latest feature from Catalan auteur Albert Serra, who’s only in his 40s but directs like a grand old man of the 1960s avant-garde, is quite watchable, even sort of plot-driven — for a Serra film.
It’s got a fun central performance from Benoît Magimel and a spectacular Tahitian location. There’s even a surfing scene, the closest Serra may have ever gotten to an action sequence. On the other hand, it is still a 162-minute slog. And that aforementioned plot is a very attenuated, listless creature, telling a murky — in every sense — tale of political intrigue and municipal power struggles that refuses to be resolved or reveal any mysteries by the end. It’s like a Polynesian version of Chinatown but made by a cast and crew stoned on rum and ketamine. Forget it, Jake, it’s Papeete.
Highbrow viewers who like...
It’s got a fun central performance from Benoît Magimel and a spectacular Tahitian location. There’s even a surfing scene, the closest Serra may have ever gotten to an action sequence. On the other hand, it is still a 162-minute slog. And that aforementioned plot is a very attenuated, listless creature, telling a murky — in every sense — tale of political intrigue and municipal power struggles that refuses to be resolved or reveal any mysteries by the end. It’s like a Polynesian version of Chinatown but made by a cast and crew stoned on rum and ketamine. Forget it, Jake, it’s Papeete.
Highbrow viewers who like...
- 5/27/2022
- by Leslie Felperin
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Catalan artist and director Albert Serra returns to Cannes Film Festival Official Competition with a rarity for him, a contemporary feature film, not what we have come to expect from this filmmaker who usually works in period pieces. And even though he is not French he has made a fascinating movie all in French and set in the colorful French Polynesia island of Tahiti.
It works on many levels, taking its time in two hours and forty five minutes to create a portrait of an enigmatic man named De Roller (Benoit Magimel) who seems to say whatever thought pops in his head at any given moment, an odd duck not necessarily playing with reality, or so it appears. He is the top ranking French official in the Islands, the High Commissioner of the Republic who mainly describes himself to the locals as just a...
It works on many levels, taking its time in two hours and forty five minutes to create a portrait of an enigmatic man named De Roller (Benoit Magimel) who seems to say whatever thought pops in his head at any given moment, an odd duck not necessarily playing with reality, or so it appears. He is the top ranking French official in the Islands, the High Commissioner of the Republic who mainly describes himself to the locals as just a...
- 5/26/2022
- by Pete Hammond
- Deadline Film + TV
By 1931, nearly the entirety of the film industry had not only gained the capabilities to make sound pictures, but appeared to leave silent cinema completely behind. Save for a few iconic artists like Charlie Chaplin, who stuck with silent cinema aesthetics for quite some time after the growth of sound in cinema, the medium had all but shifted into both sound storytelling, and the stationary camera that it would need.
And then there is Tabu. From not only one, but two of those iconic artists mentioned in the paragraph above, this brisk and powerful journey into the South Seas was created by the pair of F.W. Murnau and Nanook of the North director Robert J. Flaherty, and tells a story only these two legendary filmmakers could. Blending both Murnau’s beautiful, expressionistic filmmaking with the cultural focus that made the heart of Flaherty’s work beat, Tabu became a film...
And then there is Tabu. From not only one, but two of those iconic artists mentioned in the paragraph above, this brisk and powerful journey into the South Seas was created by the pair of F.W. Murnau and Nanook of the North director Robert J. Flaherty, and tells a story only these two legendary filmmakers could. Blending both Murnau’s beautiful, expressionistic filmmaking with the cultural focus that made the heart of Flaherty’s work beat, Tabu became a film...
- 12/16/2015
- by Joshua Brunsting
- CriterionCast
Tabu: A Story of the South Seas
Written by (Told by): F.W. Murnau and Robert J. Flaherty
Directed by F.W. Murnau
USA, 1931
Compared to John Ford’s studio-bound—though still highly appealing—South Seas adventure The Hurricane, recently reviewed here, Tabu: A Story of the South Seas, directed by the great German filmmaker F.W. Murnau, is a patently more realistic and wholly distinctive production. Aside from its genuine French Polynesian locations (Bora Bora and Tahiti), Murnau’s silent 1931 film features a cast consisting almost entirely of actual island inhabitants, rather than Hollywood stars, thus resulting in a generally less strained authenticity. Not necessarily a better film for this reason alone, Tabu, even with its fictional plot, is nevertheless a purer and more revealing historical and scenic document.
Directed by Murnau and “told by” he and renowned documentarian Robert J. Flaherty (of Nanook of the North [1922] fame), Tabu is divided into two chapters.
Written by (Told by): F.W. Murnau and Robert J. Flaherty
Directed by F.W. Murnau
USA, 1931
Compared to John Ford’s studio-bound—though still highly appealing—South Seas adventure The Hurricane, recently reviewed here, Tabu: A Story of the South Seas, directed by the great German filmmaker F.W. Murnau, is a patently more realistic and wholly distinctive production. Aside from its genuine French Polynesian locations (Bora Bora and Tahiti), Murnau’s silent 1931 film features a cast consisting almost entirely of actual island inhabitants, rather than Hollywood stars, thus resulting in a generally less strained authenticity. Not necessarily a better film for this reason alone, Tabu, even with its fictional plot, is nevertheless a purer and more revealing historical and scenic document.
Directed by Murnau and “told by” he and renowned documentarian Robert J. Flaherty (of Nanook of the North [1922] fame), Tabu is divided into two chapters.
- 12/16/2015
- by Jeremy Carr
- SoundOnSight
Paul W.S. Anderson has continued his explorations in 3D cinema with his latest film, Pompeii. It’s a simplistic love story in the vein of Titanic, two mismatched, class-divided lovers contrasted against one of history’s worst natural disasters. The story concerns a Celtic gladiator named Milo (Kit Harrington), who witnessed the slaughter of his family by the Roman Empire, under the command of Corvus (Kiefer Sutherland). Soon, after being spotted as a promising business prospect for Pompeii’s gladiator games, Milo is sent to the titular city. While on the way, he first meets Cassia (Emily Browning), the melancholic (by way of Kate Winslet in Titanic) daughter of the wealthy class. After arriving in Pompeii, Milo meets fellow slave and gladiator Atticus (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje), and they soon become friends, bonded by their captivity. Corvus, now a senator, arrives in Pompeii to broker a land deal, and with all the players now arrived,...
- 11/18/2014
- by John Lehtonen
- MUBI
The Moon, the opposite of the sun, hovers over us by night, the opposite of day.
In F.W. Murnau’s Tabu (1931), Reri, the sacred maiden of the small island of Bora Bora, writes this to her lover Matahi:
And indeed, when Matahi chases after her, the moon spreads its path on the sea.
He runs and swims after her, moving faster than a normal human being, defying the laws of gravity.
Miraculously, he catches up to the boat.
Thus, he must die, sinking back into a void…
…while ghost ships linger on in the distance…
…carrying another hopeless romantic, and a moving corpse—A second Nosferatu.
The moon is absent in Murnau’s earlier film, made nearly ten years before Tabu, but it is in the one he made nearly five years after Nosferatu, when George O’Brien leaves his wife for a midnight rendezvous with another woman.
And indeed,...
In F.W. Murnau’s Tabu (1931), Reri, the sacred maiden of the small island of Bora Bora, writes this to her lover Matahi:
And indeed, when Matahi chases after her, the moon spreads its path on the sea.
He runs and swims after her, moving faster than a normal human being, defying the laws of gravity.
Miraculously, he catches up to the boat.
Thus, he must die, sinking back into a void…
…while ghost ships linger on in the distance…
…carrying another hopeless romantic, and a moving corpse—A second Nosferatu.
The moon is absent in Murnau’s earlier film, made nearly ten years before Tabu, but it is in the one he made nearly five years after Nosferatu, when George O’Brien leaves his wife for a midnight rendezvous with another woman.
And indeed,...
- 3/17/2014
- by Neil Bahadur
- MUBI
(Fw Murnau, 1931, Eureka!, PG)
One of the last classic silent movies, this supreme example of poetic cinema brought together the German expressionist Murnau with the American mining engineer turned ethnographic documentary film-maker Robert J Flaherty. Both were in their 40s, leaders in their field, yet discontented with Hollywood, which had brought Murnau to California where he'd just made three big, unprofitable films, one of them the universally acclaimed Sunrise. With studio money they escaped to spend a year around Tahiti making their "Story of the South Seas", recruiting non-professional talent to appear in a tale of the doomed romance between a handsome pearl fisherman, Matahi, and his exotic lover, Reri. Their idyllic romance is interrupted by her nomination as an untouchable priestess, and they flee to a neighbouring island that's been contaminated by civilisation and where they're pursued by a tribal shaman.
The film credits Murnau as director, Murnau and Flaherty as "told by" authors,...
One of the last classic silent movies, this supreme example of poetic cinema brought together the German expressionist Murnau with the American mining engineer turned ethnographic documentary film-maker Robert J Flaherty. Both were in their 40s, leaders in their field, yet discontented with Hollywood, which had brought Murnau to California where he'd just made three big, unprofitable films, one of them the universally acclaimed Sunrise. With studio money they escaped to spend a year around Tahiti making their "Story of the South Seas", recruiting non-professional talent to appear in a tale of the doomed romance between a handsome pearl fisherman, Matahi, and his exotic lover, Reri. Their idyllic romance is interrupted by her nomination as an untouchable priestess, and they flee to a neighbouring island that's been contaminated by civilisation and where they're pursued by a tribal shaman.
The film credits Murnau as director, Murnau and Flaherty as "told by" authors,...
- 7/20/2013
- by Philip French
- The Guardian - Film News
★★★★☆ Produced towards the end of the silent era, F.W. Murnau's Tabu: A Story of the South Seas (1931) was to be the legendary German director final film. A lyrical tragedy that imbues elements of factual and narrative filmmaking, Murnau's exotic adventure is a poetic Polynesian love story that effortless articulates its tale like an affectionately composed photo album. A tale of prohibited love across the south seas, Murnau's story concerns a young girl, Reri (Anne Chevalier), who's selected to be her tribe's sacred maiden and consecrated to the gods - making it 'taboo' for her to marry or for any man to lay eyes upon her.
This comes as devastating news to Matahi, Reri's young sweetheart, who must sit and watch as his beloved is whisked away to a neighbouring island. Fuelled by his intense emotions, he sails under the veiled glare of the moon to kidnap her. His...
This comes as devastating news to Matahi, Reri's young sweetheart, who must sit and watch as his beloved is whisked away to a neighbouring island. Fuelled by his intense emotions, he sails under the veiled glare of the moon to kidnap her. His...
- 6/25/2013
- by CineVue UK
- CineVue
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