Tabu (I) (2012)

A restless retired woman teams up with her deceased neighbor's maid to seek out a man who has a secret connection to her past life as a farm owner at the foothill of Mount Tabu in Africa.

Director:

Miguel Gomes

Writers:

Miguel Gomes, Mariana Ricardo

Stars:

Teresa Madruga, Laura Soveral, Ana Moreira

6 wins & 8 nominations.

Cast

Credited cast:
Teresa Madruga	...	Pilar
Laura Soveral	...	Old Aurora
Ana Moreira	...	Young Aurora
Henrique Espírito Santo	...	Old Ventura
Carloto Cotta	...	Young Ventura
Isabel Muñoz Cardoso	...	Santa (as Isabel Cardoso)
Ivo Müller	...	Aurora's Husband
Manuel Mesquita	...	Mário
Rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Paulo Amorim	...	Polish
Hortêncílio Aquina	...	Loador
Araceli Fuente Basconcillos	...	Pilar Friend
Duarte Caires
Joaquim Carvalho	...	Militar
Bruno Duarte	...	Guitar
Claúdia Esteves

Storyline

A restless retired woman teams up with her deceased neighbor's maid to seek out a man who has a secret connection to her past life as a farm owner at the foothill of Mount Tabu in Africa.

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Plot Keywords:

neighbor | africa | sex scene | pregnant wife | funeral | 

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Genres:

Drama | Romance

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Details

Official Sites:

Official site [jp]

Country:

Portugal Germany Brazil France

Language:

Portuguese English Polish

Release Date:

5 April 2012 (Portugal)

Also Known As:

Tabou

Filming Locations:

Zambezia, Mozambique

Company Credits

Production Co:

O Som e a Fúria, Komplizen Film, Gullane Filmes

Technical Specs

Runtime:

118 min

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Did You Know?

Goofs

At 1:20:48 a women appears to be using a cell phone or a mobile phone (the film is based on the sixties).

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Connections

References Crocodile Dundee (1986)

User Reviews

Tabu

A KVIFF viewing, the third feature-length work from Portuguese director Miguel Gomes, which was among the contenders for the Golden Bear in Berlin earlier this year, and wound up winning the FIPRESCI Prize and Alfred Bauer Award.

The film is entirely in Black & White, which has a deceiving anachronism effect and injects an appeasing vigor to enliven the storyline. With being equally divided into two parts, the first half is the contemporary story between a middle-aged woman, Pillar and her senior neighbor Aurora (who is live alone with her black servant Santa, and strongly believes her estranged daughter and Santa are plotting against her); the second half is completely B&W silent, with an elaborate voice-over from Aurora's former lover Ventura, revealing a secret history about he and Aurora's love affair back in Africa half an century ago. It is a distinctively interesting composition, which contributes a pleasant illusion that we were watching a double-feature.

But by comparison, the first part is more austere and compelling while the second part is basically about a superfluously hackneyed liaison between a married woman and a romantic womanizer, the only worthiness is that it is between two white people in Africa, and if one intends to get some in-depth probe about the continent and its people, the film could hardly suffices this curiosity.

Between the female correlation in the first part, Pilar has a manifest momentum to propel the storyline, and ruefully there will not be a third paragraph to recount her story out of the lightly over-hyped second part, her story behind might own more worth to be revisited and explored. Teresa Madruga and Laura Soveral are spellbinding during their screen time, if only the second half could be reinterpreted in another way, the film could have been a fabulous essay about love, aging and mystery behind everyone's usual representation.