Where The Artist recently resurrected historic filmmaking grammar for laughs, Miguel Gomes’ third feature Tabu
parodies with more ambitiously philosophical aims. In an early scene, a
tour guide intones “all I’m telling you is not reality, but tales”,
allowing the script to highlight its central, redolent theme: the
interlaced nexuses between memory, cinema and fable.
An unconventional
and challenging structure splits the film in two: the first part (titled
‘A Lost Paradise’) set in present-day Lisbon; the second (‘Paradise’)
in colonial Africa, with dialogue muted and replaced by an extended
voice over that tells a tale both romantic, yet softly cynical. There
are echoes of Almodovar’s Broken Embraces in Tabu’s
heady mix of melodrama and meta-artistry, while its crisp monochrome
cinematography and Spector-pop soundtrack provide more direct pleasures.
Though the two halves don’t ultimately elicit the depth of profundity
pledged in the early stages, they nonetheless weave a hypnotic and
innovative narrative, rich with enigma.
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