F.W. Murnau - Tabu: A Story of the South Seas (1931) [DVD9]

In 1929, F.W. Murnau (Nosferatu, Faust, Sunrise), one of the greatest of all film directors, invited leading documentarist Robert Flaherty (Nanook of the North, Man of Aran) to collaborate on a film to be be shot on location in Tahiti, a Polynesian idyll in which Murnau imagined a cast of island actors would provide a new form of authentic drama and offer rare insight into their "primitive" culture. The result of their collaboration was Tabu, a film that depicts the details of indigenous island life to tell a mythical tale that is rich in the universal themes of desire and loss.
Subtitled a "Story of the South Seas", Tabu concerns a Tahitian fisherman (played by an islander, Matahi) and his love for a young woman (played by fellow islander Reri, who went on to star on Broadway) whose body has been consecrated to the gods, rendering her tabu as far as mortal men are concerned. The lovers flee their island and its restrictive traditions, but will their love prevail in the "civilised" world?


Matahi, pécheur de perles à Bora-Bora, tombe amoureux de Reri. Malheureusement, cette dernière vient d’être choisie par le chef Hitu pour devenir grande prêtresse. Elle est donc déclarée «tabou» et leur amour est prohibé. Les amants s’enfuient ensemble malgré tout, mais Hitu les rattrape.
Loin de son pays natal et de son pays d’adoption, les Etats-Unis, Murnau tournera Tabou en Polynésie. Co-réalisé avec le documentariste Robert Flaherty, ce film ultime d’une sensualité inouïe chante en une célébration homo-érotique les corps cuivrés et lisses sous le soleil des tropiques. Mais dans ce lieu paradisiaque rôde la tragédie, fait retour l’angoisse propre à son cinéma.













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