Murnau's final film is not quite the tour de force Sunrise was, but Tabu is an engaging, mature work, from a director who really came into his own in his last years.

Maybe it is a classic, but it's also extremely boring.

Pretty worthless and dull, except for cute cinematography for time to time. And it's great to stare at.

Lovely.

Starts off pretty dull but improves every act until the outstanding ending. And I'm not just referring to the story, but the technical qualities as well.

A refreshing and beautiful love story for it's time. Even if it was behind in technology, with it being a silent film when close to everyone was doing sound movies, the visuals and the way it's told still made it better then most films of that transition period. Exotic and erotic laid out with a masterful story about 'primitive' and 'civilized' cultures. A great ending to fantastic career as F.W. Murnau died with this movie just days before it's release.

And now for something really different.... An island tale featuring real islanders hired on-scene rather that made-up acters borrowed from the stage. It's a good story, though I thought the ending could have been better.

216

Murnau ve Flaherty'den tam anlamıyla nefes kesici bir hikaye. Zaten Murnau'nun adı teknik açıdan filmin ne kadar yetkin olacağını göstergesi. Bunun yanında, üzerinden 80 seneden fazla geçmiş olmasına ve benzer tonlarca hikaye görmüş olmamıza rağmen, hala olayların akışı heyecan verici olabiliyor. Belki de sinemayı bu yüzden bu kadar seviyoruzdur.

A pretty and captivating film that combines Flaherty and Murnau's talents well. A touching love story is the thread that brings together beautiful pictures, a look at life in the south pacific and insight into the human condition.

211

Another wonderful silent from Murnau. His visual sensibility is unmatched, the camera so expressive. This is no more true than in the final shot of Matahi in the ocean. Further, the use of light (esp. moonlight) and shadow, as well as the sequences involving dance and ritual, bring a great deal of feeling and weight to the proceedings. Finally, the visual contrast between the film's two halves underlines the film's moral sensibility--sunny and natural in the former, dark and seedy in the latter.

#227

Great to stare at.

Murnau picks up Flaherty's legacy of ethnographic fiction. Tabu is a film commendable for combining an honest effort to walk in the shoes of people from a primitive South Pacific culture, with wholesome exoticism (unspoiled by our day's repressive political correctness). It has several exciting features such as a pioneering underwater action scene. Sadly, although it is a shorter movie than average, its simplistic plot wears thin and plods for a while before the touching finale.

Tremendous historical value but not much else. The melodrama isn't enough to sustain the film.

# 203

Not as purely an ethnographic study as Nanook of the North, whose director Robert Flaherty had significant input on the film (which started as a co-directorship). Nor is it simply a romance with an exotic, exploitative twist like Legong. It incorporates both these aspects but transcends them, and the end result is a work that's beautifully shot, poetically structured, and has a compelling narrative. And the entirely non-professional cast is impressive as well.

the shark who guards the oyster beds inspired Dino Buzzati's Il Colombre.