4/5 Bora-Bora Tale
  by Michael Kerjman (The Earth)
Of the thirties of the last century, this story is of Bora-Bora Romeo and Juliet with a similar tragic end.

As a Legong - Dance of the Virgins, it is interesting for both depicting then locals in their natural environment from a historical perspective and a way CIVILISED movie-makers had done it.


5/5 Just a few comments on other reviews...
  by Larry from Brooklyn (Brooklyn)
Sight and Sound, the BFI film monthly, reports that Murnau fell out with Flaherty over the latter's inability to sustain a dramatic narrative and respectively continued alone with his cinematographer. If this very beautiful print is based on the Milestone restoration, then a few scenes (since restored by the more recent British release) including some integral nudity, are still missing. (S&S gave high points to the MIlestone restoration). Also, of note is that the financing deal for the film fell through just as production got under way and Murnau financed this production primarily with his own money that he had made in Hollywood before becoming disillusioned, so the budget was tight as it was on Nosferatu. Like Nosferatu, it is one of his few masterpieces that was shot outdoors and outside the expressionist studio sets that contributed so much to the mood and atmosphere on films like Sunrise and The Last Man (or in English, The Last Laugh).
The Bottom line: buy this film, it has all the earmarks of Paul Schrader's description of greatness, including my favorite, "Repeatability" Sunrise, Nosferatu, Faust - they never get old.
(For that matter, neither do Flaherty's Man of Aran and Nanook of the North). Finally, in Hollywood, an entire generation of directors was influenced by Sunrise. The master, John Ford, regarded it as one of the greatest movies ever made and Murnau had direct impact on films like The Informer, The Long Voyage Home, and much of the domestic, wordless business in later westerns like She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, My Darling Clementine, and The Searchers (not to mention making its star, George O'Brien, a member of his floating repertory company and a drinking companion.)

4/5 Poetry in motion
  by Anyechka (Rensselaer, NY United States)
Like a number of Murnau's other films, this one too has a great feeling of being poetry in motion, a fluid form of art used to tell a story and express moods. It also has quite a few touches of his old style of German Expressionism, even though the film was not made as nor intended to be that genre. Murnau was a director who cared deeply about making films the way he wanted to, and who believed in film being art, an attitude that put him at odds with Hollywood. His insistence on making films his way also was manifested in how this is a silent released in 1931 (one of the last great silents, or just silents period, in the West). The art and beauty of the story really would have been compromised had it been shot with dialogue. And as it is, apart from the introductory intertitles for each of the two sections and the occasional letters written by various characters, there are absolutely no title cards in this film. It works so well that we don't even need intertitles to understand what's going on, much like in Murnau's earlier masterpiece 'The Last Laugh.'

Shot in Tahiti, the story is about a pair of doomed lovers, Reri and Matahi, who dare to violate their island's taboo. A man from another island, Hitu, arrives suddenly, bringing news that Reri has been selected to be brought back to his island to serve as their new sacred reigning virginal maiden. But Reri is young and pretty, and has just fallen in love/lust with Matahi, so she isn't interested in a life of celibacy. The two make their escape in the night and make their way to another island, where they believe they are doing well and in no danger. Even when a policeman from their home island arrives with a warrant for Matahi's arrest, they manage to bribe him away and think they can continue to breathe easy. However, the threat of Hitu coming back to claim Reri still hangs over their heads, as does the taboo which Matahi violated by taking away Reri. To a Westerner it might seem extremely random, unfair, and irrational, but one must admit that there are some taboos in our own culture and society which would seem just as bizarre, cruel, and antique to someone from a place like Tahiti.

The extras are a trailer, outtakes (particularly priceless because so few films from this era have any surviving outtakes), film footage of Reri later in her life, a gallery of pictures, scripts, and other materials, and an audio commentary. It might not be one of the most famous or acclaimed films of the silent era, but it is one of the most artistic and beautiful, not to mention the high interest value in how it was one of the final major silents in the West. It gives a picture of what the silent cinema might have looked like had it been allowed to continue evolving into something even greater and more refined, either by itself or alongside talking pictures.

5/5 Murnau's Tabu
  by John Farr
Conceived as a joint project by docu-ethnographer Flaherty ("Nanook of the North") and German expressionist director Murnau ("The Last Laugh"), this poignant, beautifully photographed Oscar winner has few rivals in the silent era. Shot on location in the Pacific and helmed mostly by Murnau, its story of forbidden love resonated with audiences in the early '30s--just as a wave of the first talkies came ashore--and remains absorbing today. All the actors are Polynesian locals, which enhances the romanticized vision of blissful island life. But the flight from authority and visitation of fate in the form of an old holy man are as classic--and tragic--as Greek myth.

5/5 A tabu is upon us!
  by Hiram Gomez Pardo (Valencia, Venezuela)

If there' s something clear along the history is the absolute happiness of two beings profoundly in love is only an utopia. And its only fulfillment seems to be reserved to fairy tales.

Murnau `s greatness talent consisted in to create supreme milestone films, since the optic of the German Expressionism as a true kaleidoscopic magician. Since his monumental Nosferatu, Sunrise, the last man or Tartuffe. In every one of these works the enormous trace of his genius is present.

In this time, the initial collaboration with Robert Flaherty and late conceptual differences were not obstacle to make this outstanding masterpiece, where the taboo is present as a dark cloud that hovers and permeates all the environment. In the Southern overseas, two young lovers have fallen in love, before a statement has been dictated. She has been designed as the chosen one among all the women. And those imposition must be obeyed. Because if not anyone who intends to get across this imposition will find the death. She has become untouchable by the divine majesties. Of course there are surreptitious signals that are closely linked with political issues. The film dates from 1931 and so you don't have to analyze so much to realize what's going on the script. Taboo means verboten; and represents the imposition of the rules upon the human desire, individual achievements and ambitions.

The paradise lasts until they decide to escape from this distorted state of things, in pursuit of their happiness But the second chapter; The lost paradise is a brutal denounce about the other side of the coin, the voracity, greed and sense of the opportunity when this young boy, an enviable diver can get all the pearls he wants without knowing the value of the money, that eventually will become his final perdition at the tragic and decisive moment, that will ignite with all its powerful design the force of the law.

After you watch this monumental work, there will be a weird sensation of bitterness and awfulness. The taboo is like a big eye, foreseeing 1984. The power of ancestral rituals, blended with our modern customs is simply unbearable for them and the moon will spread its traces on the farewell sea.