About

Featuring a cast of non-professional French Polynesian actors, Tabu: Story of the South Seas tells a popular South Sea tale of young love clashing with cultural traditions. Island pearl diver (Matahi) falls in love with Reri (Anne Chevalier) a young woman chosen by the tribal elder to live her life in devotion to the gods. Devastated, the young couple flee to another island to avoid separation, however its colonisation and exploitation of the pearl diving industry lead them further into trouble. Shot on location, the film is a stunning record of the largely unspoiled tropical beaches of Bora Bora, Leeward Islands, and Takapota, Tahiti.

Directors Robert Flaherty and F W Murnau had become dissatisfied with mainstream Hollywood by 1927 and began plans to establish their own company, Flaherty-Murnau Productions. Flaherty had built a reputation on ethnographic documentary films like Moana 1926, which saw he and his family living in Samoa for nine month during filming, while Murnau was a celebrated German émigré renowned for his ingenuity and meticulous direction. Financed by Murnau, Tabu: A Story of the South Seas began filming in Tahiti in 1929. While both filmmakers had conceived the story together, Flaherty and Murnau began to clash, Flaherty concerned the project had become too westernised and Murnau challenged by Flaherty's leisurely directing pace. In the end Flaherty left the project and it is now remembered as one of Murnau's finest films. Unfortunately Murnau would not get to see the film premiere, he was killed in an traffic accident a week before the film premiered.

Ages 12+