Tabu: A Story of the South Seas (1931) Review: The Good, The Bad & How to Watch

 

Tabu: A Story of the South Seas (1931) Review: The Good, The Bad & How to Watch 

American Film, Adventure, Romance, Drama

Academy Awards, 1931- Winner: Best Cinematography
National Board of Reviw, 1931-  Winner: Top Ten Films
Berlin Film Festival, 2011- Official Selection
Viennale, 2011- Official Selection

The transition from silence to sound in cinema wasn't a clean break; it was a messy, heartbreaking fracture. Right on the fault line of that Hollywood evolution sits "Tabu: A Story of the South Seas" (1931), a film that feels less like a relic of its time and more like a beautiful, tragic transmission from a lost world. It stands as the final, breathtaking gasp of the silent era, directed by F.W. Murnau, a German visionary who died in a car crash just a week before its premiere, never getting to see how his last gamble would change the grammar of visual storytelling. More on Wikipedia or Mubi 

The Last Silent Masterpiece: How Tabu Marked the End of an Era 

Murnau, famous for the shadowy terrors of "Nosferatu" and the psychological weight of "Sunrise," wanted to escape the rigid, sterile studio systems that were rapidly hardening around the new talking pictures. He fled to Bora Bora, teaming up with Robert Flaherty, the pioneering documentary filmmaker behind "Nanook of the North." They wanted to capture something raw, a pure romance uncorrupted by Western civilization, cast entirely with native Polynesian actors who had never seen a camera.

The story itself is as simple and devastating as an old myth. Two young lovers, Matahi and Reri, find their paradise shattered when the local chief declares Reri "tabu"—sacred to the gods, meaning no man may touch or look upon her under penalty of death. What follows is a desperate flight across the ocean, an escape from fate that plays out against sun-drenched beaches and crashing surf.

What makes the film so hauntingly modern is how Murnau uses the landscape. In the hands of a lesser director, the South Seas would have just been an exotic backdrop, a postcard for Western audiences. Instead, Murnau treats the island light and the deep, shifting shadows of the palm trees as psychological weapons. The camera doesn't just observe the lovers; it floats with them, panics with them, and ultimately mourns with them.

The collaboration between Murnau and Flaherty was notoriously stormy. Flaherty wanted a gritty, ethnographic look at colonial exploitation, while Murnau was chasing a poetic, doomed romance. Murnau won that battle, and the result is a film that feels deeply lyrical, propelled by a gorgeous, synchronized orchestral score that replaces the need for spoken words. Every emotion is carried on a face, a gesture, or the terrifyingly calm movement of a canoe cutting through the water.

When "Tabu" finally hit theaters in the spring of 1931, the industry had already moved on. Audiences were lining up to hear actors talk in drawing rooms, fascinated by the novelty of sound. Yet, Murnau’s final testament took home the Academy Award for Best Cinematography, a recognized triumph of pure visual poetry over technological noise. It remains a staggering reminder that before cinema learned to talk, it already knew exactly how to make us feel.

The Good: Pure Visual Symphony

The film is a triumph of visual storytelling. Murnau managed to capture a sense of fluid, breathing movement that few directors have ever matched. The camera doesn't feel like a heavy machine from 1931; it drifts across the water, climbs into the trees, and catches the light hitting the ocean with a stunning, natural brilliance. Winning the Oscar for Best Cinematography wasn't just a token nod—it was completely earned.

Using an entirely native Polynesian cast was a radical, brilliant choice for the era. Instead of putting Hollywood actors in heavy makeup, Murnau trusted the faces and natural expressions of the islanders to carry a heavy, mythic tragedy. Matahi and Reri bring a raw, vulnerable sincerity to the screen that anchors the entire romantic tragedy, making the heartbreak feel incredibly real.

The score is also masterful. Since it is a late-silent film, Hugo Riesenfeld’s synchronized music has to do the heavy lifting of dialogue. It breathes with the film, transitioning beautifully from idyllic paradise to the tense, suffocating dread of the "tabu" curse.

The Bad: The Western Gaze

The trouble with Tabu lies in its fantasy. Murnau was chasing a romanticized, Eden-like vision of the South Seas, and in doing so, he flattened a complex culture into a Western fairytale. The film treats indigenous traditions—specifically the concept of tapu—largely as a convenient, terrifying plot device to drive a melodrama, rather than exploring the actual spiritual depth of the community.

This cultural friction is exactly what caused the massive rift between Murnau and his co-creator, Robert Flaherty. Flaherty wanted to show the real, gritty impact of Western traders, exploitation, and disease on the islands. Murnau pushed that reality to the margins to focus on his doomed lovers. By choosing myth over reality, the film occasionally slips into a patronizing "noble savage" trope that can make modern viewing uncomfortable.

There is also a strange narrative whiplash in the second half. When the lovers escape to a government-controlled island, the film suddenly shifts into a story about money, debt, and bills. While this does show the corrupting nature of Western civilization, it breaks the intoxicating, dreamlike spell of the first act, slowing down the momentum just before the tragic finale.