Tabu Reviews

It takes a while to get to the meat of the movie, but it's well worth the wait.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4

It almost seems a parody of willfully obscure art-house fare. Yet it has an undertow that sucks you in as often as it strands you back on shore.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4

A kind of jigsaw puzzle, spiced up with references to "White Mischief," "Out of Africa" and "The Snows of Kilimanjaro," that will frustrate some audiences and fascinate others.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4

The audience is left to imagine much of the story, though it is clear it involves love, betrayal, guilt, regret and a recurring crocodile.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5

Portuguese director Miguel Gomes' latest film moves through different styles and eras, and proves that shooting in black and white is as versatile as it ever was.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4

Few films are this smart about subtly couching their allegorical aspirations within more straightforward narratives; fewer still are able to do so with such energetically inventive virtuoso style.

Full Review | Original Score: 9.5/10

If you have the patience to watch this film develop and unfold, like some bizarre night-blooming orchid, what you'll see is not just the last movie released in 2012, but possibly the most original of them all.

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A lyrical Old Hollywood melodrama projected on a bedsheet? A celluloid curio à la Barnum's Fiji mermaid? At such times, it's better to stick with a simple "wonderful."

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Churlish though it sounds, you'll want to arrive for this b&w Portuguese drama about 45 minutes late.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5

Its artfulness seems like an alibi, an excuse for keeping the ugliness of history out of the picture.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/5

Miguel Gomes begins Tabu in a seemingly ridiculous vein and unexpectedly shifts to something surprisingly enriching and poetic.

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A brilliantly nuanced, deeply imagined psycho- excavation of modern Europe by the Portuguese director Miguel Gomes.

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The reward is a stunning photographic narrative - a love story told as sweeping parable. But to get there takes an investment by the viewer.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4

Evoking work as disparate as that of Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Guy Maddin and Claire Denis - with a dash of 'The Artist' thrown in - 'Tabu' is a tantalising trip.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5