Tabu: New York Film Festival 2012
New York Film Festival 2012: Tabu
The first half is nearly a whiff: dull, monotonous conservations shot in a flatly captured Lisbon, where a lonely apartment dweller reaches out to her distracted neighbor, on the slow slide toward dementia. With your expectations set low (and perhaps your vibrating alarm set as well), Tabu rebounds strongly in its flashback second section, when illicit sparks fly in a colonialist-Africa romance. This is the younger life of the odd neighbor, who once upon a time was attracted to a rakish Italian while pregnant with her husband’s baby. Crocodiles smile, safari jeeps cruise through the sultry breeze, and not a word is spoken, in what feels like a Howard Hawks adventure shorn of dialogue. The result is unbearably nostalgic; you’ll forget any reservations you had.—Joshua Rothkopf
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