The sea, with all its symbolic charge, is the real protagonist of this mythical film, Tabu : a Story of the South Seas (1931), the last film and spiritual testament of Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau, born of a joint project with the documentarian Robert Flaherty. Murnau was eager to enter Hollywood and, above all, to free himself from its overly restrictive rules. Flaherty, a documentary filmmaker who had made such films as Nanook of the North (1922), seemed the ideal partner. In 1929 they founded a production company together, which was originally intended to make at least one film in the South Seas or another exotic destination.
The film is divided into two parts: the first is entitled Das Paradies (Paradise) and the second Das verlorene Paradies (Paradise Lost).
On the South Sea island of Bora Bora, Reri is chosen as a consecrated virgin and thus becomes taboo: any man who approaches her and desires her risks death. However, Reri is in love with Matahi and she takes refuge with him on a nearby island. Matahi becomes the best pearl fisherman in the region. The high priest Hituli finds Reri and takes her back to Bora Bora. Matahi drowns while trying to swim back to the boat.
The fairytale atmosphere of the idyll on the island is followed by a desperate atmosphere in which everyone’s fate is inexorably fulfilled.
script: F.W. Murnau, Robert J. Flaherty, Edgar G. Ulmer (uncredited)
photography: Floyd Crosby
music by: Hugo Riesenfeld, W. Franke Harking (uncredited), Milan Roder (uncredited)
mounting: Arthur A. Brooks (uncredited)
other titles: IL PARADISO TABÙ, TABOU
color: Bianco & Nero
production company: MURNAU-FLAHERTY PRODUCTIONS
distribution: PARAMOUNT