Tabu

Tabu (2012) is a Portuguese drama to watch online on iFILM, directed by Miguel Gomes in black and white and awarded the Silver Bear Grand Jury Prize at Berlin. The film splits into two halves: contemporary Lisbon, then colonial Africa.

In present-day Lisbon, Pilar — devout, lonely, full of good intentions — lives next door to Aurora, a restless old woman who gambles and broods over something she won't name. Before Aurora dies, she asks Pilar to find a man called Gian Luca Ventura. He arrives and starts talking: a farm at the foot of Mount Tabu, a forbidden affair, a crime that ended everything between them.

Gomes shot the African half on 16mm without sync sound — a narrator's voice carries the story while the images run on their own logic, in deliberate homage to F.W. Murnau's silent Tabu (1931). The gap between what you hear and what you see is the whole point: nostalgia passed through decades of guilt. Stream Tabu (2012) online on iFILM.