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Tabu, 2012
Pilar (Teresa Madruga) lives in an apartment building in Lisbon, neighbor to Aurora (Laura Soveral) and Aurora's housekeeper/caretaker Santa (Isabel Cardoso). Aurora suffers from some sort of dementia and is convinced that Santa and her own daughter are out to get her. When Aurora ends up in the hospital, a mysterious man from her past appears and reveals details about Aurora's life on a farm in Africa.
This is a film that is neatly bisected into two parts: the present and the past. I have to say that at first I was not into the second half. After the interesting dynamic between Pilar, Santa, and Aurora, the sequences of Aurora's life in Africa (done entirely in narrated sequences) didn't really grip me. But as the film went on, the story sucked me in and I ended up seeing both parts as equally interesting.
The performances are good in both halves of the film, though they have very different demands. In the second half of the film, only the narrator (Miguel Gomes) speaks. The actress playing the younger Aurora (Ana Moreira) and the actor playing her lover (Carloto Cotta) must do their work through just expressions and a sounds of the natural world around them.
This is a very beautiful movie, both in the more "real" present sequences and in the vaguely more fantasized past sequences. It's a great example of contemporary black and white, and how that can add to the dreaminess of a narrative.
When it comes to the past sequences, the film treads a little uncertainly around the role that Aurora's family plays as colonizers. It seems to want to acknowledge the damage and irreversible impact they have helped have on the local people, but also can't help a bit of romanticizing of Aurora striding around shooting the local wildlife. The impact of this is softened just a bit by the fact that what we see is filtered through the subjective point of view of one of the people from this past. Still, it's the only place where the film seems a bit unsure.
A solid drama and romance, and I'd easily recommend it.
Tabu, 2012
Pilar (Teresa Madruga) lives in an apartment building in Lisbon, neighbor to Aurora (Laura Soveral) and Aurora's housekeeper/caretaker Santa (Isabel Cardoso). Aurora suffers from some sort of dementia and is convinced that Santa and her own daughter are out to get her. When Aurora ends up in the hospital, a mysterious man from her past appears and reveals details about Aurora's life on a farm in Africa.
This is a film that is neatly bisected into two parts: the present and the past. I have to say that at first I was not into the second half. After the interesting dynamic between Pilar, Santa, and Aurora, the sequences of Aurora's life in Africa (done entirely in narrated sequences) didn't really grip me. But as the film went on, the story sucked me in and I ended up seeing both parts as equally interesting.
The performances are good in both halves of the film, though they have very different demands. In the second half of the film, only the narrator (Miguel Gomes) speaks. The actress playing the younger Aurora (Ana Moreira) and the actor playing her lover (Carloto Cotta) must do their work through just expressions and a sounds of the natural world around them.
This is a very beautiful movie, both in the more "real" present sequences and in the vaguely more fantasized past sequences. It's a great example of contemporary black and white, and how that can add to the dreaminess of a narrative.
When it comes to the past sequences, the film treads a little uncertainly around the role that Aurora's family plays as colonizers. It seems to want to acknowledge the damage and irreversible impact they have helped have on the local people, but also can't help a bit of romanticizing of Aurora striding around shooting the local wildlife. The impact of this is softened just a bit by the fact that what we see is filtered through the subjective point of view of one of the people from this past. Still, it's the only place where the film seems a bit unsure.
A solid drama and romance, and I'd easily recommend it.