It is one of the most honored films of Portuguese cinema in 2012.
After the success of "that dear month of August," Miguel Gomes, wrote and directed a feature film that invokes a tribute to the homonymous work of F.W.Murnau. Taboo despite being a film author and uncommercial, won attention of the Portuguese moviegoers, which proves two things, there is room for the national creation with quality and there is an audience hungry for this type of cinema, while recognizing the fact that been awarded in several international festivals have also helped. In fact it is an unusual work, first because it is filmed entirely in black and white, then the narrative itself does not follow a set of pre-determined parameters, what I mean is do not wait for a "Out of Africa", it is also a love story with tragic contours. Taboo from the first moment is the picture of a paradise lost in three chapters, almost always told in the third person by a narrator who cradles us languidly thru the romantic idyll of Aurora and Gian Luca. The characters they also end up being instruments of this mute poetic narrative, made of light and shadows, which gives strength to the images expertly captured by the camera, which culminate in an almost unexpected end. Miguel Gomes foremost films the loneliness of the various characters that make up his "painting" film, hence the silences, the cries and sighs that cleverly introduces along this melancholy narrative. Maybe his only "defect" is to be a Portuguese film, if it were American; I bet he would have won an Oscar! Good movie.
