The film-makers say at the outset that the cast consists entirely of South Sea Islanders, some Chinese, and "half-breeds." The story is a tragedy set in the "untouched" paradise of Rora-Rora. Matahi, a handsome youth gifted at spearfishing, pearl diving, and everything else, is in love with Reri (Ann Chevalier), but then she's chosen to be the next maiden whose task and honour it is to attend the gods. Sge is tabu; anybody who touches her or looks on her with desire must die. After the ceremony on the eve of her departure Matahi steals her away and they escape to another island, one more developed by colonial trade, represented by a French policeman and Chinese shopkeepers. Matahi, though the best pearl diver ever seen, runs up a prodigious debt innocently treating the villagers to champagne at a festival. Thus, when they need to escape from the grim pursuit carried on by the menacing Hitu, they cannot purchase a ticket on the schooner leaving just before the deadline of three days. Reri writes a note telling Matahi she's going with Hitu to save his life; at the same time he dives on a tabu reef, battles the shark that protects the place, and finds a rare dark pearlbut Reri's gone. He races after them, first paddling and then swimming, and he reaches Hitus' sailboat and grasps a rope, which Hitu, expressionless, cuts. Matahi falls behind the boat, and losing strength, flails and sinks. The tabu has been too powerful. This is a silent movie, though (later?) fitted with an orchestral soundtrack. The photography is superb, the islanders very handsome, but there's a kind of colonialist primitivism running through the story. The islanders are happy until "superstition" interferes, and though there are natural causes for the disasters blamed on the tabu, the disasters happen anyway. Or is it because of the cruelty of the superstitious religion's structure and enforcer? Or because of the exploitation of the pearl traders, shopkeepers, and police? There is no doubt that the European film-makers created artificial roles for the actors, according to their own preconceived ideas about the innocence of primitive life, even as they advertise their authenticity. But it's well worth watching anyway.
Review of Tabu: A Story of the South Seas
