Tabu: A Story of the South Seas

F.W. Murnau's last film, 1931, shot in Tahiti with Robert Flaherty until they could no longer share a camera. A boy and a girl on Bora Bora; the girl is declared tapu, sacred, untouchable. They flee. The sea does not care. Photographed by Floyd Crosby, who won the Oscar. No professional actors. Murnau died in a car crash before the premiere. It is a silent that arrived in the sound era and ignored it, except for a score. The South Seas film as a tragedy about a law that is older than the camera.