Tabu 2012 / Miguel Gomes recreates cinema’s selective memory for Europe’s colonial past in this unconventional black-and-white romance

Something about falling in love in an exotic place makes it feel much more romantic, leading to plenty of classic black and white films centered on the idea, with a visual language and a set of aesthetics meticulously enacted in 2012’s Tabu. These classic films, however, rarely contemplate the actual reality behind these films– the reason that made these romantic trips possible in the first place. Tabu subtly critiques this indulgent imagination, with the silent memory melodramatically portrayed and narrated by the white lovers, but with the African natives and their homes and landscapes depicted naturally. Writer-director Miguel Gomes remixes classic cinema techniques to paint and reframe the lovers’ myopic memory, in such a striking fashion.