Restored `Tabu' Shows Murnau At The Height Of His Powers

Few European filmmakers have had as much impact in the United States as F.W. Murnau, the German director who made "Nosferatu" (the first movie based on "Dracula") as well as "The Last Laugh," a silent film so visually creative that it nearly dispensed with subtitles.

Murnau's first American production, "Sunrise," won three Academy Awards at the first Oscar ceremonies and is still regarded as one of the two or three greatest silent movies. Before he died in an automobile crash in 1931 (he was only 42), he made one other American film that can be mentioned in same breath with "Sunrise."

"Tabu," which Murnau and Robert Flaherty co-directed in the South Seas (where Flaherty had previously made "Moana"), was released a few days after Murnau died. Presented as a silent film with music at a time when all-talking, all-singing, all-dancing movies were flooding theaters, it failed to capture the public's interest, although, like "Sunrise," it won an Oscar for its stunning cinematography.

It almost became a lost film, at least in its original version, which included some National Geographic-style nudity that was trimmed in the late 1940s. But Milestone Film & Video, Inc., recently acquired the rights and, with the help of UCLA Film Archives and the Murnau estate, has put together a beautiful 35mm print that includes the missing footage.

It alsodemonstrates why Floyd Crosby's cinematography was a landmark in location work. The picture was shot in Tahiti, Bora Bora and Morea, and it survives as a fascinating record of an island culture that has changed greatly in 60 years.

The restored "Tabu," which plays Sunday and Monday at the Neptune, also proves that Murnau was still operating at the height of his powers shortly before his death. Although the collaboration with Flaherty was not a happy one, the movie is a strong narrative drama that has Murnau written all over it.

Indeed, "Tabu" has more in common with Murnau's German films, especially "Nosferatu," than with "Moana." Its idyllic early scenes of a native couple playing in a Bora Bora waterfall quickly give way to a darker, more fatalistic tone. The lovers are separated by the chief of the islands, who selects her to be the untouchable bride of the gods, and the rest of the movie deals with their escape and the tribal elder's relentless pursuit of the couple.

The final scenes are haunting, stark, touched with mysticism and tragedy, and they're quite unforgettable. The knowledge that their creator was so soon to meet his own death only adds to their overwhelming sense of finality.