British distributors Eureka Entertainment have officially announced and detailed their upcoming Dual Format edition of F.W. Murnau's Tabu (1931), starring Matahi, Anne Chevalier, and Bill Bambridge. The release will be available for purchase on June 17th.
In 1929, F. W. Murnau (Nosferatu, Faust, Sunrise), one of the greatest of all film directors, invited leading documentarist Robert Flaherty (Nanook of the North, Man of Ara) to collaborate on a film to be be shot on location in Tahiti, a Polynesian idyll in which Murnau imagined a cast of island actors would provide a new form of authentic drama and offer rare insight into their "primitive" culture. The result of their collaboration was Tab, a film that depicts the details of indigenous island life to tell a mythical tale that is rich in the universal themes of desire and loss.
Subtitled A Story of the South Seas, Tabu concerns a Tahitian fisherman (played by an islander, Matahi) and his love for a young woman (played by fellow islander Reri, who went on to star on Broadway) whose body has been consecrated to the gods, rendering her tabu as far as mortal men are concerned. The lovers flee their island and its restrictive traditions, but will their love prevail in the "civilized" world?
Special Features:
New 1080p HD transfer on the Blu-ray of the Murnau-Stiftung / Luciano Berriatúa 75th anniversary restoration of the pre-Paramount, longer Murnau-approved version of the film, with uncensored scenes and titlecards, appearing in its original 1.19:1 aspect ratio for the first time
Full-length commentary track by R. Dixon Smith and Brad Stevens
15-minute German documentary about Tabu by Luciano Berriatúa
Newly presented outtakes from the original shoot of the film
Treibjagd in der Südsee (1940) - an archival short film
56-page booklet with articles by Scott Eyman, Richard Griffiths, and David Flaherty; an interview with the film's cinematographer Floyd Crosby; and the original story treatments written by Murnau and Flaherty for Tabu and its aborted predecessor Turia.