# Tabu: A Story of the South Seas
*Tabu: A Story of the South Seas* is a 1931 silent film directed by Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau, telling the tragic love story of two young [Polynesians](https://www.edgepedia.org/polynesians), Matahi and Reri, whose romance is forbidden when Reri is consecrated as a sacred virgin to the gods. Shot on location in [Bora Bora](https://www.edgepedia.org/bora-bora) and Tahiti with an entirely nonprofessional Polynesian cast, it was Murnau's last film; he died in a car accident days before its New York premiere on March 18, 1931.[1](https://www.murnau-stiftung.de/node/778) • [2](https://www.deutsche-kinemathek.de/en/collections-archives/digital-collection/murnau-tabu)
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Director and writers | Directed by F. W. Murnau; story by Murnau and Robert J. Flaherty, with Edgar G. Ulmer also credited on the script by the Murnau Stiftung[1](https://www.murnau-stiftung.de/node/778) • [3](https://www.deutsche-kinemathek.de/de/sammlungen-archive/sammlung-digital/murnaus-tabu) |
| Shooting | October 16, 1929 to September 1930 on Tahiti (Faa'a, Matavai Bay, Papeete, Punaauia, Tautira, Toahotu), Bora Bora, and Motu Tapu[2](https://www.deutsche-kinemathek.de/en/collections-archives/digital-collection/murnau-tabu) |
| Cast | Reri (Anna Chevalier) as the girl, Matahi as the boy, Hitu as the old warrior, Jean (William "Bill" Bambridge) as the policeman, Jules as the captain, Kong Ah as the Chinese trader[2](https://www.deutsche-kinemathek.de/en/collections-archives/digital-collection/murnau-tabu) |
| Format | Silent, black and white, with a musical score by Hugo Riesenfeld; about 81 minutes (2207 m in the German version)[4](https://www.murnau-stiftung.de/movie/13912) |
| Cinematography | Floyd Crosby, who won the Academy Award for Best Cinematography at the 1931 Academy Awards[1](https://www.murnau-stiftung.de/node/778) |
| Premiere | March 18, 1931 in New York, a week after Murnau's death; distributed by Paramount Publix Corporation[2](https://www.deutsche-kinemathek.de/en/collections-archives/digital-collection/murnau-tabu) • [5](https://silentfilm.org/tabu-a-story-of-the-south-seas/) |
| Recognition | Added to the United States National Film Registry in 1994[6](https://www.loc.gov/programs/national-film-preservation-board/film-registry/complete-national-film-registry-listing/) |
## Spoilers
### Plot
Reri and Matahi live happily as a young couple on a remote South Sea island. Their happiness ends when Reri is chosen as the holy virgin of her people's gods, making her tabu, forbidden, to all men, including Matahi. The two flee their island for civilization, reaching a pearl-trading town where Matahi works as a pearl diver and falls into debt, overwhelmed by the offerings of modern life. They are tracked down even in the town; Reri, having given up her resistance, voluntarily boards the ship that is to return her to her homeland, and Matahi, trying to overtake the boat by swimming, drowns in the sea.[4](https://www.murnau-stiftung.de/movie/13912)
The film's opening states that only native-born South Sea islanders appear in the picture, with a few [half-castes](https://www.edgepedia.org/half-caste) and Chinese.[7](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/5257-TABU?cp=1&pos=3&sid=4e8a2a78-fcf0-4524-ad36-d93d66b007fb&sr=0.73191553)
## Origins: Murnau and Flaherty
The project grew out of the shared frustration of two of the silent era's leading figures. Murnau, the German-born director of *Nosferatu* (1922), *The Last Laugh* (1924), *[Faust](https://www.edgepedia.org/faust-1926-film)* (1926), and the Hollywood film *Sunrise* (1927), had broken with Fox Studios in early 1929 after studio demands on his films. [Robert J. Flaherty](https://www.edgepedia.org/robert-j-flaherty), the documentarian behind *[Nanook of the North](https://www.edgepedia.org/nanook-of-the-north)* (1922) and *Moana* (1926), had met Murnau during the filming of *4 Devils* (1928), and the two planned a South Seas film made entirely on their own terms.[2](https://www.deutsche-kinemathek.de/en/collections-archives/digital-collection/murnau-tabu) • [8](https://www.moma.org/explore/inside_out/2010/09/07/f-w-murnaus-tabu/)
The working title was "Turia," based on an idea by Flaherty, and the film was originally planned in [Technicolor](https://www.edgepedia.org/technicolor). Financing was arranged through Colorart Productions Ltd., which was to fund an estimated $150,000 production; when Colorart went bankrupt in the 1929 stock market crash, having contributed only $5,000, Murnau decided to finance the film himself from his savings and to abandon color.[2](https://www.deutsche-kinemathek.de/en/collections-archives/digital-collection/murnau-tabu) • [7](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/5257-TABU?cp=1&pos=3&sid=4e8a2a78-fcf0-4524-ad36-d93d66b007fb&sr=0.73191553) • [5](https://silentfilm.org/tabu-a-story-of-the-south-seas/) Murnau bought a two-masted schooner, the "Bali," took the captain's exam, and sailed from Los Angeles for Tahiti in May 1929.[2](https://www.deutsche-kinemathek.de/en/collections-archives/digital-collection/murnau-tabu)
## Production in the islands
Filming ran from October 16, 1929 to September 1930, mainly on Tahiti, Bora Bora, and the islet of Motu Tapu; in the Reo Māʼohi language "motu" means island and "tapu" means holy or untouchable. Special effects, including scenes with a man-made shark, were shot in December 1930, and additional material was filmed in the United States in December 1931.[2](https://www.deutsche-kinemathek.de/en/collections-archives/digital-collection/murnau-tabu)
**Cinematography.** Flaherty began by shooting the opening fishing and waterfall sequences, but his Akeley camera tore film, and he wired the young cameraman Floyd Crosby to come to Tahiti, where Crosby took over the photography. Crosby later recalled that the entire equipment was his camera and two or three old reflectors, with the only moving shots taken from canoes.[5](https://silentfilm.org/tabu-a-story-of-the-south-seas/) Robert Flaherty, L. Guy Wilky, and Crosby share camera credit in the production records.[3](https://www.deutsche-kinemathek.de/de/sammlungen-archive/sammlung-digital/murnaus-tabu)
**The break with Flaherty.** The two men disagreed about what the film should be: Murnau wanted to capture the codification of taboos among the islanders, while Flaherty wanted the story to depict the impact of civilization on a traditional society. Flaherty left the project during the shoot, and a few days after production was completed in early October 1930 he sold his percentage of the film to Murnau for $25,000, payable in installments. Murnau spent the last of his savings on the musical score and recording, then sold the film to Paramount for an advance of $75,000.[9](https://bampfa.org/node/237261) • [5](https://silentfilm.org/tabu-a-story-of-the-south-seas/) • [1](https://www.murnau-stiftung.de/node/778)
## Release and reception
Murnau did not live to see the premiere. On March 10, 1931 his car went over an embankment on the coast highway outside Santa Barbara; he died the next morning, and *Tabu* opened in New York a week later, advertised as "A Murnau-Flaherty Production, Directed by F.W. Murnau." The film played twelve weeks in New York but drew little audience elsewhere in the United States, where a silent film in 1931 was commercially archaic. The final world gross was under $500,000, leaving Murnau's estate with $141,000, $13,000 less than he had spent making the picture.[5](https://silentfilm.org/tabu-a-story-of-the-south-seas/)
Contemporary recognition centered on the photography: Floyd Crosby's cinematography won the [Academy Award for Best Cinematography](https://www.edgepedia.org/academy-award-for-best-cinematography), and the film appeared on the [National Board of Review](https://www.edgepedia.org/national-board-of-review)'s 1931 top ten list.[1](https://www.murnau-stiftung.de/node/778) • [10](https://www.filmaffinity.com/en/film471016.html) The New York Times critic Mordaunt Hall called it "like a picture poem, with its sunshine and happiness in the beginning and its stormy drama in the end."[11](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/tabu) Later assessments have been consistently favorable; the film holds a 92% rating among critics on Rotten Tomatoes, and critics such as Jonathan Rosenbaum have described its tragic ending as one of the pinnacles of silent cinema.[11](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/tabu) • [10](https://www.filmaffinity.com/en/film471016.html)
## Censorship and versions
The first theatrical version, premiered in New York on March 18, 1931, predated the enforcement of Hollywood's Production Code, which was first consistently applied from the summer of 1934. When the film was remarketed through Golden Bough, Inc., it had to be greatly shortened to receive a certificate in January 1950; the cuts removed takes showing partially nude women or children, the dance of Reri and Matahi at the celebration honoring Hitu, and shots of Reri laying her head in Matahi's lap.[2](https://www.deutsche-kinemathek.de/en/collections-archives/digital-collection/murnau-tabu)
The original negative was destroyed during World War II. Floyd Crosby personally paid for a duplicate negative made from an original nitrate print at the UCLA archive. A restoration produced by Luciano Berriatúa for the Friedrich-Wilhelm-Murnau-Stiftung represents Murnau's approved version, presented in the historically correct 1.19:1 aspect ratio.[5](https://silentfilm.org/tabu-a-story-of-the-south-seas/) • [12](https://kinolorber.com/film/tabu1931)
## Preservation and scholarship
About 17,500 meters of outtakes, alternative and unused footage, survive alongside the film's script and daily shooting reports. A preservation project by the Deutsche Kinemathek, with the Friedrich-Wilhelm-Murnau-Stiftung and the Austrian Film Museum, copied the threatened nitrate materials and published them digitally, tracing the making of the film take by take.[2](https://www.deutsche-kinemathek.de/en/collections-archives/digital-collection/murnau-tabu) • [13](https://www.kulturstiftung-des-bundes.de/en/programmes_projects/detail/tabu_safeguarding_audio_visual_cultural_assets.html)
Scholars have continued to debate the film's representation of [Polynesia](https://www.edgepedia.org/polynesia). The scholar Margaret Jolly of Australian National University has examined its portrayal of Polynesian women alongside Flaherty's *Moana*, contrasting ethnographic recuperation with romantic celebration, and the Murnau Stiftung notes that the film is studied in current debates on the deconstruction of colonial images: the scholar Catherine Repussard reads Murnau as denouncing, as early as 1931, the destruction of non-European cultures under European influence, while also staging the self-destruction of those "natural cultures."[14](https://digitalcollections.byuh.edu/pacific-studies-journal/vol20/iss4/10/) • [1](https://www.murnau-stiftung.de/node/778)
## Legacy
*Tabu* is routinely cited as a landmark hybrid of fiction and documentary, an influence on later traditions of location shooting, poetic realism, and the use of nonprofessional performers, and it was added to the Library of Congress National Film Registry in 1994. Its afterlife includes Miguel Gomes's acclaimed 2012 film *Tabu*, which borrows the title and a two-part structure as an open tribute.[15](https://sightlines.media/film/977/tabu-a-story-of-the-south-seas-1931/reception) • [6](https://www.loc.gov/programs/national-film-preservation-board/film-registry/complete-national-film-registry-listing/) The film historian Scott Eyman, writing for the San Francisco Silent Film Festival, records the director Eric Rohmer's estimation of it as "the most gorgeous film by the greatest movie director in the world."[5](https://silentfilm.org/tabu-a-story-of-the-south-seas/)
## References
1. [TABU (Tabu: A Story of the South Seas), Friedrich-Wilhelm-Murnau-Stiftung](https://www.murnau-stiftung.de/node/778)
2. [The Making of F. W. Murnau's 'Tabu' – The Outtakes Edition, Deutsche Kinemathek](https://www.deutsche-kinemathek.de/en/collections-archives/digital-collection/murnau-tabu)
3. [F. W. Murnaus ›Tabu‹ – Die Edition der Outtakes, Deutsche Kinemathek](https://www.deutsche-kinemathek.de/de/sammlungen-archive/sammlung-digital/murnaus-tabu)
4. [Tabu, Friedrich-Wilhelm-Murnau-Stiftung film page](https://www.murnau-stiftung.de/movie/13912)
5. [Tabu: A Story of the South Seas, essay by Scott Eyman, San Francisco Silent Film Festival](https://silentfilm.org/tabu-a-story-of-the-south-seas/)
6. [Complete National Film Registry Listing, Library of Congress](https://www.loc.gov/programs/national-film-preservation-board/film-registry/complete-national-film-registry-listing/)
7. [Tabu (1931), AFI Catalog](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/5257-TABU?cp=1&pos=3&sid=4e8a2a78-fcf0-4524-ad36-d93d66b007fb&sr=0.73191553)
8. [F. W. Murnau's Tabu, MoMA](https://www.moma.org/explore/inside_out/2010/09/07/f-w-murnaus-tabu/)
9. [Tabu: A Story of the South Seas, BAMPFA](https://bampfa.org/node/237261)
10. [Tabu: A Story of the South Seas (1931), FilmAffinity](https://www.filmaffinity.com/en/film471016.html)
11. [Tabu (1931), Rotten Tomatoes](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/tabu)
12. [Tabu (1931), Kino Lorber Theatrical](https://kinolorber.com/film/tabu1931)
13. [Tabu – Safeguarding audio-visual cultural assets, Kulturstiftung des Bundes](https://www.kulturstiftung-des-bundes.de/en/programmes_projects/detail/tabu_safeguarding_audio_visual_cultural_assets.html)
14. [Margaret Jolly, "White Shadows in the Darkness: Representations of Polynesian Women in Early Cinema," Pacific Studies 20(4), 1997](https://digitalcollections.byuh.edu/pacific-studies-journal/vol20/iss4/10/)
15. [How Tabu: A Story of the South Seas was received, Sightlines](https://sightlines.media/film/977/tabu-a-story-of-the-south-seas-1931/reception)
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*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Early and silent cinema › Silent feature films › Released 1927 to 2012*
*Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*
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