A film with an unusual narrative structure and some fine moments: Tabu (2012)

 Portuguese director Miguel Gomes's film Tabu (2012) is unusual by any measure; to really understand this narrative I would have to watch the film again (maybe I will - thanks, Criterion!) but there's plenty worth watching on a first run-through, even though some of the film doesn't make a lot of sense on first glance. Very roughly, the film - set variously in Africa (during the last days of Portuguese colonial rule, in Mozambique) and Lisbon - begins with a short prologue showing a young Portuguese man on some kind of (scientific?) expedition in what we learn or surmise is Mozambique. This prologue ends abruptly, and we get into Part 1 of the film, which centers on a middle-aged Lisbon woman (Pilar) and her relationship w/ the woman (Aurora) in an adjacent apartment/condo (in a contemporary Lisbon high-rise); the Aurora, who has a strained relationship w/ her caretaker (Santa), is increasingly ill and generally rebuffs overtures of aid and assistance. When she is eventually hospitalized, she asks Santa and Aurora to track down a Lisbon man (Ventura), whom they'd never heard of; they do find him, and it turns out he had a relationship w/ Aurora years ago on a plantation in Africa. And we jump to part 2 of the film, in which the elderly Ventura tells the entire story their tragic, long-ago relationship in voice-over narration (I have now read that Gomes is the narrator). So there's a lot of ambiguity here and a very strange plot structure (for example, Pilar, the focus of Part 1, play no role other than listener in Part 2). That said, there are some fine moments in both parts of the film - Pilar's strange and mysterious rejection by a Polish student whom she'd agree to house during a visit; terrific use of soundtrack including African music in part 2; beautiful b/w photography throughout - all told, an unusual film, surprising in many ways, confounding in others, and worth at least a look by those, like me, interested in European and African cinema.