THE BEAUTY OF SILENT FILM! TOTALLY OVERWHELMING - MURNAU SHOWS SOME OF THE MOST STUNNING SCENERY I&#

You all would know by now that like many film cineastes I consider film's golden period to be in the 1940s.I love the fifties and many films until the late sixties when the "counterculture" intervened and for mine film lost some of it's beauty and lustre! As a film historian I have always admired "silent" film without being totally enraptured by it. I've always found the Marx brothers films a bit momentous and as for DW Griffith's Birth of a Nation - maybe the most famous silent film of all time - I've always despised it. It's a racist film - the Ku Klux Klan are heroes in the film and the blacks are portrayed terribly. It's just a hideous film -the politics are reprehensible and retrograde - with the only redeeming feature being the wonderful actress Lillian Gish.

So I approached the silent film series at the Australian Cinematheque with some trepidation. What a pleasant surprise. The beauty of film are the unexpected surprises. I remember the first time I saw Tornatore's "Cinema Paradiso". I came in with muted expectation - I walked out thinking that it was the most romantic and soul-lifting experience ever in cinema. It still is - I wonder if the super cute young "Toto" child in the movie actually developed my love for children which has never waned, only grown. Film can do that and in my case along with my love for history are the great passions of my intellectual life. When I walked in to see "Sideways" back in the early 2000s I think it was I walked in with no great expectations. The crowd was not large but I've never laughed sooo much in a cinema in my life. It's now considered a cinema classic!!

The first of the silent's I saw starred the great Rudolph Valentino and it was his seminal picture "The Sheik". Valentino was Hollywood's first sex symbol and this way back in 1921.It's a glorious adventure and of course the saddest addendum to the movie is the fact that Valentino died of illness at the young age of 31.The film was magnetic but the biggest surprise was that the film I saw a few days later was even better!

"Tabu: A Story of the South Sea's" from 1931 was a film I didn't know much about! Every film scholar knows the great F.W. Murnau for one of the greatest horror films of all time Nosferatu (1922) and Sunrise from 1927.I remember seeing Sunrise in my first year at university and being absolutely captivated by some of the most beautiful and romantic scenery I had seen in film at my impressionable age of 18 years. I was spellbound! But here's the surprise....and the beauty of life. Now in my 40s, I've just seen Tabu and it's catapulted into my top 10 films of all time. I've seen thousands of films so it gives you an idea of how seminal this film was for me seeing it for the first time a few nights ago!

It's set on Bora Bora and the cinematography is simply magnificent -so majestic in the fine hues of colours on the scene. The story is simple and timeless. Matahi and Reri (Anne Chevalier) are madly in love and all seems so wonderful until the village chieftain Hitu decides that as the most beautiful lady on the island Reri is tabu -destined to stay a virgin and never to love. The two lovers eventually escape to another South Sea island and find a life amongst Westerners. They are pursued by Hitu and the tribe! It's all so exhilarating and ends with one of the most romantic scenes in the wild waters I have ever had the privilege to witness. In stormy waters the masculine Matahi swims in treacherous waters to save his beloved Reri and then Hitu cuts the cord on the boat as Matahi grips it. It's an unbelievable scene - my heart hoped he could get on board and save his love. I won't give away the end result but it's incredibly powerful. It makes "Titanic' with Winslet and Di Caprio seem frivolous in comparison.

The beauty of silent film and I've only realised it now is that because there's no talking -they are the most expression filled movies of all time. Everything is focused on human emotion- the close ups on the faces of characters are intrinsic to these movies. They are also generally feverishly romantic and uplifting. And usually just like in Tabu there is great music as well and it's cacophonous and inviting. My heart pined for Reri and Matahi. I'm a huge romantic and not afraid to admit it. By the way I loved 'Titanic' but 'Tabu' was far better-one of the greatest films I've ever seen!

My fiancé Lena and I love the ocean more than anything in the world and we always had Bora Bora on our bucket list! Now it's mandatory that we go there as soon as possible and I want to investigate some of the locations and try to find out some further background to the movie there for further writing I wish to do in book form. I end with the exhilarating thought that just as in life, if you are optimists and we most certainly are, life and film always bring some fantastic surprises and "Tabu" was 90 of the most pleasurable movie moments I have ever seen. Thank you Mr Murnau for your brilliance and even more importantly your great humanity!!....

Postscript: Tragically, the great FW Murnau died in a car crash only a week before the film's release! And Floyd Crosby won the Oscar as Best Cinematographer that year. No surprise to me as the South Sea's look amazing in this beautiful, romantic film!!!