Rockbund Art Museum 上海外滩美术馆

The new video Adel Abdessemed created specially for the exhibition at RAM draws inspiration from the last sequence of the movie Tabu: A Story of the South Seas, which was made in 1931 by German director F.W. Murnau. In that last scene, the young man swam after his lover and sank into the ocean.

Tabu: A Story of the South Seas, created by documentary film pioneer Robert J. Flaherty and F.W. Murnau, presents a tale of two young Maori lovers on the idyllic island of Bora-Bora in Polynesia. It also casts light on the social conditions and customary traditions of the indigenous people, including the hierarchical system of their tribe, the semi-colonized life on the island, and business between the Chinese and the indigenous people. As Flaherty wanted to record the life on the island as it was and to depict how men got along with nature, which led to artistic disputes with Murnau, he left the island in the middle of the shooting. Flaherty's signature style could be perceived in the first half of the movie which features a kind of simple and approachable language of the camera. The second half of the movie is brimming with Murnau's aesthetic taste and his passion for dramatic tension. And such artistic visions could be seen in his emphasis on the freedom of love and the confrontation with cultural taboos.

The movie casts light on the exotic and somewhat mysterious lifestyle of the Maori people, presenting a landscape that is completely different from what so-called "usual" and daily life is supposed to be, which inspires anthropologists, visual anthropology practitioners, and the public to reflect upon spectacle, the exotic and the otherness. How to reflect upon ourselves and the world through the so-called "spectacles" and the study of the "otherness"? After the screening of Tabu: A Story of the South Seas, professor Zhu Jingjiang, Ph.D. in Anthropology of Peking University and director of Research Center of Visual Anthropology at Minzu University of China will join the Film Talk and share with the audience his viewpoints on the following topics:

1. "Tabu": Polynesian civilization in the South Pacific and its ethnography

2. The South Seas Trilogy by Flaherty: from Moana to Tabu: A Story of the South Seas

3. The indigenous "others" in Hollywood movies: body, desires, and Christian redemption

4. Visual spectacle and cultural taboo: reflections upon visual ethnology of contemporary anthropology

阿岱尔·阿德斯梅为上海外滩美术馆量身定做的新作灵感来自于德国电影导演F.W 茂瑙1931年拍摄的电影《禁忌》最后一幕：青年泅水追寻爱人，随后逐渐沉入大海。

《禁忌》由纪录片大师弗拉哈迪与FW.茂瑙共同创作。影片以对波利尼西亚Bora-Bora海岛上的毛利族青年男女坚贞不渝、可歌可泣的爱情故事为主线，穿插描述了当地的社会状况和风俗传统，包括部落等级制度、白人的半殖民以及华人与土著的商业交易等。一直秉持忠实记录当地生活图景，展现人与自然相处的弗拉哈迪由于和茂瑙创作理念不和，中途退出拍摄。但电影的前半部分淳朴又亲近的镜头语言中仍可以看出他的创作风格。电影的后半段则充分体现了茂瑙的艺术美感，以及他对于戏剧张力的热衷。这一倾向也体现在他对男女爱情自由、对抗文化禁忌的着重描述上。

这部电影呈现了海岛上的毛利族部落带有浓郁的异域风情与神秘色彩的生活图景，构成了一种与日常生活截然不同的彼岸景观，也激发了众多人类学家、人类学影像工作者和普罗大众对于奇观、异域、他者的反思。我们又如何透过所谓的"奇观"，经由研究"他者"来反思自我，理解世界呢？

共同观看电影《禁忌》后，北京大学人类学博士，中央民族大学影视人类学研究中心主任朱靖江将会在此次影评会中与大家分享和探讨以下相关话题的见解，包括：

1. “禁忌”：南太平洋波利尼西亚文明及其民族志；

2. 弗拉哈迪的“南海三部曲”：从“摩阿纳”到“禁忌” ；

3. 好莱坞电影中的土著“他者”：身体、欲望与基督教救赎；

4. 视觉奇观与文化禁忌：当代人类学的民族志影像反思等。