Aurora, an elderly Portuguese woman and her Cap Verdean housekeeper live next door to Pilar, who has made it her aim in life to do good.
Not that she receives any gratitude for her efforts – and certainly not from the notoriously mistrustful Aurora, who prefers to spend her remaining years losing her meagre savings at the tables of Estoril casino. When the old lady dies, Pilar gets on the track of an old lover.
Making a film without referring to film history is unthinkable for director Miguel Gomes, and it’s no coincidence that his film has the same title as Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau’s TABU. In his third feature film outing Gomes playfully interprets and rearranges historical events: whilst the first part of his film is in black-and-white and portrays a society wallowing in nostalgia, the second part delivers everything they long for: stirring melodrama, slapstick, juxtaposition and passion.