3. Tabu
F.W. Murnau may have been known more for his groundbreaking horror films like Nosferatu and Faust but he was also an incredibly accomplished director in other areas. Tabu is a great example of how efficient he could be when given a script to work with outside of his comfort zone. Murnau ended his career as a silent film director two years after "talkies" had invaded the world which gives Tabu a strangely timeless quality and also gives Murnau himself an air of mystery. Tabu seems like a relic of a forgotten era but the silent film aspect of its narrative gives it a vintage feeling that no other films at the time could capture. The fact that it was shot with real people instead of actors makes it very interesting and progressive for cinema at the time. It has a documentary style to it which helps the drama seem to be more realistic and gives Murnau's direction something he had never been able to capture before. By abandoning the more fantastic stories he had made previously he was really able to grow as a director. The treatment of the savages in Tabu is a very interesting part of the movie because they almost come across as unrealistic because they are presented in such a realistic light. This sounds like a contradiction but Murnau's direction slightly provokes this reaction from the viewer since he had mastered the ability to make the monster of the movie seem all too real. The title character from Faust may have turned into an evil man but his reasons for doing so, wanting to help his town survive the black plague, were all too human. The way that Murnau was able to manipulate the audience into believing that what he was showing them was real is something that he excelled at with Tabu in a more genius way than any of his previous pictures.