Juxtaposition is often used to pair two seemingly incompatible events happening side-by-side. In Cosmopolis, the limo Eric rides transforms alongside him. The limo is cool and stylish on the inside, and gets ravaged by rioters on the outside. Likewise, Eric's calm and collected exterior is contrasted with physical and mental inner turmoil. As the limo transforms, so does Eric. But juxtaposition in Cosmopolis also exists beyond the alteration of imagery and environment. The intricacies of Eric's life are challenged along with those rioters leaving destruction in their wake, and along with destroying a physical object that's symbolically bound to Eric, they challenge Eric's own attachment to material possessions, which is all fueled by a deadly disease Eric learns he has contracted. As the public rebels against the government and the 1%, Eric rebels against himself, lashing out and destroying his own wealth and, eventually, his own fragile body. It's this ability to juxtapose not only object against object, but also outer turmoil against inner turmoil that allows Cosmopolis transcend the traditional definition of the J-word.
And, with this in mind, we can see that juxtaposition isn't exactly relative to distance. Ideas and objects must be matched up alongside one another for the sake of the word's definition, but sometimes juxtaposition is enhanced with scope. The juxtaposition of an earlier scene can amplify the power of a later juxtaposition, and essentially intertwine the two. Juxtaposition then occurs within the mind and, in Tabu's case, unites two ideas that are separated by forty beguiling years.
Tabu is study in the power of juxtaposing memory with the written word. How tales are recounted from a distance in Tabu carries an almost unthinkable weight of irreversible loss, and such recollection is only further enhanced by director Miguel Gomes' (and co-writer Mariana Ricardo's) grasp on its snug-yet-just-out-of-reach juxtaposition to the real-time events shaping in the film's first half: "A Paradise Lost." Everything from Tabu's halved structure to its cuts between side-by-side scenes; from the camera's static presence to its relentless pursuit; from its boisterous live performances to its stark imagery-laden African landscape—in addition to providing clear-cut juxtaposition for the characters and their psyches, Tabu also becomes an irrefutable example of the power one's memory holds.
Gomes wastes no time introducing the head-spinning amount of juxtaposition you're asked to endure, beginning his movie in the vein of the Joel and Ethan Coen's A Serious Man with a fairy tale depicting lost love. On the surface it owns no relation to Tabu, but in context it means everything. There is a long narrated stretch, telling the tale of a man trekking through the "jungle and arid lands for months," searching for the spot where his wife met her demise. Upon reaching the pond where the man-eating crocodile awaits, his wife appears to him in a vision.
“You may run as far as you can for as long as you like, but you will not escape your heart,” she says.
“Then I will die,” he responds.
“You sad and poor soul.”
Then, as she disappears and the explorer returns to his ill fate, he "bids farewell to life."
And what's followed by this moment? Shock and apathy on the accompanying villagers faces. And then...fucking dancing. It's abrupt and not at all in line with the melancholic, bittersweet moment. In what won't be the only occurrence of a lively cultural proceedings pit against inner anguish, this scene will soon be juxtaposed with Pilar's (Teresa Madruga) presence at a movie theater.
“Night falls on the savannah, as will a thousand and one more. Then and ever since, despite how absurd this may sound to men of reason, some swear to witness this ghoulish sight: a sad and melancholic crocodile, with a lady from days gone by—an inseparable pair united by a mysterious pact never broken by death.”
Cut to Pilar, sitting in a theater and watching a ghost stand alongside a crocodile, witnessing these events just like the villagers on- and off-screen in Tabu. It's all very Mysteries of Lisbon-esque in its attention to its surrounding characters and their role in storytelling, but Tabu is much more concerned with its protagonists and how their stories live on through their recollections. But the first important piece of symbolism here is the presence of the theater—film, books, and music are all used to juxtapose storytelling with reality, especially the cases where those two elements combine (the film's second half: "Paradise").
Pilar witnesses a fairy tale where a man is symbolically bound to a crocodile, and then hears a story from Ventura (Henrique Espírito Santo) that, verbally, cannot capture the symbolic power the crocodile holds over Aurora (Ana Moreira).
Pilar sits next to her new friend in the theater amidst their budding relationship as The Ronettes' "Be My Baby" plays overhead, but remains unaware of how devastating the song is to Aurora while sitting in her constricting home.
Santa (Isabel Muñoz Cardoso) reads "Robinson Crusoe" on her sofa—a tale of slavery and entrapment bound to the pages surrounding it. When her teacher asks what the book is about, Gomes greets the question with an abrupt cutaway. We are not provided an eloquent answer because compared to Ventura's tale, a short synopsis of "Robinson Crusoe" just won't be sufficient. Witnessing Aurora's similar mental entrapment puts on display the power behind the words.
All of these instances challenge the power of the written word versus the living, breathing truth; the process of understanding versus experiencing. Ventura's tale consumes the entire second half of the film dialogue-free. What Pilar and Santa experience during Ventura's story is entirely different from what we and Ventura witness. The lack of dialogue heightens the senses, allowing the stealing glances, the stark imagery, and the intertwining juxtaposition to dominate the tale's unfurling romance. As our experience is juxtaposed alongside Santa and Pilar's, the resounding presence of those elements not only puts on display the powers of storytelling, but also how Ventura's memory will allow a tale of lost love to live on indefinitely.
The most glaring piece of juxtaposition is, of course, the film's halved structure. The first half of Tabu propels forward in random directions, from Pilar's romance to Aurora's sickness to Santa's role as a caregiver. The second half stops immediately—as Pilar and Santa sit down for lunch in a restaurant, surrounded by a jungle and the sounds of passing cars and chatter, Ventura suddenly breaks his silence and transfers us into a long, flat African landscape, where the only sounds are the crickets and the soft wind. Sitting inside the fake jungle that fills the restaurant, along with the various giraffe statues throughout their town, the plastic nature of reality—along with literature, music, and movies—is suddenly paralleled alongside Ventura's story.
Older Aurora's (Laura Soveral) recollection of a dream full of rabid monkeys is a eye-popping parallel for Ventura's story, as these two moments mark the power of the spoken word. Aurora's dream comes off just as racist regardless of the viewer's knowledge of past events, but upon hearing Ventura's story, the devastation of the dream finally comes into play. Aurora recounts monkeys violently thrashing about, to the point where she feared for her life. Her husband comes to rescue her and whisks her away to a train. But when the conductor comes by and asks for a ticket, her husband suddenly starts acting like a monkey, hanging from the bars and avoiding the man. When taken to the ticket machine by the conductor, it becomes a slot machine. Aurora uses this as her excuse for why she blew all of her money at the casino.
Despite Ventura's tale not forming until the film's second half, juxtaposition is occurring in this moment. Flash forward to young Aurora: beautiful, full of life, and utterly alone. She and her rich husband own many maids and cooks—all black residents of Mount Tabu, and all unable to communicate with Aurora. They pass by her, hardly ever offering glances, milling about and performing their duties. As the tale unfurls, we find that Aurora attaches herself to younger Ventura (Carloto Cotta) because of her husbands' absence and inattention to her true romantic desires, which explains why her husband (Ivo Müller) became a monkey in her dream—he essentially becomes as relatable and aware of Aurora's troubles as one of her foreign workers. Directionless and easy to manipulate, the slot machine suddenly becomes a sign Aurora takes to heart. The juxtaposition here is this need for care and direction she's unable to find with her husband and can no longer find with Ventura—a bit of inner turmoil brought on by past events that haven't quite shaped themselves onscreen yet.
Creating this sense of abandonment in "Paradise" is essential in pronouncing the various occurrences in the film's first half that portray Aurora's loneliness, loss of sanity, and eventual death. The environment of each half presents their own unique opportunities. Wide and open for casual motorcycle rides, African landscape in "Paradise" welcomes the adventurous Aurora, a skilled huntswoman who hasn't missed a shot since her childhood. But, as Ventura points out:
“Her taste for adventure was merely dormant, numbed by the extravagant presents that livened up her routine existence.”
One of those presents came from her husband, allowing for a scope-encompassing moment of irony: a baby crocodile, trapped in its tiny basket and small pond of water. The crocodile, much like the film Pilar watches, represents the wife. A crocodile, a scaly beast that is often met with fear, suddenly takes the form of a boisterous, optimistic young woman. This scene is followed by the moment she first meets Ventura, the only man who presents an opportunity for an escape she doesn't yet desire.
These two scenes are immediately met with more juxtaposition, as the crocodile moves into a larger body of water and Aurora goes on a day trip with her husband. As the crocodile continues to roam free in the water, perhaps entertaining the thought of escaping with Ventura (they often steal glances from one another), her husband performs a photo shoot, running after Aurora as she explores the rocky landscape surrounding a river. Aurora forces a smile, but is obviously unwilling to participate. The sudden cut to her husband's camera brings silence along with it, trapping Aurora in her husband's frame, unable to speak or relate her troubles. The juxtaposition of noise combined with the crocodile's presence both present a substantial use of imagery and environment, as the juxtaposition itself becomes a character enhancer, lending direction and marking anguish in this woman's life.
What occurs next is a bit of a juxtaposition sandwich that just about made me throw my hands up in the air and pull one of these. I don't know if I'll ever be able to mark the sheer amount of juxtaposition of this film, no matter how many viewings I endure...
It begins with Ventura posing in the trees with his band. The band itself presents a slew of opportunities for discussion of Aurora's psyche, but for now, the band is Ventura's escape. The band allows Ventura to explore the world while on tour, and Aurora's attachment to Ventura marks her inability to do so. So as Ventura poses for a camera (which I just realized juxtaposes itself with Aurora's photo shoot scene just beforehand) with his band, scattered about in a wide shot of a tree, Gomes suddenly cuts to Aurora, sitting in a circle with her friends as they gossip in her living room. The three friends are paired together, all laughing silently to themselves, and Aurora is framed by herself, forcing laughter and trying to keep up. One of Ventura's beautiful songs cuts in at this moment, and as the blues play over the silent proceedings, offsetting the this moment of detachment.
And then, in what is pretty much the finest shot of the film, Gomes suddenly cuts to the film's iconic image: a close-up crocodile, half-hidden in the water, its treacherous eye surveying the events before it. Throughout Tabu, people are either depicted statically in place, or roaming from a distance. The camera either bounds a characters, or struggles to keep up. The tightness of the shot, not even revealing the crocodile beyond its head, is a sinister and telling moment. Trapped within the frame—just like her husbands' camera—Aurora is bound to her environment. The ugliness of a crocodile marks just how horrific her situation has become, replacing the words and structure of traditional storytelling and allowing for one single image to encompass the entirety of Aurora's depressed state of being. In the next scene, the crocodile temporarily escapes and Aurora misses a shot for the first time in her hunting career. As the news spreads throughout town, Aurora abandons hunting, thus marking her desire for adventure disappearing. She rejects any notion of physical escape from her crippling lifestyle, which drives Aurora to Ventura's home, where they make love for the first time.
Ventura's temporary departure from Mount Tabu with his band marks yet another juxtaposed sequence, as he becomes infuriated with the fact that Aurora is unable to escape her binding husband. As his anger escalates, Mario decides to cool him off by tossing him into the pool. Both Aurora's and Ventura's relation to his pool is striking, as it resembles the very pond in which they keep their pet crocodile. For Aurora: this pool is her home. It sits there, constantly announcing its presence. But when Ventura is thrown into it, his next course of action is escape. He is not bound to this African landscape, and his band's tour allows him to flee. The cut to his band's live act beside the pool is what interrupts his and Aurora's adulterous relationship, bringing the scene full circle and pronouncing how liberating Ventura's lifestyle is compared to Aurora's.
This sequence is followed by a flurry of letters exchanged between Ventura and Aurora, which is juxtaposed with many tracking shots of African workers performing their duties juxtaposition while Aurora sits in solitude. The slowness of time is pronounced in these moments, as we can experience Aurora's dip into melancholy with with only the words read aloud from letters. As Aurora marks her final letter with "I bid farewell" (mirroring the Tabu's opening short film), The Ronnette's "Be My Baby" cuts in to break the silence. Sitting in the same exact spot where she pretended to laugh alongside her gossiping friends, she weeps for perhaps the first time in Tabu. The radio that rests behind (which is juxtaposed with a shot of Ventura playing the drums) is yet another reminder of love that feels so close, yet rests out of reach.
Her repeated placement in the living room inherently marks a moment of solitude, but in relation to Pilar's date in the theater, it becomes utter devastation. As Pilar entertains the idea of a blossoming relationship, we find Aurora is bound to a man who cannot understand her slow spiral downward. This moment also symbolically puts on display the power of what is on screen and what is experienced, as the power of a song or an image on a screen simply cannot be put into focus in relation to the character it affects.
So when Ventura returns and whisks Aurora away to a new life, it regrettably and understandably doesn't last long. Ventura soon realizes he cannot care for Aurora and her newborn child, despite what Aurora may believe and desire. This is shown in a moment where she shoots Mario—trapped within the restraints of Ventura's selfishness, she shoots for the first time since her failed hunting trip, marking perhaps the first legitimate moment in her regression into insanity.
His only course of action is to call for the husband, who comes and picks up his wife along with the deceased Mario. Aurora is forced into the car along with the dead body, marking one yet another moment of juxtaposition that essentially puts the nail in the coffin. As concrete as death, she is bound to this life, even if she physically flees. African music suddenly comes into the air, joyous and welcoming, and not at all in line with these two lovers' final moments with one another. It's this juxtaposition of noise and mood that amplifies the resounding final look exchanged between two lovers who performed unspeakable crimes. The only exchange beyond this point comes in the form of Aurora's letter, discussing the moment she left Mount Tabu and escaped the physical environment that drove her to insanity. As she recounts her departure, we see the crocodile crawling on her former home's living room floor, free from the pond and ready to roam.
Aurora's letter is a bittersweet recollection of lost love, recounting the days that constantly escape her and hopeful that Ventura will fulfill her one final wish:
"I ask you to make this sad letter ashes, the last I will write and that you won’t respond. And that never can reveal, in my lifetime, the monumental crimes we lived.
-Aurora"
To quote Gomes and Ricardo once again, Ventura and Aurora were "an inseparable pair united by a mysterious pact never broken by death.” With both the opening fairy tale and Ventura's recollection mirroring one another in this very instance, the juxtaposition reaches its climax as the credits roll: Ventura and Aurora's love (or life, for the matter) does not begin an end with a film, nor a letter, nor a book, nor a song, nor one's beating heart. Love is far too powerful and transcendent, and Tabu is living and inexplicably beautiful proof of that.
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