Taboo
2017
Original language: English
- drama
- mystery
The story
Adventurer James Keziah Delaney returns to London from Africa in 1814 along with fourteen stolen diamonds to seek vengeance after the death of his father.
What it’s like
Murky, candlelit and mud-brown, Taboo is shot in a grimy, fog-choked Georgian London where the light comes mostly from oil lamps, hearths and the grey wash of the Thames, with a bleak palette of soot, ochre and blood red and a camera that lingers in cramped rooms and crowded docks. Its sound is a low, droning score that swells under the city's clatter, with long silences broken by hoofbeats, gunshots and muttered threats. The vibe is brooding, paranoid and heavy, the kind of slow-burning gothic menace best watched late at night with the lights off. Pacing is deliberate, with tension built through glances and whispered deals rather than set-piece action, and the emotional register is grim and cold. Its central figure is a hardened, emotionally closed man slowly and grudgingly confronting his past. Intensity is high: frequent, sometimes brutal violence, graphic gore, sexual content and a steady current of cruelty and dread, so it does not suit anyone seeking something gentle. It is for viewers who enjoy dark period drama, scheming power politics and morally compromised anti-heroes.
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