Taboo It is the new success of the Netflix series in Latin America; in Spain it keeps on HBO Max. But it is also a curious phenomenon that defies explanation. The lesser-known work of the creator of Peaky Blinders Released in 2017 and starring Tom Hardy, it went unnoticed for years. Or at best it was considered a plot and visual oddity with little resonance beyond England. But now, as part of the Netflix catalog, it has become a success.
The Netflix series, which had a single season of eight episodes, seemed to be part of a long list of unique and unfinished projects. Premiered on BBC and distributed in the US by Fox did not reach the expected resonance. Taboo, with its gloomy and extravagant air, shows a Tom Hardy that comes out of his usual registers. The story of James Delaney, a mysterious man who returns to 1814 England with a vengeance in tow, is surprising in its darkness. Also, for Steven Knight’s ability to create a rare work with a deep personality, which is disconcerting because of his rawness.
Netflix’s new success completely departs from much of the platform’s catalog. This sinister, gloomy piece, dotted with apparently supernatural elements, is based on the possibility of secrecy. At the time, Taboo was described as “an excessively macabre Victorian tale”. But in reality it is a mature, disturbing and dense work, based on stories of moral and spiritual nightmares of surprising intelligence.
Set in a Charles Dickens-inspired London, with hints of Wilkie Collins and Joseph Conrad, this Journey into the Dark is a claustrophobic tale. Taboo, beyond its disturbing air, is also a look at a type of television story that does not follow conventions. And hence its success.
A box of mysteries with Tom Hardy at the helm
At the time of his arrival on the BBC screens, Steven Knight was already enjoying the success of Peaky Blinders. But he was also obsessed with the possibility of creating a much denser authorial story. In fact, all in Taboo seems to be related to a fragmented history. The eight chapters are prodigies of script that link several threads in parallel. In particular, the perception of a type of dark evil that rarely reaches stories intended for all audiences.
From superstition, fear, ultraviolence to incest. Taboo It is a strange work that advances through dark terrain from which it does not always come out well. Much of the criticism it received at the time of its premiere was due precisely to its inability to explain the disturbing background that sustains it. Is everything that is not told in Taboo magic? Or is it tricks and narrative failures? Steven Knight took a series of narrative risks to create a sorrowful and violent work, a departure from any of his other work. And yes Peaky Blinders has sometimes been accused of romanticizing and embellishing violence, Taboo slips to the other side of the spectrum.
The series is a compendium of horrors on a small scale. All wrapped in a dirty, terrifying aesthetic that sublimates historical detail to a kind of twisted beauty. With his profoundly British air but specifically, his literary conception of the moral and the inexplicable, TabYou play with expectations. She does, by creating a mysterious connotation about the Delaney’s motives for returning from Africa, the accompanying horror and the possibility of fear. Halfway between a work of psychological horror and something more dense, Taboo it is a mix of registers. One that overwhelms by the fact of being inexplicable, visually attractive and in the end, a terrifying product of enormous quality.
Taboo, a dark star in the BBC firmament
At the time of its release, Steven Knight’s work was compared to Hammer’s twilight dramas and B-class horror films. Also, a mixture of registers and textures that made it a product of risk. Despite Hardy’s extraordinary performance, the increasingly evident and elegant gothic air, Taboo did not win over the public. Now, from the Netflix catalogue, not only does it do so, but it also becomes an attractive production that surprises and captivates.
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Tabú found its place in the great worldwide audience of Netflix. And perhaps, also the followers of the cloudy, violent and substantial darkness of a story that is complicated to analyze.