Portuguese filmmaker Miguel Gomes expands the boundaries of cinema with his latest production, 'Grand Tour', a period drama that confounds expectations.
Set in 1918 Southeast Asia, the narrative follows a British civil servant and his fiancée through the continent, blending present-day documentary footage with historical reenactments, native language voiceovers and a slowly developing plot.
However, 'Grand Tour' is anything but easy to encapsulate. It stitches together timelines and genres with abandon, colour and monochrome are thrown into the mix without preamble. Gomes utilises a style that fuses past and present until they become one, as if the period film is a recently discovered documentary from a hundred years ago.
'Grand Tour' challenges viewers who like their cinema served straightforward and without divergence. Despite that, it gained recognition in Cannes and is likely to find an audience in various other film festivals and art cinema venues, albeit on a limited scale.
The film is divided into two interconnected parts, guiding us from Myanmar to Western China, with multiple stops in between. We initially follow Edward, the civil servant, who abruptly abandons his fiancee, Molly, to journey into the unknown.
As Edward travels to different cities, the director contrasts contemporary ethnographic footage of these sites with costumed period representations shot in Portugal. The narrative, though set in 1918, takes unsuspected turns, such as a detour to a Manila karaoke bar where Frank Sinatra's "My Way" is being sung in Filipino.
The second half of the film introduces more plot, shifting to Molly's perspective as she seeks Edward across Asia, acquiring a Vietnamese companion in the process. Her quest takes her to Shanghai, west to Chengdu and the Tibetan border, where we lost track of Edward in the first part. Ill and unsure of her future, Molly’s journey parallels Edward’s, their paths mysteriously intertwined.
'Grand Tour', though not a traditional love story, is centred around a couple caught under the spell of the exotic places they travel. Gomes interjects contemporary footage of karaoke sessions, puppet shows, and local life, making Southeast Asia a spectacle for both characters and viewers. The philosophy of the film might best be summed up by a Japanese monk Edward encounters: “Abandon yourself to the world and you’ll see how it rewards you.”
