Grand Tour

It is 1917 and we are in Rangoon, in the British colony of Burma. Edward is stationed there as an official of the British Empire and is about to meet his fiancée Molly. Just before arrival, however, he gets cold feet and dives, head first, into a disorienting journey through various countries and regions. After Burma, Thailand, Vietnam, Manila, Japan, the Chinese interior and Tibet also pass by. The film then centres on the determined Molly, who pursues Edward but keeps missing him. In search of love, the couple, as if in a fever dream and propelled by overwhelming feelings, waltzes through the Asian continent. But what is a melancholic flight for one turns out to be a roguish pursuit for the other.

Miguel Gomes - who with Tabu snatched the Grand Prix for Best Film at Film Fest Gent in 2012 and was on the festival's programme again with The Tsugua Diaries in 2021 - stays true to his playful approach in his sixth feature film. Don't expect a linear storyline, but rather antics between time periods, continents and characters' worlds of thought. It is a meandering, sometimes demanding journey that rewards you with its clear, overwhelming beauty and surprising humour. His usual sidekicks, Portuguese film stars Gonçalo Waddington and Crista Alfaiate, also reappear.

Gomes beautifully portrays the seemingly contradictory strengths of the main characters. Full of formal risks, as the director uses thoroughly artificial sets with reconstructions of a royal palace, a colonial hotel or a derailed train. He alternates this with documentary footage, shot on 16mm during the corona crisis. It produces a mesmerisingly anachronistic montage that constantly oscillates between fiction and reality and, like the characters and their surging feelings, never stands still. Grand Tour is a dizzying merry-go-round and, spurred on by the timeless powers of cinema, definitely a great adventure. Miguel Gomes once again shows himself a master of sophisticated cinema full of charm and playful innocence. A charm that was savoured at Cannes, where Gomes won the prize for best director.