Review by
Benjamin Poole
Directed by: Miguel Gomes
Starring: Gonçalo Waddington, Crista Alfaiate, Cláudio da Silva, Lang Khê Tran, Jorge Andrade
Grand Tour, Miguel Gomes' festival seducing epic, luxuriates in its fanciful
play with narrative tropes and functions to present a film true to its
title: it's not the arrival, but the journey which counts, an admittedly
well-worn aphorism but one which Grand Tour honours even
beyond the mortality of its characters. Fittingly, for a film with four
writers (Gomes, along with Telmo Churro, Maureen Fazendeiro and
Mariana Ricardo), Grand Tour (the lack of a defining
article, as well as distancing this charming film from the braying TV
programme where some men drive cars, is instructive: allowing the title
ambiguous interpretative space in keeping with Gomes' constructed enigmas)
offers a visual explication of Joan Didion's much misunderstood quote, "we
tell ourselves stories in order to live."
Throughout the film, we follow runaway fiancé Edward (Gonçalo Waddington, playing avatar like-blank) during his desertion through what in this
1918 setting was called "the Orient." As Edward makes his way from Rangoon
to Bangkok via Saigon the film showcases in-screen storytelling modes such
as marionettes and shadow puppets, along with technical features such as
voiceover and different film stocks to create a montage of narrative,
drawing attention to this simple central precis: the telling of stories
for the pleasure of stories. Underlining the theme, at points, with a
patience testing frequency, the plot momentum stops entirely for Gomes to
present us with travelogue footage of the various cities that Edward ends
up in, non-causal and spirited sequences which position us to
contemplate... something or other.
You can't say you weren't warned. Grand Tour opens with an
extended sequence of a Ferris wheel, rotating in the fairground night as
carnies acrobatically cavort about its metal spokes. Pointedly, the camera
is objective, and we watch from a static distance as the mechanism
endlessly revolves yet goes nowhere: a motif we are reminded of
throughout. If a protagonist is defined by his function to propel action,
then Edward is an anti-protagonist: a passive coward who by avoiding his
marriage to Molly flees and reflexively encounters events; he is referred
to as "walking in circles." When we meet him, brought to Rangoon harbour
via a big ship (modes of transport are another motif), we see him pass on
the flowers meant for Molly to other passengers. He is simply a tourist,
an agent of other's destiny. At one point a character thinks that vague
Edward must be a spy, and this sets off a farcical thread which Edward is
largely oblivious of. His journey is derailed by a train crash, which he
just wanders off from, ever moving away from denouements or resolutions
into ever more luscious scenery.
In Grand Tour's best joke, just over halfway we pick up with Molly (Crista Alfaiate, very appealing) in a narrative diptych where the pursuing fiancé
re-treads the very same places which we have just seen Edward in,
retelling the story. Grand Tour's second half is more satisfying from a narrative perspective, perhaps
by means of the defined quest structure, and if Molly does conform to
manic pixieisms (itself an inversion here, because the "broodingly soulful
young man" who, in Nathan Rabin's og definition, should be "taught to
embrace life" by self-assured Molly is literally running away from her),
she is at least more fun than Edward, and her arc ultimately and emotively
ties the film together with a mournful black bow. However, at that point,
it may be a bit too late. Like the films of Wes Anderson, there is a
highly specific idiosyncrasy at play in Grand Tour; a whimsical precision which for people who like this sort of thing is
manna, but for most is nah-nah. It's easy to see why
Grand Tour was nominated for so many festival garlands
because the realised ambition of the film is impressive, as is how Gomes
sustains this varied spectacle of caprice. But it is perhaps also
understandable why juries in the main overlooked the film: like its
pseudo-protagonists, Grand Tour is a little too smitten with
itself. Some will love this journey, the rest of us are just along for the
ride.
Grand Tour is on MUBI UK from April
18th.
