Grand Tour

Miguel Gomes: Grand Tour (PT/IT/FR 2024) avec Gonçalo Waddington (Edward) et Crista Alfaiate (Molly).

PT/IT/FR 2024

Réalisé par Miguel Gomes

Photographie : Gui Liang, Sayombhu Mukdeeprom et Rui Poças - noir et blanc / couleur - 1.66:1 - 16 mm - Dolby Digital

Avec Gonçalo Waddington, Crista Alfaiate, Teresa Madruga, Jani Zhao, Lang-Khê Tran

Langues originales : portugais, birman, chinois, japonais, vietnamien, thaï, français

Genre : Aventure, comédie dramatique

Durée : 2h08

Sous-titres français: Melody Arauso Martini

Sortie nationale le 27/11/2024 - distributed by The Match Factory

    Vu le 15 février 2025, Cinéma Saint André des Arts, Salle 3 (182 Places): 12, rue Gît-le-Coeur, 75006 Paris

Synopsis: "Rangoon, Birmanie, 1918. Edward, fonctionnaire de l'Empire britannique, s'enfuit le jour où il devait épouser sa fiancée, Molly. Déterminée à se marier, Molly part à la recherche d'Edward et suit les traces de son Grand Tour à travers l'Asie."

L'Officiel des Spectacles: "Drame, de Miguel Gomes. Birmanie, 1918. Edward, fonctionnaire de l'Empire britannique, s'enfuit le jour où il devait épouser sa fiancée, Molly. Déterminée à se marier, Molly part à la recherche d'Edward et suit ses traces. Gonçalo Waddington, Crista Alfaiate, Teresa Madruga, Jani Zhao, Lang-Khê Tran, Claúdio da Silva."

AA: Miguel Gomes's Grand Tour is an odyssey, "an extended adventurous voyage" and "a spiritual quest", to quote dictionary definitions. It belongs to the genre of the road movie. There is good Finnish word for odyssey: harharetki, untranslatable, but meaning a "trek of delusion", which is a good definition for Grand Tour.

I have been intrigued for a long time about the cinema's obsession with the subject of the cancelled wedding, and Grand Tour is all about it. The colonial functionary Edward elopes from his fiancée Molly on wedding day, and the escape transforms into a Grand Tour of Southeast Asia (Burma, Singapore, Thailand, Philippines, Vietnam), Japan and China. Molly finds the situation comical, and starts to chase Edward.

It is the year 1918, the Great War is over. The context is the Age of Empire, still getting mightier than ever. Edward is searching for himself, but he gets increasingly lost, becoming a stranger to himself. At the same time he realizes that Europeans in general are strangers in Asia and they fail to understand the life and the cultures of Asian nations.

Grand Tour is also a travelogue. It is not story-driven, not a drama (at least not a well-made play). It rather belongs to the category of the spectacle. It also belongs to a lineage with origins in early cinema: the cinema of attractions. Grand Tour is largely built as a series of attractions, displaying quasi documentary interest in circus acts, theatrical shows (including marionette theatre and shadowplay), art forms, and musical performances of many kinds.

It is a prose poem, a film-fleuve, shot with a roaming camera, full of fascinating scenes from panda forests to Japanese monasteries (where Edward also attempts to retreat). Never boring, but I fail to find an irresistible inner drive. Grand Tour is a vision of great fatigue in a world full of mystery and enchantment.

Shot largely in black and white but with spectacular colour passages. The vividness of the 16 mm cinematography is preserved in the digital transfer.