Grand Tour

Grand Tour, a cinematic tour of Asia directed by Portuguese auteur Miguel Gomes, finds a way to meld these experiences. The nation-hopping reverie has us tag along with its wayward protagonist as he treks from city to city, country to country, in search of something no physical location can provide: an escape from himself. In limited release today ahead of its Mubi premiere on April 18th, the film won Gomes the Best Director prize at last year’s Cannes Film Festival.

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Before leaving on his transcontinental trip, Edward (Gonçalo Waddington) has a dream — not one he can recall, but one whose residual feelings carry into and have a profound effect on the following day. Grand Tour evokes a similar feeling, ushered along by the sense that what’s happening in the physical world matters less than what’s happening in Edward’s mind. That both are something of a mystery, if not quite unknowable, only adds to the film’s enigmatic appeal — this is a long strange trip, but one worth taking.

A diplomat who claims to be in Asia on “deadly boring administrative matters,” Edward is assumed by a friend he runs into of actually being a spy. The real purpose for his trip is neither business nor pleasure: he’s fleeing his fiancée of seven years after having a change of heart on the eve of their nuptials. Molly (Crista Alfaiate) is hot on his tail throughout, sending her betrothed telegrams as she follows close behind. And yet there’s little apparent urgency to his travels, as he seems to languish, if not luxuriate, while traipsing from Rangoon to Bangkok to Saigon and beyond.

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“I’m drawn to this life,” Edward says to a woman who, like his friend, is suspicious of his true intentions. The way Gomes and cinematographers Rui Poças, Sayombhu Mukdeeprom and Guo Liang capture his (mis)adventure, it’s easy to see why.

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Adding to the quasi-surreal nature of this travelogue is narration that changes languages depending on Edward’s current whereabouts and a veritable menagerie of site-specific wildlife, from macaques lolling in a Japanese onsen to a panda perching in Chinese bamboo. Then there are the cutaways to performances featuring marionettes and puppets, which would be immersion-breaking if they weren’t further evidence of Gomes’ fixation on artificiality and performance. Whether a diplomat, spy, or puppeteer, everyone is performing here — including the crew of the film itself, to whom Gomes cuts at the end in a final statement on the porous borders between one layer of artifice and the next.

This is a long strange trip, but one worth taking.

All these elements are as beautiful as they are mesmerizing, ditto shots captured from the back of Edward’s train as it chugs deeper into the heart of darkness. Officially set in 1917, this journey spans a great deal of time and maybe even a little space: in addition to alternating between color and black-and-white, Grand Tour also features the occasional cellphone and modern car alongside the sartorial trademarks of the fading colonial era in which Edward finds himself.

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The second half switches perspectives to follow Molly as she in turn follows Edward, allowing us to see the same locations through a second set of eyes. Far from providing clarity as to why he’s jilted her, this shift presents Molly as the more assertive and likable of the two protagonists, one whose search for her would-be husband doesn’t detract from her own independence.

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COVID restrictions forced Gomes to direct the contemporary scenes remotely, while those taking place in 1917 were filmed on an elaborate sound stage that gives the film a Classic Hollywood vibe. This mishmash of the old and new creates tension, but rarely confusion — you might raise an eyebrow the first time it happens, but Grand Tour is so fluid that you’ll quickly decide to go with the flow and discover where it takes you. In that sense, you’ll be taking the advice given to Edward by a Japanese monk wearing a basket on his head: “Abandon yourself to the world and see how generous it is to you.”