Miguel Gomes’ new film Grand Tour has all the whimsical, baffling yet delightful mystery of his best work. It’s like myriad, colorful stripes have come together to make patterns that are as peculiar as alluring. A Gomes film is very much its own universe with a different schema. Open your heart and step in—the real world retreats, replaced by cinema that follows its own dream-logic.
Opening in colonial-era Burma, a narrator (of which there are many in the film, switching motley native languages) introduces one of the two primary characters, Edward (Gonçalo Waddington). A British bureaucrat, though not of great consequence, he’s evading his fiancé, Molly’s (a pert Crista Alfaiate) attempts at intimacy. It’s clear he’s no longer interested in the wedding, dodging its eventuality as well as Molly herself. But she refuses to take the cues.
In the second half, the film pivots to Molly’s exploits. The quest unravels from her perspective. She’s nudged by many about what’s apparent in Edward’s persistent escape, his shirking of every telegram she sends his way. She insists she knows him, trusts him. He’s not a coward, she helplessly asserts. So, wherever he sneaks off to, she manages to get through, informing him triumphantly she’s not far off. “It’s a mystery how someone can be so tenacious,” Edward remarks mournfully. In stark contrast to the low intensity of his section, the second half injects a fresh spark. While Edward’s portion is more observant and detached, Molly’s is spryly engaged, inserting herself as an active presence.
We follow the two as they cavort across a sweeping expanse. As resigned Edward is to the next adventure that strikes him, Molly is giddy and enthused by the new sights, ripples of tantalizing discovery. Each culture—be it Saigon, Japan, China or the Philippines—presents its own bundle of eccentricities, charming and folksy. Molly can barely contain her memorable, sharp bursts of laughter at an elephant dance. There are mime shows, martial arts matches, puppet dances recounting tales of yore, counterposed with images of bustling urbanity, as well as tarot sessions Molly consults. As they foray through the depths of Asia, the three cinematographers—Sayombhu Mukdeeprom, Rui Poças and Gui Liang—alternate between evoking spellbound fascination and dull, regular rhythms. Grand Tour extracts the dynamic of a foreign place—the negotiation between being arresting and alienating.
As staggeringly ambitious and inspired Gomes’ filmmaking is, it’s full of playful irreverence. The central tale of lovers plays out against a stage strewn with anachronisms. Studio sets combine with modern equipment even as the frame narrative is very evidently set in the past. The two lead roles are of Brits but played by Portuguese actors never using a word of English. There’s wit and style co-existing with a desire to break free of controlled form. Spanning cities, continents, forests and landscapes, the film braids geography with an exploratory lens. Much is glanced through travellers who aren’t familiar with lands they traverse. Languages are foreign. Therefore, ways of grappling with new places and philosophies emerge as disorienting experiences. Gomes transmits the incomprehension of the characters. So, native languages alien to Edward aren’t subtitled, rendered legible, but remain equally inaccessible to us. How do we then decipher others’ rising suspicions, settle their doubts? Documentary footage of every place’s modern avatar strips away the exotic enigma they may have had to the film’s travelers.
As much of the rambling adventures—with coteries of mixed nationalities with their own power verticals—permeate Grand Tour, there’s an equal degree of unpredictability. These Eastern lands may leave Edward and Molly initially wonderstruck but gradually exert danger—a world that can be brutal if they choose to be stubborn.
“Abandon yourself to the world,” a Japanese monk tells Edward at a later point in his journey, “and see how generous it is to you”. It’s one of those spare moments that unlocks an entire film and its maker’s spirit. Grand Tour is an invitation to partake in life’s sudden mysteries and surprises, its vast splendor. To shut ourselves off in a safe cocoon is only a denial of endlessly rich pleasures. These can blaze before us if we permit porousness, refusing to be bound in certain fixed value-systems. How expansive can our vision, our appetite for curiosity and wonder be? Gomes insists on jousting with those limits, destroying them altogether.
Grand Tour is now streaming on MUBI India.
