Miguel Gomes' has always remained amongst the most challenging of film-makers so you might say "Grand Tour" is something of a walk in the park though, being Gomes, this is a very exotic park indeed. The Grand Tour of the title is Edward's though as he moves further away from his pursuing fiancee Molly it's less of a grand tour as it is a feverish escape which Gomes treats in his usual elliptical manner.
Shot once again in gorgeous monochrome with color inserts and making no concessions to realism, (it may be set in 1917 but Gomes' is a world of mobile phones, motorcars and skyscrapers), this is cinema at its purest and, once you settle into its beautifully languid mood, at its most engaging.
As ever Gomes' actors, (Goncalo Waddington as Edward, Crista Alfaiate as Molly), are merely his puppets, a recurring motif throughout the film, but he remains a master puppeteer. Considering the cinematic tricks he employs to keep Edward and Molly at a distance, not just from each other but from us, we not only get to know them but we come to care about them deeply. This movie is heady, intoxicating and beautiful in ways cinema so rarely is; it is, in fact, a masterpiece.
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