Am holding fire on Grand Tour. It’s a film that left me a little cold. An intellectual exercise which never quite comes off. But maybe I’ll come back to it and it will hit me in a different way. The interweaving of contemporary documentary footage with a period narrative, shot in a studio, has neo-colonial elements, even in a film that appears to be seeking to make a critique of colonialism. But is it really all that different from the much maligned Emilia Perez? European director films his narrative with local actors in the comfort of his backyard, whilst sending out teams to scour footage of the Orient. I also wondered if the film would have been received with quite such acclaim had it been set in Africa, rather than Asia, the dependable other. Maybe it was just being subjected to the Eton Boating Song, but the whole endeavour felt whimsical, off-key, great festival fare, light on the palate, overly enjoyable. Am far from saying that Europeans shouldn’t make films set in Asia, Africa or Latin America. But perhaps, as Wong Kar Wai did when he made a movie in Argentina, or Herzog in Peru, you have to be prepared to get down and dirty with it, or at least dip your toes in the water.
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