REVIEWED - LE GRAND VOYAGE: MOROCCAN-born, French-raised writer-director Ismaël Ferroukhi makes an auspicious feature film debut with Le Grand Voyage, judiciously setting up and acutely observing a collision of opposites when it throws together two men within the confines of a car over four tryingly confrontational days and nights.
One is a stubborn, elderly Moroccan (Mohamed Majid). The other is his student son (Nicolas Cazalé), who is ordered to drive his father on a pilgrimage to Mecca - a 3,000-mile journey from the south of France across seven countries. The autocratic patriarch is a strict traditionalist who resents his son's liberal Western values and his relationship with a young non-Muslim woman.
The tension crackles between the two men in their deep-rooted generational and cultural conflict throughout during this strong, subtly expressed and ultimately touching drama, as they finally get to know each other for the first time in their lives.
Ferroukhi makes imaginative and striking use of the diverse climates and landscapes through which they travel, and he devises several encounters along the way that test their patience and trust.
Access Cinema is distributing Le Grand Voyage in Ireland and will tour it on the film society circuit, beginning in Galway on Sunday.
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