Tour

The times when Joachim (Mathieu Amalric) celebrated great success as a TV producer are long gone. In the U.S. he has tried to make a fresh start, which now brings him back to his French homeland. Here he wants to celebrate triumphs in France with the New Burlesque Show, with which he can land a respectable success in America. Together with the dancers he moves from one city to the next and delights the audience with a show that is erotic and amusing in equal measure. Especially among the fun-loving American women the mood is extremely good, even if the hotels are rather modest and the fees are not exactly high. The hope to finish the tour with a furious performance in Paris keeps the good mood high. But Joachim keeps from his girls that this dream is in danger of being abruptly shattered due to mistakes he has made in his past.

With his third directorial effort Tournee, Mathieu Amalric, who has also taken on the lead role, takes a look behind the scenes of a New Burlesque Tour. To do this, he didn't hire actresses, but real dancers from the New Burlesque scene, all of whom play themselves in Tournee. This gives the film a high level of authenticity, which has a very positive effect on the overall impression the film leaves behind, especially in the scenes where the troupe's show is shown. The film makes clear in a pleasantly unobtrusive way that these are not clumsy strip shows, but entertainment in which music, eroticism and humor mix into a very entertaining whole.

In addition, it is positively noticeable that the dancers, especially Miranda Colclasure alias Mimi Le Meaux, also have acting talent. This makes the film believable, the look behind the scenes authentic and not glamorous. The world of New Burlesque reveals itself as a microcosm of its own, which is really interesting and worth seeing. But the film also has a big problem. Although it has a certain narrative structure, especially because of Joachim's story, it ultimately lacks what can commonly be called a plot. The viewer is virtually thrust directly into the troupe's everyday touring life and is just as abruptly yanked out again at the end. Many elements of the story that are touched upon here, such as Joachim's aversion to loud music, are not explained at all or only insufficiently. And so, by the end, many viewers might be left wondering what this was all about.

Many scenes are just great in their own right. Joachim's flirtation with a gas station cashier, a slightly too pushy admirer of the show that Mimi Le Meaux encounters at the supermarket checkout, or the catfight with a stewardess, all of these, along with the show's performances, are superbly staged. And yet, in the end, you're left with the feeling that the film just doesn't offer more than a snapshot. This has a certain charm and in some moments a cinematic power. But the emotional access to the characters, especially to Joachim, is denied to the viewer by this kind of staging, which in the worst case becomes noticeable by complete disinterest in what is shown and thus resulting boredom.

As an unembellished but engaging look into the not-always-rosy everyday touring life of a very special artistic troupe, Tournee is absolutely successful. As a work telling an entertaining story with likeable characters, however, Amalric's third directorial effort fails because it's too ambitious. Kind of impressive, but still only conditionally recommendable as real cinema entertainment!

An article by Frankfurt-Tipp