Plot
Réda (Nicolas Cazalé) is a French-Moroccan teenager due to sit for Baccalauréat. When his devout father (played by Mohamed Majd) asks Réda to accompany him on a pilgrimage to Mecca, he reluctantly agrees. However, the father insists that they travel by car. As both embark on a road trip thousands of kilometres away from southern France, the once-icy father-and-son relationship starts to thaw as both gradually come to know each other. Réda speaks only in French to his father, who is seen speaking only Arabic for the majority of the film. Later, when necessary, the father proves that he in fact speaks impeccable French; his choice to speak only Arabic to his son is therefore purposeful.
Along the way, the two meet several interesting characters. The son learns about Islam and why his father thought it would be preferable to make the pilgrimage by car rather than by aeroplane.
The route taken by the father and son goes from Provence, France through Italy, Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, Bulgaria, Turkey, Syria, and Jordan before reaching Saudi Arabia.
Read more about this topic: Le Grand Voyage
Famous quotes containing the word plot:
“Morality for the novelist is expressed not so much in the choice of subject matter as in the plot of the narrative, which is perhaps why in our morally bewildered time novelists have often been timid about plot.”
—Jane Rule (b. 1931)
“Trade and the streets ensnare us,
Our bodies are weak and worn;
We plot and corrupt each other,
And we despoil the unborn.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“The westward march has stopped, upon the final plains of the Pacific; and now the plot thickens ... with the change, the pause, the settlement, our people draw into closer groups, stand face to face, to know each other and be known.”
—Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924)