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"Some contexts make our intentions so clear that we don't even need to express them to be understood. With The Tourist, Kourtney Roy once again distinguishes herself as a virtuoso of contextual creation. The Tourist contains all the Roy trademarks we have come to love and expect: self-portraiture, a cinematic approach, her distinctive color palette, and a tension between the witty and the sinister, the conventional and the bizarre, the chic and the fake. We also discover with pleasure that the boundaries between reality and fantasy are blurred. But the outstanding quality of The Tourist lies in the meticulous organization of the moment when we leave our extensive world and enter his intensive one. Roy creates a visual metaphor for a world we think we know. Yet his masterful use of juxtaposition tells us that this is not the world we thought it was. The details are meticulously chiseled and arranged, the scenes both familiar and strange. The diving mask over the mouth from which a cigarette hangs, the pool boy's mop abandoned near a fake temple; the furry mules near the water are never a good idea, nor are the stilettos on the slippery edge of a pool. The overall effect is that of a big hammer blow to the vacation cliché. According to many studies, most people prefer the anticipation and memory to the actual experience of their vacation. That's why photos are so important to them. They eliminate disappointment and create a pearly memory of pleasures that never happened. Roy reverses the ritual by taking us to a setting that is seemingly glamorous, but is actually much closer to our own experience: one-night stands turned into romantic affairs; boredom that leads to emptying a bottle of booze in an extreme version of the cocktail enjoyed poolside; ice cream that melts and sinks among the knock-off jewelry; a sense of trepidation, as if someone is about to yell "Shark!", but not to signal the presence of a turquoise plastic bladder..."

Del Barrett, extract