Road movie The Way more than a pedestrian affair
Cursing the quest
Courting disaster
Measureless nights forebode
Moments of rest
Glimpses of laughter
Are treasured along the road.
(Dan Fogelberg, "Along the Road")
"The Way", written and directed by Emilio Esteves, is a film set along the route of El Camino de Santiago, a pilgrimage leading to the Cathedral of St. James in Santiago de Compostela, Spain. The ancient route winds hundreds of kilometers through the Pyrenees from Southern France to Northwestern Spain, while the pilgrimage itself has been embarked upon for over a thousand years.
"The Way" fits loosely into the road movie genre. The difference here, though, is that the road in question is traveled by foot rather than by car.
Estevez's real-life father, Martin Sheen, takes on the role of Dr. Tom Avery, a successful ophthalmologist who, while on the golf course, receives a phone call that changes his life. News that his 40-year-old son, Daniel (played by Estevez), has died while traveling on the Camino, is the impetus for a grim-faced and heartbroken Avery to travel to France. After cremating his son's remains, Avery learns from an empathetic police officer what the pilgrimage is all about. The inciting incident for the movie occurs when Avery sees all the paraphernalia for his son's trip and is moved to complete the pilgrimage on his son's behalf.
As Avery begins the pilgrimage, he strikes a solitary figure. He walks stiffly and is secretive about his motives for traveling the Camino. He scatters Daniel's ashes at ritual moments, but is prickly towards other pilgrims who cross his path. Eventually, however, he comes into the orbit of Joost (Yorick van Wageningen), a beefy, overfriendly man from Amsterdam who's trying to lose weight on his trek and won't take the hint that Avery prefers to be alone.
As Joost insinuates himself into Avery's travels, the doctor's rough edges start to wear down. Subsequently, Avery's encounters with Sarah (Deborah Kara Unger), an angry Canadian trying to quit smoking, and Jack (James Nesbitt), a verbose Irishman who's seeking a cure for writer's block, lead him reluctantly to become part of a community of pilgrims.
While it is fellowship with unfamiliar pilgrims that chips away at his external defences, it is the memory of his son Daniel, represented through flashbacks and ghost-like sightings en route, that whittles away at Avery's core. In reliving a conversation he had with Daniel where he expresses pride in the materially successful life he chose, Daniel's response haunts him: "You don't choose a life, Dad. You live it."
As might be expected in any road film, obstacles beyond blisters and muscle cramps start to crop up for the main character. Tom's airing of his dirty laundry towards his travelling companions after imbibing too much, and the theft of his backpack are just a few of the impediments he must overcome along the journey.
A movie like this resonates because the metaphor of life as a journey is so familiar to us. We move through life, as in a journey, with stops along the way and making discoveries as we go. And pilgrimage, in particular, has rich spiritual connotations that stretch back to the Old Testament with the Psalms of Ascent, or John Bunyan's classic allegory, "The Pilgrim's Progress."
While the pilgrimage is not ostensibly religious for many of the Camino trekkers, there is a definite spiritual thread that is woven throughout the film. Scenes of shared meals with bread and wine have a Eucharistic sensibility to them, while themes of forgiveness, the pursuit of truth and the importance of community figure prominently.
The pacing of the film does feel slow at times, and truthfully, the ending falls a bit flat. And yet, a peppy and fast-paced treatment of a pilgrim's journey would be counterproductive to the ethos of the film. Estevez gives us characters with depth, and their stories unfold naturally. The cinematography is striking and will, I predict, attract many viewers to the possibility of traveling the Camino, through its portrayal of the trail's beauty and challenges.
Finally, this film deserves consideration just for suggesting, in a world ruled by beeping smart phones and the maddening pursuit of profit, that slowing down and paying attention to the path you're on may be just what the doctor ordered.
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