Film Review
Walking the Camino: Six Ways to Santiago
The recent success of Emilio Estevez and Martin Sheen’s The Way has brought the Way of Saint James pilgrimage into mainstream culture in the United States. In this Hollywood film, pilgrims wear blue jeans, walk tirelessly, and never suffer from blisters. Unlike The Way, the award-winning documentary Walking the Camino: Six Ways to Santiago is a film firmly grounded in the reality of the pilgrimage, a reality out of which the mystique of the Camino emerges. A colleague of mine maintains that pilgrims today, even before they begin to walk the Camino de Santiago, form an idea of what the pilgrimage is supposed to be like, based on what they have previously heard and read about the Camino. If this is so, then every future pilgrim should see this film.
Walking the Camino traces the pilgrimages of six individuals as they walk the 500-mile Camino francés from St.-Jean Pied-de-Port, France to Santiago de Compostela. Producer and director Lydia B. Smith manages to capture in 84 minutes a multitude of not only the sights and sounds and events, but also the emotions and reflections that can make the Camino such a profound experience. Each of the six pilgrim stories is compelling. Each of the six pilgrims encounters obstacles, hardships, even pain, yet these are ultimately more than balanced by gifts, often unexpected, of joy, fellowship, and generosity.
Take Annie as just one example. She traveled from Los Angeles to undertake the Camino for spiritual reasons. She is brought to the point of abandoning the pilgrimage, however, when her body does not respond as well or as quickly as she would have wanted to the physical rigors of the trek. It takes her many days to realize that she needs to overcome her own competitive nature, and to move not at the pace of other pilgrims, but more slowly, or she will never make it to Santiago. Her triumph is that she realizes this, summons the humility to accept it, and thus allows herself to adapt to the demands of the Camino. Spiritually and physically renewed, many days later than she had originally expected but filled with gratitude, she does arrive in Santiago. At one point in the course of Annie’s story, when she is talking about how slowly she walks, the camera focuses on a snail creeping along the pavement. At another point, the sound track emphasizes the click-clack of the rhythm of walking sticks as others catch up to and pass Annie. These touches of cinematic art help to make the film more than just another documentary about the Camino.
The stories of the other pilgrims are equally interesting: Tomás from Portugal decides to walk the Camino when he is between jobs, and discovers just how painful blisters can be. Sam, from Brazil, is trying to make sense of the life she abandoned and is looking for a new beginning. Misa from Denmark begins her trek expecting to walk alone and get reacquainted with herself; she ends up in a trail romance with William. Jack and Wayne, two retired Canadians, are walking in memory of Wayne’s wife, who had recently passed away. Tatiana, from France, is walking for religious reasons with her 3-year-old son and her brother, who is only “there to party.” For each pilgrim, the film shows how the Camino works its magic, helping them to overcome their fatigue and pain, their moments of self doubt, the bad weather and the choruses of snoring in the albergues. And after traversing a landscape of breathtaking beauty, each pilgrim ultimately arrives at a personal life-affirming realization.
A brief history of the pilgrimage is artfully woven into the film through interviews with clergy and laypeople alike. A map of the many routes of the Way of Saint James that crisscross Europe illustrates the scope of the pilgrimage. At the beginning of each segment of the film, other maps indicate the pilgrims’ progress as they make their way toward Santiago. The film generally follows the chronology and linear walking itinerary of the Camino francés, but those who are familiar with the route recognize that occasionally a segment is out of that order, sometimes jumping ahead or reaching back. This is because we are not following a physical itinerary, but rather the personal experience timeline of the individual pilgrims. That the film begins with Sam’s arrival in Santiago and then backtracks to the beginning of the walk, privileges the value of the journey, and not necessarily the physical destination.
Director and producer Lydia B. Smith has been involved in the film industry for more than 25 years. In the spring of 2008, she walked the Camino de Santiago and was inspired to make this documentary. As the Camino is all about stepping beyond one’s comfort zones, Lydia decided to step into her full potential and direct this, her first feature-length film. Her intention is for the film to “positively change lives, just as the Camino does, and to inspire people to follow their own path of discovery and transformation.”
As a veteran of the Camino, I thoroughly enjoyed this film, one that Martin Sheen himself calls a “brilliant documentary,” and I highly recommend it to past, present or future pilgrims.
To learn more about the documentary and future screenings, please visit http://www.caminodocumentary.org/ . The Website of American Pilgrims on the Camino provides a plethora of information about the Way of Saint James pilgrimage routes, including internet resources and books: http://www.americanpilgrims.com/.
Lisa Signori, Ph.D.
Department of French, Francophone, and Italian Studies