Transformations on The Way

It’s movie day on The Holy Rover. I assume many of you have seen what I think is the best film of the year, the Best Exotic Marigold Hotel. Everyone I know who has seen it has raved about it. Today I want to recommend a movie that didn’t generate as much buzz, but which is also well worth watching.

The Way tells the story of an American doctor who goes to France to deal with the tragic loss of his son, who had been killed while hiking the famed pilgrimage route across Europe known as the Camino de Santiago. Rather than return home, the doctor decides to follow in his son’s footsteps and finish his journey. Through a variety of unexpected experiences along the way, he discovers the differences between “the life we live and the life we choose,” in the words of one of the characters in the film.

The Way stars Martin Sheen and was written and directed by his son Emilio Estevez. It was filmed entirely in Spain and France along the actual Camino de Santiago, which ends at the church in northwest Spain where the remains of the apostle St. James are said to lie. In an era in which it’s easy to step onto a plane and be deposited nearly anywhere in the world, the Camino de Santiago is a reminder of the power of pilgrimages taken slowly and deliberately. The path to Santiago de Compostela is meant to be walked, for the journey is as important as actually standing at the crypt of the apostle. Once all pilgrimages were like this, journeys that took weeks or months of hard travel. But of the three most famous Christian pilgrimages—to Jerusalem, Rome, and Santiago de Compostela—only the Camino has remained a route that many pilgrims take on foot. The movie beautifully shows the transformations that can happen along the way.

The film made me want to pack my bags and leave next week for Spain. It’s also a moving meditation on loss and renewal–a movie well worth seeing.