Skip to content
The Catholic Leader
  • Home
  • News
    • QLD
    • Australia
    • Regional
    • Education
    • World
    • Vatican
  • Features
  • Opinion
  • Life
    • Family
    • Relationships
    • Faith
  • Culture
  • People
  • Subscribe
  • Jobs
  • Contribute
No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • News
    • QLD
    • Australia
    • Regional
    • Education
    • World
    • Vatican
  • Features
  • Opinion
  • Life
    • Family
    • Relationships
    • Faith
  • Culture
  • People
  • Subscribe
  • Jobs
  • Contribute
No Result
View All Result
The Catholic Leader
No Result
View All Result
Home Culture Book of the Week

Following the pilgrim’s way

byGuest Contributor
6 May 2012
Reading Time: 3 mins read
AA
Share on FacebookShare on Twitter

THE WAY: Starring Martin Sheen, Emilio Estevez, Yorick van Wageningen, Deborah Kara Unger, James Nesbitt. Written and directed by Emilio Estevez. 123 minutes. Rated PG (Mild themes, drug use and coarse language)
Reviewed by Fr Richard Leonard SJ

EVER since Tom’s (Martin Sheen) wife died, his relationship with his only child Daniel (Emilio Estevez) has been fraught. In dealing with his grief, Daniel takes flight, from his doctoral studies, from his father and from the USA.

Under the guise of being a cultural anthropologist on field studies, David tries running away from himself and his pain.

Daniel finds his way to the Pyrenees where he begins the medieval pilgrimage, now called The Camino (The Way). Ill prepared, he dies from exposure in the early days of his pilgrimage.

Tom leaves his practice as an ophthalmologist in California and goes to claim his son’s body at St Jean Pied de Port, France.

On arrival he discovers what Daniel was doing, and Tom decides to complete the pilgrimage as a way establishing a connection with his dead son. “Our children are the very best and the very worst of us.”

Armed with his son’s backpack and guidebook, Tom navigates the 800km historical pilgrimage from the French Pyrenees, to Santiago de Compostela in the north-west of Spain, but soon discovers that he will not be alone on this journey.

While walking The Camino, Tom meets other pilgrims from around the world: an obese Dutchman who has self-esteem issues and a marijuana problem; an abused feminist from Canada who knows what it is to lose a child; an Irish writer who is angry with the Church, likes drinking and observes other people’s experience rather than having his own.

These eccentric characters all make the journey together; along the way dealing with the anger, hurt and pain that saw them unconsciously begin it in the first place.

This quartet are not the only eccentrics in this film. There is the Basque hostel owner who wants to be a bullfighter, an American priest who is recovering from a brain tumour, and the leader of the gypsies who is the portrait of a committed father and an honourable man.

Related Stories

Gwen has given 15,000 hours of cuddles to sick and premature babies

Helping stroke survivors earns Ozcare volunteer national recognition

Br Alan Moss remembered for a life of faith and learning

The Way is a wonderful and moving achievement. That said, there a few narrative problems, it is a fraction too long and there is an absence of almost anyone on the Camino who is generally happy.

Filmed almost entirely in Spain and France along the actual Camino de Santiago, it is a compelling exploration of many things: the grief of a parent for a child; the power of a journey to unmask real issues about self-knowledge; and the multiple layers of personal and sacred revelation to which we can aspire.

It is not by accident that the symbol of The Camino is a shell, which, among other things, needs to be prized open, often with difficulty, to bring forth potential treasure.

It is very rare for me to say that I think every Catholic secondary school student should see a film, but The Way is it. And I know that almost every person of faith will find here a genuinely faith-filled experience.

One of the great ironies in regard to this film is that one of the major genres of the cinema is the “road film”, where the characters go on a journey somewhere to discover something essential or important.

Maybe the Camino de Santiago di Compostela is, after Jerusalem, Mecca and the Ganges, the oldest continuing pilgrimage in the world.

It certainly is the first to actually have a guide book written about how to accomplish it. But it still holds a strong attraction to the young and the old, believer and non-believer alike.

The insightful tag line of the film comes from Daniel’s challenge to his father as he takes flight from home, “You don’t choose a life, Dad. You live one.”

And an even more telling line comes later, “The Camino is all about confronting death.” Every journey to self and religious revelation involves death in all its varieties.

TS Eliot’s famous poem The Journey of the Magi, those original Christian pilgrims, understood this well:
“… were we lead all that way for
Birth or Death? There was a Birth, certainly,
We had evidence and no doubt. I have seen birth and death,
But had thought they were different; this Birth was
Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death.
We returned to our places, these Kingdoms,
But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,
With an alien people clutching their gods.
I should be glad of another death.”

Wherever your journey takes you, make sure you find your way to The Way.

Fr Richard Leonard SJ is the director of the Australian Catholic Film Office.

 

ShareTweet
Previous Post

Youth leading into the future

Next Post

Archbishop’s vision, generosity and courage appreciated

Guest Contributor

Related Posts

Gwen has given 15,000 hours of cuddles to sick and premature babies
QLD

Gwen has given 15,000 hours of cuddles to sick and premature babies

20 May 2022
Helping stroke survivors earns Ozcare volunteer national recognition
QLD

Helping stroke survivors earns Ozcare volunteer national recognition

20 May 2022
Br Alan Moss remembered for a life of faith and learning
QLD

Br Alan Moss remembered for a life of faith and learning

19 May 2022
Next Post

Archbishop's vision, generosity and courage appreciated

Double standards with abortion law

Archbishop's zest for mission is palpable

Popular News

  • Catholic relationship advisers offer five tips to look after your mental health

    Nationwide rosary event happening for Australia’s patroness this Saturday

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Angel’s Kitchen serves hot meals to the hungry in Southport

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Queensland election: The pro-life political parties committed to abortion law reforms

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Here are the stories of 10 new saints being canonised this Sunday

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Br Alan Moss remembered for a life of faith and learning

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
Search our job finder
No Result
View All Result

Latest News

Gwen has given 15,000 hours of cuddles to sick and premature babies
QLD

Gwen has given 15,000 hours of cuddles to sick and premature babies

by Joe Higgins
20 May 2022
0

BRISBANE grandmother Gwendoline Grant has clocked up 15,000 hours cuddling and caring for sick and premature babies...

Helping stroke survivors earns Ozcare volunteer national recognition

Helping stroke survivors earns Ozcare volunteer national recognition

20 May 2022
Br Alan Moss remembered for a life of faith and learning

Br Alan Moss remembered for a life of faith and learning

19 May 2022
Catholic relationship advisers offer five tips to look after your mental health

Nationwide rosary event happening for Australia’s patroness this Saturday

19 May 2022
Francis offers advice on politics: Seek unity, don’t get lost in conflict

Francis offers advice on politics: Seek unity, don’t get lost in conflict

19 May 2022

Never miss a story. Sign up to the Weekly Round-Up
eNewsletter now to receive headlines directly in your email.

Sign up to eNews
  • About
  • Advertise
  • Contact
  • Contribute
  • Jobs
  • Subscribe

The Catholic Leader is an Australian award-winning Catholic newspaper that has been published by the Archdiocese of Brisbane since 1929. Our journalism seeks to provide a full, accurate and balanced Catholic perspective of local, national and international news while upholding the dignity of the human person.

Copyright © All Rights Reserved The Catholic Leader
Accessibility Information | Privacy Policy | Archdiocese of Brisbane

The Catholic Leader acknowledges Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people as the First Peoples of this country and especially acknowledge the traditional owners on whose lands we live and work throughout the Catholic Archdiocese of Brisbane.

No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • News
    • QLD
    • Australia
    • Regional
    • Education
    • World
    • Vatican
  • Features
  • Opinion
  • Life
    • Family
    • Relationships
    • Faith
  • Culture
  • People
  • Subscribe
  • Jobs
  • Contribute

Copyright © All Rights Reserved The Catholic Leader

0
    0
    Your Cart
    Your cart is emptyChoose another Subscription
    Continue Shopping