SIGNIS STATEMENT: THE WAY

March 31st 2012

While The Way had early release in the United States and in the United Kingdom in 2011, it has taken some time to find release in a number of other countries.

The film has the advantage of being the work of members of Martin Sheen’s family – which is for some commentators a disadvantage. On the one hand, there is Martin Sheen’s active Catholicism and social justice concerns (even to arrests). The Catholic emphasis meant that a number of critics declared that the film was Catholic propaganda. And they did not approve of that. That point needs further consideration.

On the other, there is the headline behaviour of his son, Charlie, something which more than blew up at the time of the British release of The Way. Which gave Martin Sheen an opportunity to talk about support and forgiveness and not giving up hope. He was with his oldest son, Emilio Estevez, who was not without his own problems in the past, but who has moved on. Emilio has written and directed The Way and makes a cameo appearance.

The Way is El Camino, the pilgrim journey from the Pyranees across northern Spain to the shrine city of Santiago di Compostella and the tomb of the apostle, St James. This is a film of pilgrimage.

Pilgrimages are an important part of all major religions. Catholics have flocked to Rome, to Lourdes, Fatima and to less well-known shrines. Muslims make the Haj to Mecca. Hindu festivals abound. Buddhists from all around the world make their way to Tibet and to various Asian centres. The Wailing Wall in Jerusalem is a destination for Jews worldwide.

El Camino finds its place amongst all these pilgrimages.

Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales reminds us that not all the pilgrims are saints, some not particularly devout, with lives that are marked by vanity, violence and bawdiness. Not all pilgrimages are just prayers and piety under the guidance of a clerical chaplain. Many pilgrimages are individual or in groups, for penitence or for renewed conversion experiences.

It is the same in this film. Audiences expecting the equivalent of a documentary that emphasises the sacred are mistaken. This is a feature film for a wide audience. It is Catholic in background and culture but does not limit itself to the audience to Christians or to the converted. The focus is on a small cross-section of ‘ordinary people’ as well as inn-keepers, police, and strangers in the street. Two priests do make small appearances, one explaining some aspects of the pilgrimage, the other on the way himself, old and rather infirm but with words of wisdom.

For those who have walked el Camino, the film uses a great deal of location photography, the mountains, the open countryside, the villages, the towns and cities that they have experienced. A pleasing reminder. For those who wonder whether they should make the pilgrimage, they can see for themselves where they would walk and what it might be like. They would also see what the pilgrims do, how the walk affects them, the range of people they meet.

While the film has a running time of over two hours, the group is quite small, focusing particularly on four people.

Martin Sheen plays Tom, a middle-class, comfortable American, who has not seen eye to eye with his son, Daniel (played by Emilio Estevez). He cannot understand why his son would want to go to Spain and walk. The dialogue between them raises questions about what life is really for and about. When, very early in the film, news comes that Daniel has died at the beginning of his pilgrimage, his father decides to go to Spain. He further decides to go on pilgrimage himself and to scatter Daniel’s ashes at significant spots along the way.

For older audiences, Tom is a character to identify with, even when they disapprove of some of his attitudes and behaviour towards others. He comes to realise his life so far has been only a stage of his own pilgrimage and now he has the opportunity to re-assess it and change, continually reflecting on his son’s approach to life (with some imaginary sequences where Daniel appears during his father’s walk). It is also the three people that keep crossing paths with him until he eventually joins with them that are catalysts for his re-examination of his life.

Yorick Van Wagenining plays a heavy-set Dutchman who says that his motivation is to lose weight for his wife’s sake and to be ready to celebrate a family wedding. Nothing particularly religious about his reasons for being in Spain. Debora Kara Unger is a Canadian woman, rather intense and private, who smokes heavily but declares that she will give up when she reaches Compostella. A personal ascetical motive rather than religious. The group is joined by a boisterous Irish author, played by James Nesbitt, who is suffering from writer’s block but hopes, in a neo-Chaucerian way, that he will be inspired by the pilgrim stories.

As can be seen, the pilgrims do not express themselves very much in explicitly religious terms or in Christian or Catholic terms. While the Catholic and religious perspectives underlie the journey for Tom and the two priest cameos do make some themes explicit, the film is geared towards a wider audience as a thoughtful entertainment rather than propaganda – but, obviously, Martin Sheen and Emilio Estevez have a high regard for El Camino and what making such a pilgrimage can achieve within a person.

Emilio Estevez offers a film of wide appeal, more for adults than younger audiences, which is meant to be in both religious and humanistic terms, ‘inspirational’.