To learn to laugh as he does now, with a glass of wine in one hand and his dead son's backpack in the other, the man
had to learn to walk. Day and night.
Because if there is something that is repeated among the pilgrims who set off to do the Camino de Santiago, it is that for them
life is a long journey
: they start it alone but end up traveling it with others. And everyone knows where they will end the journey, but not how.
-Do you know why you are going to do the Camino?
, they ask Tom, the protagonist of
The Way
, the film that was released 15 years ago and is still an
obligatory reference
for those who plan to go on an adventure along this ancient route.
-I guess for my son
, he answers.
-No one does it for another. Everyone does it for themselves
, responds the officer who has just announced the death of his son.
Performed by Martín Sheen (the veteran actor of
Apocalypse Now
) and directed by his son, Emilio Estévez, the core of the film is precisely the story of a father and his son. The son dies in the Pyrenees in a storm at the beginning of the Camino de Santiago and his father, a doctor from California who had put his life on hold since he became a widow, has to travel abroad to bring his body back. to home. But in a moment of inspiration he decides to cremate him and complete the Camino in his honor.
With his backpack on his shoulder
. At each stop he will spread his ashes until he reaches Compostela along with other pilgrims that he will meet along the
900 kilometer
journey . And with whom he will be encouraged to laugh again.
With a sad, but serene and wise smile.
How those who offer their
wound made light
smile , and how Rembrandt smiles in his last self-portrait. When the final canvas was painted he had already buried his first wife, his second and also endured the death of his son. And yet... From the darkness of the ocher tones he seems to look at us with a grimace to tell us
here I am, this is the great joke of life
. But before, much before, he had already had his portrait taken 40 other times where he revealed the passage of time and the scars of life.
Until he gave us his last smile,
which is preserved in the National Gallery in London.
“Although the reasons for traveling on The Way are many, they all have a common starting point: loss. From something or someone. The loss of a child, the loss of a love, the loss of professional passion, whatever
," explained the director of the film who chose his own father as the protagonist, while he plays the son who decides to abandon his job and his career because he wants to travel, see the world. In some scenes he appears on the Camino, like a shadow, to encourage his father to continue. And follow.
-Why did you come here?
they ask the old pilgrim when he arrives exhausted at the church of Santiago de Compostela, in Galicia, with his son's box of ashes almost empty.
-Because I want to continue traveling
, he answers. And his eyes smile.
See also
See also
The poet of Champaquí hill