Nowadays we are constantly bombarded by disaster, horror and destruction on a daily basis. When I left the theatre after viewing "Walking the Camino" I was totally relaxed and felt that there was a greater purpose to life. As often happens to me, I had just finished reading a book by Paulo Coelho called "The Pilgrimage" where he describes his experiences on the trek to Santiago de Compostela. He had some pretty momentous stories to tell, so naturally I was extremely interested to find out that others have been doing this walk and also that a movie had been made about it.
What makes the movie work for me was that we follow the trek of various couples and individuals from all sorts of different ages, countries of origin and occupations. Without exception, they all seem to experience trans-formative events along their journey and are far more in tune with themselves and the world at the end of the journey. The excessive walking and exercise seems to clean out their system from physical and emotional junk and allows them to appreciate the world that exists right in front of them on a NOW basis. Filming the end of the walk must have been really tough for the film maker, because all the subjects were so emotional about what they had been through and experienced.
