Event: Vancouver Film Festival
Date: Oct. 14, 2009
Location: Granville 7


Another movie I saw at the festival was the Spanish film "Camino" (Spain, 2008). To say that the film was disturbing is rather an understatement. The claustrophobic potency is overwhelming in the extreme, and to say that there was not a dry eye in the house would not be an exaggeration. The theatre was quite full, and as the last scenes unfolded, there was an audible gasp from the audience. I lingered beside the door as people were leaving and it was obvious that most people had been crying or were visibly disturbed.

The synopsis of the movie is as follows:

Camino (Nerea Camacho) is a bouncy 11 year old girl whose happy, God-focused life in Madrid is spent between her religious school and a home dominated by her pious but authoritarian mother, Gloria (Carme Elias). Her family are members of Opus Dei, the controversial Catholic organisation founded by Spain's recently-canonised Jose Maria Escriva. Camino falls in platonic love with Cuco (Lucas Manzano) at a school theatre group. But young love is thwarted when the back pains that have been troubling her turn out to have a serious origin - and she is forced to undergo a barrage of tests, operations and radiation therapy sessions that eventually leave her bedridden, immobilised and blind. Camino's older sister Nuria (Velles), meanwhile, is living as a novitiate in an Opus Dei house. Only Camino's father, Jose (Mariano Venancio), gives her pure affection untainted by religious dogma.


Needless to say, this movie has caused a great deal of controversy, not least of which is for the fact that the movie is based on a true story, and that the protagonist of the film is being considered for sainthood. Graphic scenes of surgery interspersed with big budget CGI dream sequences make much of the film riveting and at times too powerful and intense for comfort.
The truly amazing thing about the movie is that it is presented in a very credible and real way - none of the acting is over-the-top, and while cultural differences might make some North American viewers wonder at the religious devotion many of the characters portray, I can attest from personal experience that this is all very, very real and not the slightest bit exaggerated. And there lies the films most disturbing quality, at least for me: there are no villains in this movie, everyone is doing and acting in what they believe is what God wants, and the results are so devastatingly cruel and horrible. While I did not see anyone actually walk out of the theatre, so intense was the production, I can also attest that many were squirming in their seats. This is a very difficult movie to sit through, and well deserves the 6 Goya awards (the Spanish equivalent of the Oscar).

A bit of trivia: The name of the protagonist is "Camino",(Spanish for "way"),but it is also the title of the foundational book of Opus Dei (the religious institution portrayed in the film), written in 1934 by the recently canonized Josemaría Escrivá de Balaguer.

If you go to the IMDB site and read viewers comments on the film, it is quite remarkable that the majority didn't "get it" - the film is clearly showing how evil religion, or even the belief in God is. Yet most only attribute it to the protagonists following of the Opus Dei strain of the Christian virus. To all of those people, I would just like to point out a very singular and important element which seems to have gone unnoticed, despite the fact that it is repeated several times, and that is the character of Mr. Meebles. When Camino chooses a children’s book called Mr Meebles, her mother insists on buying one about Saint Bernadette. Mr. Meebles makes several appearances in dream sequences throughout the movie, but he often repeats the same thing: that he is capable of doing anything and everything, but that he has one problem. In his last appearance, he admits his problem, that he doesn't exist. Our character discovers this on a dream sequence where she is on stage, and the audience bursts out in hysterical laughter. A cruel trick indeed...

Here is a link to the trailers for the film.