Fascinating perspective

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 30/06/2017 (3263 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

It’s become a bit of a cliché to say that the journey is more important than the destination.

The Camino de Santiago offers arduous and profound proof of that statement. Every year, tens of thousands of people walk hundreds of kilometres, generally from southern France through Spain to Santiago de Compostela, along pilgrimage routes set down in the Middle Ages.

Originally meant as a form of Christian penance — and for some travellers it still is — the Camino has become something else in our secular age. German, American, Italian, British and Korean wayfarers now throng these roads, many wearing or carrying the scallop shell symbol of St. James, each with his or her own reason for making the trek.

Some want to rediscover God. Some want to rediscover themselves. Some are cancer survivors, celebrating life. Some are mourners, grieving a loss. Most seem to be searching for something they haven’t found in the rush of modern middle-class life. Leaving behind the distractions and obligations of daily existence, as well as its usual comforts, they set out with backpacks, high-tech hiking shoes and a lot of big questions.

American filmmaker Tristan Cook follows a loose collection of these walkers, tracking their physical challenges and spiritual discoveries. He starts with Dane Johansen, whose walk is complicated by the fact he’s carrying his cello: he plans to play Bach’s cello suites at 36 churches along the way. While Johansen supplies the film’s beautiful soundtrack, his story is one of the least interesting elements of the doc, something that Cook seems to figure out fairly quickly.

Strangers on the Earth is roughly structured as a journey — no surprise there! — tracking a pilgrim’s progress in stages along a map. Within that simple linear progression, however, it remains open-ended and gently meandering. Along with leisurely footage of the Spanish landscape and its ancient churches, there is a range of interviews, with subjects offering up musings both mystical and mundane.

For many travellers, the pace of walking helps to slow their thoughts, leading to a meditative state.

Some ponder the nature of the universe and the meaning of life and death.

Of course, human nature is still human nature. “It sounds awful to say, but I think the Camino is very trendy right now,” one pilgrim admits. Another sheepishly recounts a nasty break-up with his walking partner after a dispute about a phone charger. And there are, inevitably, “Camino snobs” who question other travellers’ commitment or motivation.

Cook takes this all in with a curious eye and accepting heart. Strangers on the Earth never quite reaches the level of transcendence it seems to be yearning for, but it offers a fascinating perspective on the Camino’s historic roads and modern-day pilgrims.

alison.gillmor@freepress.mb.ca