Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		3.0
Overall		4.0

The Way Blu-ray Movie Review

Long Is the Way and Hard

Reviewed by Michael Reuben February 20, 2012

The Way is Emilio Estevez' fifth theatrical film as a director, and it's his most personal to date. This isn't the first time Estevez has cast himself and his famous parent, Martin Sheen, as father and son—they previously appeared as such in 1996's The War at Home—but it's the first time Estevez created a role specifically for his father. Then he stepped out of the way and let Sheen carry the film. Meanwhile, Estevez orchestrated a small, mostly Spanish crew (many of whom cut their teeth working with Pedro Almodóvar) to capture memorable, often surprisingly intimate work from Sheen and an international supporting cast. Estevez himself appears only briefly in The Way, primarily in remembrance, because his character's death is the catalyst for the story.

The Way depicts a journey along El Camino de Santiago, also known as the "Way of St. James", which stretches from the south of France through the Pyrenees Mountains in northern Spain to the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela where the remains of the Apostle James are supposedly buried. Depending on where one begins, the journey can extend 500 miles. A few years before filming The Way, Sheen made the trip by car with his grandson, Taylor (Estevez' son). Their experience prompted Estevez to begin developing a story about the Camino de Santiago, using various sources, including author Jack Hitt's book Off the Road: A Modern-Day Walk Down the Pilgrim's Route. (Hitt receives story credit on the film.) The result was The Way, which, except for a few establishing shots at the beginning and a brief conclusion, was made entirely in Spain. (Even the scenes set in California were filmed in Spanish locations, thereby reversing the usual moviemaking "cheat" where SoCal doubles for everything else.)

Tom Avery (Sheen) is an opthamologist in Ventura, California. A widower who is estranged from his only son, 40-year-old Daniel (Estevez), Tom lives a cloistered life between the twin poles of his patients and his golf buddies. Then one day on the golf course, Tom receives a call from a French police official, Captain Henri Sebastian (Tchéky Karyo), telling him that Daniel has been killed in a storm on the Camino de Santiago.

Tom was so out of touch with his son that he knew only that Daniel was somewhere in France. He departs immediately, plagued by memories of their last parting. Near the Spanish border, Tom meets Captain Henri, who gently guides him through the formalities of identifying the body and collecting Daniel's belongings. It is Henri who acquaints Tom with the history of the Camino and the nature of the pilgrimage that Daniel had just commenced when he encountered the storm that killed him. A lesser actor might have choked on these scenes of essential exposition, but Tchéky Karyo, whose presence has elevated films from The Patriot to Bad Boys to La Femme Nikita, lends them a melancholy dignity that makes them compelling.

On impulse, Tom decides to have Daniel cremated and scatter his ashes along the Camino de Santiago, completing the journey that Daniel only started. The film follows Tom as he walks the path through town and countryside, drawing further and further from the life he knew before, driven by a compulsion he only gradually comes to understand and catching fleeting glimpses of Daniel that his mind's eye projects into the landscape.

Along the way, Tom meets other pilgrims, and he keeps encountering the same ones, even when he'd prefer not to. According to the commentary, this is routine on the Camino de Santiago, because it's impossible to avoid someone who started at the same time you did. One such pilgrim is Joost, an intrusively chummy but well-intentioned Dutchman, whose plan to lose weight by walking the Camino is undercut by his inability to pass up a single local delicacy. (He's played by Yorick van Wageningen, who is unrecognizable here compared to the part he next played in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.) Another pilgrim, Sarah (Deborah Kara Unger), is a brittle Canadian, who treats every encounter as the opening of potential hostilities; she addresses Tom as "boomer" (as in "baby boomer"), immediately assuming he's walking the Camino as part of a mid-life crisis. Jack (James Nesbitt) is an author suffering from writer's block, which is ironic given the torrent of words that flows out whenever he opens his mouth.

Each of these three needs to talk for one reason or another, which makes Tom, who doesn't have much to say, an irresistible attraction. No matter how Tom tries to avoid them, they keep finding him, and much of the comic relief in The Way comes from the alternating expressions of bemusement and frustration that play across Martin Sheen's face as Tom gradually accepts that he's trapped with these eccentrics for the duration. Besides, who is Tom to judge? How normal is he at this point? In his commentary, Estevez compares Tom to Dorothy in Oz and his three companions to the Scarecrow, the Tin Man and the Cowardly Lion. The comparison is more apt than it first appears, since, by the end, each of the pilgrims has to discover the solution to their quest within themselves. There's even a kind of Wicked Witch, though her presence is more spiritual than corporeal. She appears in a disturbing scene where the four travelers sit down with bottles of wine after a long day's journey, and Tom drinks too much on a empty stomach. He withdraws into himself (the sound editors do fine work here) and suddenly bursts forth into more sustained speech than ever before, unleashing devastating attacks on each of his companions in turn and, ultimately, on himself. And if you're thinking about The Wizard of Oz, the difference between Tom and Dorothy should be clear at that moment: Unlike Dorothy, Tom no longer knows where home is.

Not since Apocalypse Now has Martin Sheen had a film role of such emotional complexity or portrayed a character through such purely physical means. To the extent that Tom Avery's passage through the Camino de Santiago is both a literal journey and a metaphor for life, Sheen conveys every decision, wrong turn, false start, mistake, discovery and regret, much of it by his sheer presence and his reactions to the people and objects around him. You go into The Way thinking that it's a film about landscapes, but you quickly discover that it's a film about faces—most of all, the face of a haunted older man urgently looking for redemption and renewal in the final phase of a life he's realized he desperately wants to change.

The Way Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The 1080p, AVC-encoded Blu-ray from ARC Entertainment will disappoint many viewers. Despite the fact that the film was shot in locations with breathtaking scenery, the disc offers little in the way of eye candy. However, this is not the result of technical flaws in the Blu-ray, which was sourced from a digital intermediate, a process that effectively eliminates the possibility of transfer problems, since the same digital files are used to create both release prints and the Blu-ray.

The look of the film and Blu-ray results from a decision by director Estevez and producer David Alexanian to forgo hi-def video (which would have produced spectacular travelogue footage) and shoot the movie on 16mm film, specifically Super16. They wanted this look for The Way, because, as Estevez says in the commentary:

I also love how we kind of throw away these landscapes. . . . I mean, it's positively extraordinary and gorgeous. And yet it's not about that. It's about what's going on emotionally with the characters.

In addition to shooting in Super16, the crew traveled with almost no lighting rigs, using available light—which was often no more than candles or bonfires—for most shots. The result is a soft image that's distinct but often lacking in fine detail and shows a considerable degree of obvious film grain. Shadow detail is frequently weak, with the image fading into indistinctness as it moves away from sources of light within the frame. (Estevez specifically points this out in the commentary.) Blacks are rarely deep or inky, but generally tend toward dark shades of gray. Colors are muted and natural, and there has been no attempt to re-tint or alter the palette at the DI stage.

Indeed, digital manipulations of any kind appear to have been minimal, leaving us with what the filmmakers shot in their chosen format. It may not be to everyone's taste, and I can already hear protests of "botched transfer!" or "no better than DVD!" being tapped out on keyboards. But a Blu-ray can't be blamed for accurately reproducing its source, and this one appears to have done just that. My only criticism is a touch of video noise here and there, which was probably caused by overcompression due to the use of a BD-25. I have read claims that any two-hour film can be compressed into 25Gb, but with an unusually grainy film, the risks accompanying such compression increase dramatically. Here, I think that line may have been crossed.

The Way Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The DTS-HD MA 5.1 track effectively places natural sounds of the Camino de Santiago around and behind the listener, especially the ever-present wind and occasional wildlife. Otherwise, it's a relatively restrained track with clearly intelligible dialogue in the front, accompanied by the basic sounds of the pilgrims and their activities. The excellent score is by Tyler Bates (Watchmen), with an unexpected assortment of songs by James Taylor, Coldplay and Alanis Morissette, among others.

The Way Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Commentary by Actor Martin Sheen, Writer-Producer-Director Emilio Estevez and Producer David Alexanian: The three collaborators focus primarily on the challenging logistics of shooting along El Camino de Santiago with a minimalist crew and equipment, but additional topics of interest emerge. Sheen is illuminating not only on the inner life of his own character but also on the group dynamics of the ad hoc family that gathers around Tom Avery. Estevez and Alexanian provide information on the historical background of specific locations and also illuminate some of their filmmaking choices. Of particular note for a Blu-ray review are Estevez' and Alexanian's comments (already noted above) on the shooting format.


• Shorts: The three featurettes on the disc are too brief to provide any real background. They're more promotional in natural, somewhat like trailers that use background footage instead of relying exclusively on scenes from the film.
  
  
  • Camino Americana: Taking The Way on the Road (HD, 1080p; 1.78:1; 2:54): A look at the cross-country bus tour through which Sheen and Estevez promoted the film, making appearances at screenings and giving interviews.
  • Pilgrimage: Behind the Camera (HD, 1080p; 1.33:1 & 1.85:1; 2:59): Behind-the-scenes footage combined with excerpts from the film.
  • Father and Son: Uncovering the Characters (HD, 1080p; 1.78:1 & 1.85:1; 1:49): Interview footage with Sheen and Estevez combined with excerpts from the film.


• Along the Way: The Journey of a Father and Son—A Dual Memoir by Martin Sheen and Emilio Estevez: Several text screens promoting a forthcoming book by Sheen and Estevez (with Hope Edelman).


• Bonus Trailer: At startup the disc plays a trailer for Seven Days in Utopia, which can be skipped with the chapter forward button and is not otherwise available once the disc loads.

The Way Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Because of the Catholic history of the Camino de Santiago, and because Martin Sheen has spoken of his own personal return to Catholicism, some viewers have seen a Catholic agenda in The Way, but that requires projecting one's own views onto the film. Tom Avery, Sheen's character, is a lapsed Catholic by his own admission, and he overtly violates church doctrine by scattering his son's remains along the Camino. The more obvious and repeating theme in the film is the complex bond between parents and children. Captain Henri and a gypsy named Ishmael (Antonio Gil) are just two of the people who speak movingly to Tom on this topic during his travels. In a film written and directed by a son for his father (and dedicated to his grandfather), the connection should be obvious. Highly recommended.