The Way Blu-ray 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, 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.
All countries
