Name: Tres en el camino
Genre: Drama
Duration: 2 h 28 min
Rating: 7.5
Cast: Madoka Mayuzumi, Milena Salgado, Rob Jorritsma

Frustrating viewing experience, but at least it was long

This is not a documentary. I'm pretty certain I'm right about that. It dresses like one, has the trappings of one, but it is full of contrived situations, camera movements, moments that are being enacted rather than experienced and reported by observation. It's also a bit slow at nearly two and a half hours.

A Dutchman in winter. A Japanese woman in spring. A Brazilian woman in summer. All three are walking the pilgrims' road to Santiago. Much of the script is voice-over, and what dialogue there is sounds scripted and, well, contrived for the movie. There's no reason why such an approach shouldn't work - the project apparently took five years to complete - and I'm sure everything that was done was sincerely meant, but it has a painful (for me) artificiality to it. Perhaps its because there are now so many documentaries about the Compostela trail, and several feature films, that a movie like Tres en el camino, which has a rotten English title (Within The Way Without), and which sort of hovers between documentary and fiction, now appears so contrived and unconvincing.

Perhaps just the Dutch pilgrim and the Japanese, the two that are the more eloquent, and leave out the flash forwards to Japan/Holland, which arrive at untimely moments, and I think this could have worked more successfully. As it is, I found it a wearisome and artificial, unworthy of its object.

Spanish-language cinema across Spain and Latin America is united by its engagement with history, cultural identity, and social transformation. In Spain, films often balance artistic experimentation with popular genres while reflecting on memory, politics, and family. In Latin America, cinema has been deeply tied to questions of colonial legacy, resistance, and community resilience, ranging from intimate dramas to bold political allegories.

Ana Torrent in The Spirit of the Beehive (1973)

The drama genre is a broad category that features stories portraying human experiences, emotions, conflicts, and relationships in a realistic and emotionally impactful way. Dramas delve into the complexities of human life, often exploring themes of love, loss, morality, societal issues, personal growth, with the aim to evoke an emotional response from the audience by presenting relatable and thought-provoking stories.

Mahershala Ali and Alex R. Hibbert in Moonlight (2016)

Three people from Japan, Brazil and Holland, independently visit Santiago de Compostela, Spain in winter, spring and summer. They follow the path that Apostle Saint James took during his pilgrimage there. The trip will change them.

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Tres en el camino

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