'3 Caminos' or how a series can take you on a pilgrimage
There is a group in my non-negotiable WhatsApp. It is not the most active, just a few notifications coinciding with parties, birthdays, a "what's up" from time to time to make sure everything is going well and a link if we find something that reminds us of the experience we lived together. It is my group from the Camino de Santiago and the four friends that I brought back. And of that, of the unexpected and lasting links that are created by pilgrimage, goes the series 3 paths that opens this january 22 in Amazon Prime Video.
“It cannot be explained, it cannot be told”, Iván Ferreiro and Andrés Suárez sing in the theme that closes each of its eight episodes. Reason is not lacking because how do you make someone understand the importance that people with whom you have only shared a few days acquire in your life. Who lived it, knows it. Who doesn't, refuses to believe it, but can try to caress it with each step they take Roberto, Raquel, Jana, Luca and Yoon Soo, the protagonists of 3 Caminos.
This trip is more than just collecting stamps
“The Camino is more special than I had imagined, the Camino speaks to you. The link with the people we were filming arose and we wanted to transfer that which is very difficult to explain to people who have not felt the Camino or who have not done it. A bond is generated for life and that is what the series tells, how they are going to maintain friendship throughout life”, he explains to Traveler.es Norberto Lopez Amado, manager, along with Inaki Mercero, of 3 Paths.
In the series, the Camino de Santiago unites a Mexican (Álex González), a Spanish (Verónica Echegui), a German (Anna Schimrigk), an Italian (Andrea Bosca) and a South Korean (Alberto Joo Lee) in 2000, making them unconditional friends who will meet again to pilgrimage in 2006 and 2021, with Ursula (Cecilia Suarez) joining the group in the last year.
Three specific moments that serve us to peek into their lives at different stages and share their evolution, from the dreams and desires of youth on the first Path to the maturity and acceptance of the third, passing through the disappointments and vital turbulence of the second.
The importance that people with whom you have only shared a few days acquire in your life
“The passage of time looks very good. Life happens, it seems that things don't happen but many do: people who aren't here, but who are. It is a reflection of life. It has many things to tell and it reaches deep into the soul”.
All this with the French Way, not only as a stage, but as another protagonist. From Roncesvalles to Finisterre, with many stops in between. More than we could name. Pamplona, Logroño, Burgos and its overwhelming cathedral square, Astorga, Castrillo de Polvarazales, Cruz del Fierro and the road up to the highest point of the route, Molinaseca, the entrance to Galicia, Pedrafita do Cebreiro, Triacastela , Samos, Santiago de Compostela and that arrival…
“El Camino is one more character and, furthermore, it is beautiful to see how it changes colors. The landscape tells you things as you advance and you arrive in Santiago. The emotion of arriving in Galicia, the greenery, the rain. You find yourself in a place where the stones seem to speak to you. You feel how the Way speaks to you at every moment”, Norbert describes.
And it is that 3 Caminos is a beautiful series, but really beautiful, one of those that make it not even cross your mind to look at your mobile for a while for fear of missing some landscape, some coquettish little town until you say enough or some church lost in nature.
"What are you doing here? And then you keep walking. The person who was in front of you now walks by your side."
“We had a team that went in parallel, capturing that landscape that was accompanying us, which are not only those drone images, but those images of stones that speak to you, the sculptures, the animals... I think the Camino is full of that kind of thing that enriches you because you have a lot of time to think.”
And to listen and learn. After all, it is one of the few things that can be done while walking. “It is a series that is not in a hurry, that calms you down. What I liked most about the project is that the story is told from the simplest: walk and discover Discover yourself and discover others. That simplicity is one of the keys.”
Read like this it seems easy, but how does one deal with capture the enormous transforming power that the Camino de Santiago has through something as seemingly simple as walking.
“One of the challenges was that you felt the journey, that you were advancing, that you were getting closer to Galicia, to Santiago, that you felt the sensation of walking. Therefore, they are motion sequences, all the time we are moving. Very rarely are they stopped. The camera always moves and you have that feeling of traveling with them”, explains Norberto.
As if it were a Matrioshka, that challenge was part of a bigger one: the pandemic and how to shoot in times of Covid-19.
“When you reach the end of the Camino you realize that the end is not this. It's just the start of something new."
“We started filming before the pandemic and we had to stop it. We shot the second Camino first and then the first and the last at the same time.(…) We had to reinvent ourselves, how to shoot. We rehearsed with a mask, but then we had to take it off to shoot. One of the scenes that cost us a lot of work in the last Camino was the concerts because we couldn't get people together. So, there were very few people although it seems that there are more for the camera”, says the director.
“The most beautiful thing is how people received us after the pandemic, how they treated us in hotels. At the Tres Reyes hotel in Pamplona, for example, the chef, who only cooked for us, surprised us with a different dessert every day, incredible desserts, gourmets. People treated us like they needed the world to go back to normal. That mixed with the fact that the Camino makes you think a lot, the fascinating landscapes, the incredible people and the story that we were telling, It filled you with emotion."
Because even if you don't know how, on the Camino everything flows, works and ends up fitting. Also within you. “The three finals, after arriving in Santiago, for me it was very important to tell the feeling of 'we have done it, we have achieved it'. Not only because of the physical effort, but because of the mental journey that it supposes because when friends want to talk they have someone to tell what is happening to them, what they are looking for there”, Norbert reflects.
One can think that what he is looking for is to arrive, to show himself that he can reach Santiago; but, as Roberto tells Jana, This trip is more than just collecting stamps. Yes, it's hard to get there, but It costs much more to return to real life.
“When you reach the end of the Camino you realize that the end is not this. It's just the beginning of something new. It is time to say goodbye, to separate from the people who accompanied you during the trip. Is not easy. Over time you will remember the traces they left you, with their words and their actions. The Way tells you that life is a mystery and whatever happens, you should know that nothing ends and that everything begins again”.