MOVIES AND BOOKS

...about the Camino(s), Galicia, Spain...

Movies with Galician background

"Mar adentro" by Alejandro Amenábar (2004) with starring Javier Bardem.Intimate a movie setting, intense in philosophic dialogues about life and death. A Galician young man becomes tetraplejic after an accident. After years of reflection he arrives to the conclusion that only death is the most desired redemption for him.

"Lunes al sol" by Fernando León de Aranoa (2002) starring Javier Bardem, Luis Tosar.In the eighties the Spanish urban working class suffers from structural adjustment programmes. Thousands employees of the shipmaking industry in Vigo (industrial Galician port) are made redundant. A hopeless situation full of worries and distress forces them to live only in the present. And yet there are moments of respite, spending the "mondays in the sun" (los lunes al sol).

"El bosque animado" by José Luis Cuerda (1987) based on the novel bearing the same name by the Galician author Wenceslao Fernández Flórez
Peculiar characters emerge behind the trees of a forest: a bandit, a water deviner, a girl who works, a boy who doesn't want to work, a young girl who'd like to emigrate, a ghost that needs company...These and many other characters interwave a colourful carpet of stories. The resulting texture combines both the secret life of humans and plants...


Movies related to the camino

"Vía Láctea" by Luis Buñuel (1969).
Two pilgrims decide to walk the camino from France to Santiago de Compostela. They discuss heretics. Despite the irreverent topic, many catholics claim the importance of this movie. It's the history of heretic movements within christianity since Roman times.

"Pilgrims" by Coline Serreau (2005)
French comedy about the Camino. According to their mothers last will her two sons and one daughter may only receive their respective heritage, if they accomplish the pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela together. Are they going to endure this hardship considering they haven't been talking to each other for years?


Books of galician writers

Manuel Rivas
"¿Que me quieres, amor?" - Short stories about Galician society from the post-war period until the present day. It includes "La lengua de las mariposas", the plot of which inspired Armendáriz to make a film, both moving and dramatic, about the civil war.

Camilo Jose Cela, nobel prize winner.
"La colmena" (The Beehive)- Caleidoscopic novel about Spanish society in the post-war period.

Ramón del Valle Inclán, novelist and playwright.
"Luces de bohemia" (Bohemian Lights)- tragicomical theatre vision of Spanish society of the XIX century.

Rosalía de Castro - galician female poet par excellance.

Guide in action

Instrucciones para Mejorar la Calidad de Vida * DALAI LAMA

1- Ten en cuenta que grandes amores y grandes logros, implican grandes riesgos. * Take into account that great loves and achievements imply great risks.

2- Cuando pierdas, no pierdas la lección... * Whenever you lose, do not lose the lesson.

3- Sigue siempre las tres R : * Do always follow the three R:

a. Respeto hacia ti mismo. * Respect towards yourself.

b. Respeta a los que te rodean. * Respect those around you.

c. Responde por todas tus acciones. * Take responsibiliy for all your actions.

4- Recuerda, que no lograr lo que tu quieres , es muchas veces un maravilloso golpe de suerte.(Ya te ha ocurrido antes!!)* Remember that not achieving what you're wanting, is often a great luck.

5- Aprende bien las reglas de manera que las rompas de la manera más apropiada. * Learn all rules well, so that you can break them in the most appropriate way.

6- No dejes que una pequeña diferencia maltrate una gran relación. * Do not allow a small difference to harm a great relationship.

7- Cuando te des cuenta que has cometido un error , inmediatamente
da los pasos para corregirlo. * Whenever you realise you've committed a fault, do inmediately take the steps to correct it.

8- Disfruta un tiempo de soledad cada día, aprende a disfrutar de tu propia compañía.* Enjoy time of solitude each day, learn to enjoy your own company.

9- Mantén los brazos abiertos al cambio, pero no dejes tus valores. * Open up your arms towards changes, yet cling to your values.

10- Recuerda que el silencio es muchas veces la mejor respuesta. * Remember that often silence is the best answer.

11- Vive una vida grata y honorable, de manera que cuando envejezcas,
puedas disfrutar lo vivido por segunda vez. * Live a graceful and honorable life, so that you can live for a second time as you grow older.

12- Vive cada momento lo más amorosamente posible ,esto significa:
procura ser amoroso siempre, el amor es la verdadera base de tu vida. * Live each moment with the most love as possible. This means: try always to act with love, since love is the true base of your life.

13- Cuando te disgustes con tus cercanos, aclara el presente y no traigas el pasado de nuevo.* If those sorrounding you upset you, do clarify the present and do not bring the past in.

14- Comparte lo que sabes ,esa es la forma de alcanzar la inmortalidad. * Share what you know, as that is the way to reach inmortality.

15- Sé gentil con la naturaleza. * Be gentle with nature.

16- Una vez al año, visita un lugar en el que nunca has estado. * Do vist a place you've never been to, every year.

17- Recuerda que la mejor relación es la que tu amor por el otro excede Tu necesidad del otro. * Remember that the best relationship is the one where your love exeeds your need for the other.

18- Juzga tu éxito por lo que has sido capaz de cambiar para lograr lo que quieres.* Judge you succes according for what you've been able to change for reaching what you've wanted.

19- Cocina y ama con prudencia. * Cook and love with prudence.

http://trazender.blogspot.com/2009/06/dalai-lama-instrucciones-para-mejorar.html#ixzz0foGEjUAD

THE CAMINO OF TAO

Alan Watts, an expert in oriental philosophy writes about the TAO, with the following words (my humble retro-translation from the spanish version of "Tao: a watercourse way"): people try to force all events, without undestanding that it is actually impossible: there is no way of eluding the flow of nature. You may conceive yourself as being a stranger to the Tao - o that you're detached from it- and then you'd be capable of adapting it or not. However, this assumption manifests from the core of the current itself, since there is no other camino but the Camino. You like it or not...Or as Lao-tse puts it: "the principle of Tao is that which ocurs on its own".

By the way; the ancient tao idiogramm means "step" and then turned into "moving step by step"

THE POSTHUMOUS EL CID`S TOUR

El Cid - Don Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar, the brave, courageous and faithful knight of the spanish Reconquista. As a warlord, he was particularly faithful to those governors who contracted his mercenary services, regardless whether they were christians or muslims. El Cid - came alive for all telespectators in 1961, played by Charlton Heston, and glamorous Sofia Loren as Doña Jimena. El Cantar del Mio Cid, the oldelst spanish epic poem delighted the spanish-castilian collective pride for over 800 years.

However, El Cid's longest tour started after his death, 1099 in Valencia. 1808 napoleonic troops profanated his tomb and his bones were scattered around. As pilgrims are proud today of bringing back scallop shells as a souvenir, so did generals and diplomants take much more up to skeletons, skulls or bones instead. This way, a great bunch of the hero's 206 bones (after all he had been human) reached the German Empire - in the suitcases of two french commissioners.

After all, did the hero's leftovers offer a great excentric, yet macabre gift potential for noble hosts as for instance Karl-Anton of the Hohenzollern dinasty or Fürst Metternich, the Earl of Peace. The largest bone treasure was identified by spanish intellectual commissioners in the Hohenzollern castle of Sigmaringen and taken back to his home town Burgos by the end of the XIX century.

So finally, all bones got back to their origin. All of them? No! Still a Cid's rib is alledgedly being exhibited in the westbohemian castle of Kynzvart, in it's "museum of curiosities" amidst a manuscript of Lope de Vega, a pair of gloves of Maximilian of Mexico, a uniform of the 4-year-old-Metternich and a few egyptian mummies. Perhaps worth doing a pilgrimage to Kynzvart!

WELCOME, CAMINO MAKERS!

...to my new virtual existence on the data-camino in the cyberspace. And it did finally happen because of you all, who motivated me with ideas, warm words and good energy.

On this site I like to include some news about the camino. Some may only seem interesting to you, who were on a Explore-holiday with me. News about the last gold yield discoveries in Las Medulas if there were any, or a next druid post-graduate course coming up. Remembrance about our culinarian journey; let`s remember one of our splendid picnics, with the one or other recipy. For those, still interested in cultural affairs related to the camino, to the warlord El Cid, a certain Templar enigma or the Celts, should mind about this blog every now and then. I would like to point out the one or the other book or movie recommendation. (Just as an aside). My main aim is to keep your camino memories awaken, as well as to motivate you to go for more walking experiences of this kind. "...There is no CAMINO, but the path that you make by walking..." It can start out of you doorway or you can just chose where you'd like to start, I can help to chose...

Let me also briefly outline my new running project in SOUTHERN MOROCCO:

www.artoftravelling.wordpress.com

On this site I propose the ART OF TRAVELLING following the principles of ECO-TOURISM, combining off-the-beaten-truck-travelling with community oriented activites, workshops even workcamps for longer stays. And the Trekking Highlight through the Haut Atlas mountains following the traces of the glaciars in the first place, then stepping in the footprints of the ancient salt caravans.