Camino, een feature-length selfie (2019) User Reviews

Landscapes are gorgeous

[mdg1980 · 6/10 · 18 April 2021]

Well, I think if you plan to walk the same route this film might be useful. Especially the Camino Norte seems impressive and the landscapes are beautiful, but are still filmed with I assume a Gopro and the openingshot seems to be a droneshot.

The main character (Martin) does experience some nice events like people helping him with his injuries, bringing back a special hat he forgets at an airbnb, but it lacks a real story and deep insights.

I noticed myself unable to stay focusedon the story.

For those about to walk the Camino, we salute you.

[martin-kooistra · 7/10 · 5 July 2019]

Experimental documentary in which Dutchman Martin de Vries uses a selie-sticks to reveal his experiences as he embarks on the Camino de Santiago, a 1600 kilometer walk which takes him through France to Spain. Of course there are beautiful images of the mostly desolate surroundings and Martin turns out to be an engaging personality, but the rigid visual structure and his reports on his experiences do not reveal much depth. It's only in the second half that De Vries reveals a bit more about his reasons for taking on this gruelling challenge and how his self-imposed pilgrimage has affected him personally. There may be quite a few dull stretches here, but Camino may get you thinking about putting on those hiking boots (again) yourself. And those who love hking themselves will probably enjoy this a bit more. And for anyone taking on El Camino: I salute you!

The "human camino".

[cmoudeelferink · 7/10 · 2 January 2020]

Loved watching this docu. Less impressive as far as the 'countryside' is concerned but the more interesting to hear about the inner world and 'movements" of this guy.

Frustrating and uninformative

[DoctorDee · 4/10 · 1 January 2023]

I watched this movie because I'm contemplating walking The Camino, and while the movie was never entirely boring... it was surprisingly uninformative. The subtitle, a feature length selfie is the clue here. This is much more about the documentarian Martin DeVries, than it is about the Camino de Santiago. So while the movie contains a fair amount of delightful landscape footage of the route, it contains very little information of use to potential walkers. He rarely tells us where he is, and does not even share with us what dates his hike spanned.

And of course, there's no real drama beyond his knee hurting a bit, and him getting stuck in a barbed wire fence. The story, as much as there is one, is that of Martin's feelings and introspection as he spends 66 days walking. He's not an uninteresting or unpleasant guy, but there are no groundbreaking insights or great pearls of wisdom here either.

I found a couple of things frustrating, which lead to my low score. The camera he used had terrible image stabilisation, and bad distortion. And, probably as an editorial choice to support the "selfie" aspect, there is almost no record of any interaction with other hikers... but such interaction, in my experience, is one of the greatest parts of any through hike.

There's no real reason to watch this movie. It neither informs or entertains. The closing "scene" is a series of still photographs taken en route, and these tell a much more interesting story than the previous 90 minutes.

Of you gonna walk the camino, don t watch

[ruud-35 · 4/10 · 23 November 2020]

85 minutes selfie portrait of a most of the time complaining man. I am really not interested in his psychological welfare. Terrible movie

No need to watch it

[indrek-7 · 2/10 · 19 May 2024]

Even YouTube is filled with numerous 1.5-2 hour self-filmed Camino documentaries, which are much better in terms of both technical quality and content. I don't understand, the author is supposed to be a filmmaker, but even the basic technical aspects are very amateurish. Sometimes it's filmed vertically, sometimes horizontally, the image stabilization is terribly artificial, and the edges of the picture constantly ripple. Most of the time, you're watching shaky selfie footage that generally doesn't convey anything interesting.

This film feels completely unnecessary and lacks any philosophical or psychological depth. While I believe the Camino experience was significant and profound for the author, this is not reflected in the film at all. It misses the chance to explore the deeper aspects of this journey, leaving viewers with a superficial and unengaging portrayal. Given the wealth of better content available for free online, this film fails to add any value. The absence of meaningful insights or compelling storytelling makes it a disappointing watch, and it ultimately does not do justice to the rich and transformative experience that the Camino most certainly offers.