SpecialsTarget Disturbing yet enthralling

Bergorks If you like to be scared, if you like to laugh, and if you like to learn a thing or two at the movies, this absolutely cannot be missed.

Paynbob It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

Allissa .Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

jotix100 It is hard to sit through "Camino" at times. The film, which is supposed to be based on a real incident in Spain, was adapted by its director, Jarvier Fesser. The basic premise is how blind faith can interfere with medical science causing horrible results. At the center, the young girl's family were members of the Opus Dei, an organization of ultra religious branch of the Catholic church that supposedly deals with attaining sainthood in everyone by acceptance and endurance to human suffering. Although it has nothing to do with Christian Science, we could not help comparing both types of practices, even if the latter one does not accept anything to do with the treatment of ailments by the medical profession.The story about this family happened fifteen years before 2001, when the action supposedly start. We are taken to meet Gloria and Jose, a couple in Madrid. They have two daughters, the eldest, Nuria, wants to become a nun. The youngest, the sunny Camino, is going to a catholic school. Gloria is a fervent follower of the teachings of the Opus Dei; her blind faith is a rare quality for anyone in the times we are living. Camino is a typical girl with aspirations and dreams, like any other of her friends in school. Tragedy strikes when Camino begins to suffer a debilitating illness that lands her in a hospital. The problem is a tumor that is pressing against her spinal chord and threatens to paralyze her. Gloria and Jose worry about what their daughter future will be. The mother insists Camino to offer her sufferings to God. When the operation does not get the results expected, and Camino keeps getting worse, it is decided to transfer her to Pamplona to be near Gloria's sister and Nuria, whose convent is there as well. Unfortunately, nothing can be done to save the young girl's life.Mr. Fesser goes after the machinations and manipulations behind the scenes of the branch of Catholicism that insists that faith will triumph over medical science. The only victim is Camino. The director gets an inspired performance from Nerea Camacho, who plays the sweet Camino, and Carmen Elias that appears as Gloria. This is no easy film to watch because of its subject matter as we witness the deterioration in front of our eyes of the young girl whose life is taken from her. Also in the cast, Mariano Venancio, and Manuela Velles.

iic-geof Reading the above reviews, I find it somewhat surprising that almost no-one saw what I saw in this excellent movie.What I saw was an expose' of the heartlessness of the Catholic Church (and I hasten to add that they are not alone).I saw ambition among the clergy and the girl's mother, overriding their humaneness for this unfortunate girl.I saw the philosophy of self denial taken to absurd extreme. Who is more deserving of flowers in her hospital room than a dying innocent eleven year old? Is mind control, sequestration, withholding of personal information, constant supervision and the encouragement to wear stones in ones shoes a way to prepare anyone for office anywhere in this day and age, let alone for the catholic church? I saw the Catholic Church manipulating the tragic events in order to "glorify" the church, and the individual clergy involved supporting this in order to enhance their own standing within the hierarchy.Instead the movie tells us that Camino's dying thoughts were with Jesus, but not with the Jesus of Nazereth, which was the assertion of the clergy and no doubt the overriding factor in her subsequent beautification, ("the church needs more saints" says one clergyman), but with her prepubescent love of a boy of the same name.I also saw the medical establishment questioned. A GP "No Xray but an injection will settle it", A specialist when an Xray is finally taken-"no problem here, she will be OK soon" - The surgeon on the second Xray "This is serious must repair the vertebrae without delay", finally a scan "The tumor must be removed ASAP" - where a careful diagnosis would have possibly isolated the problem from the beginning and made the last months of Camino's life at least a little more pain free.In all I found this a very bitter movie, it did not glorify the church but rather leveled serious criticism at it as it did the medical establishment.Not a movie for the masses, not a movie that could come out of America but in my opinion one of the VERY BEST movies ever.Warning, If light entertainment is your wish avoid this movie like the plague, but if you want your thought processes stimulated, do not miss it.

krzysiektom It is such a superb film. Very sad and depressing, but an excellent film-making and a profound, intelligent script. I can guess that the modern Spanish society does not care much for its catholic Church, otherwise this film would not have received several Goya awards. Because principally the film is an anti-organized religion/organized Church manifesto. It dares to ask the fundamental question: if God exists and is good, why so many awful things and suffering happens to good people?? If the answer cannot be found or makes no sense, then it would mean that there is no God, really. At least not a personal, omnisicient God from the New Testament, that cares about what is going on in our world, knows and is everywhere. The film also portrays clergymen as hypocrytical vultures and convents as sects. The title character is played by a talented and charming girl in early teens who I am sure will grow to be a gorgeous and brilliant actress, while the passages between reality and her troubling dreams are brilliantly made.

lemmycaution69 Camino is the most intense film I've seen this year. I understand that Opus Dei doesn't like this film. I suppose that the Nazi Party doesn't like "Schindler's List", or the stalinists, or the talibanics, or extreme groups don't like films about them. I mention "Schindler's List", because I feel after Camino like after "Schindler's". Out of the theater, I was knocked by the film, I didn't know what's hour, what to do. I was still hooked on the film, and I didn't stop thinking about its characters, its argument, its pictures. Death and sickness and intolerance and dark side of life are inside "Camino", but above all Love and Hope and bright side of life. Sometimes the film is close to horror films (not too close), but another times it has got the joy of a musical (without songs, thank's god). Also, I was born in 1969, and the film presents visual aspects of my mediterranean catholic education. The nuns'school, the typical mass songs, the strict separation between men and women, the old fanatic priests, the dominant mothers and the silent but lover fathers... I enjoy seeing all those pictures of my sentimental education on a screen, and I fear that one of these things exists in present times... And speaking about catholic values and laicism values, my wife is completely agnostic and she says that Freedom in in the film. I'm Catholic believer, and I think that God is in the film. The Church is not only Opus Dei, and the rest of mankind has the right to talk and think about Alexia, the child who inspired the film. If Opus Dei opens a public campaign about Alexia, even with a Youtube Channel, Alexia is now a public figure. Opus Dei cannot order a complete silence for another point of view about this case. But now, after Camino, I love Alexia much more then before.