The North

A Reflection on the Film

Screenshot from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-SG46PKUCfQ&t=7s

It was the mention of rekindling a friendship from youth in adulthood that drew me in.

If I recall the opening scene, the two friends, Chris (Bart Harder) and Lluis (Carles Pulido), meet in Milngavie, which is where the West Highland Way begins. I had to look that up, as it didn’t say in the film, unless I missed it. There were a few things that I seem to have missed. I believe Chris is from the Netherlands and Lluis is from Spain. It seems they have been friends for some time. My mind filled in the gap and told me they met at university in the Netherlands.

Bart Harder came across as the dominant friend in the story. It seemed to me he was the one who initiated this trek. The two friends seemed not to have met for a time, and walking the West Highland Way and the Cape Wrath Trail was a way for them to reconnect or not.

The word ‘geek’ came to mind when watching Chris, whereas Lluis came across as someone who would fit in with any crowd. I wondered what sealed their friendship?

The film is slow, but I am okay with slow. I mean, so slow that it felt at times as if I was walking with them. They didn’t have a lot to talk about, but tried, as we all do at the beginning. The usual stuff: ‘work’, ‘what’s happening?’

The director Bart Schrijver managed to reflect in the film what I experience in life: people being awkward with words. Made me wonder whether we should be under no pressure to speak, but maybe as we struggle with our words, we get to where we seek.

Life changes, and it changes us. Many of us become a different version of ourselves since the last time we connected, which can be difficult for us and the other to adapt to.

Lluis has become more contemplative about life. Along the way, Chris discovers what prompted it. Chris is focused on his career, his relationship and starting a family. He also receives calls from his work, in which we are reminded how others manipulate us to progress their agendas. Just that day, I had felt I was being tasked with something that another was responsible for.

We don’t see Lluis on a phone until the end; there is a significance to that.

Over the 30 days, both men decide to leave each other for a time. During this time, we see both men cry as if it took them to be in this place of nature alone to release the pain they were carrying.

There are tensions between them along the way, and like friendships I have known, will this be the point at which the life of friendship ends, or will this embolden the friendship?

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