‘From childhood holidays at Santander and San Sebastian, Bunuel remembered the tradition of a pilgrimage to the shrine of St James of Compostela at Santiago in the same far northwestern corner of Spain, only 50 kilometres from the Atlantic. The route from northern Europe was known as the Milky Way, because in ad 813 a hermit was supposed to have . followed that field of stars (campus Stellas) to the body of St James (Santiago in Spanish), hidden there for centuries.’
John Baxter, Buñuel (London: Fourth Estate, 1995), p.288.
The only maps in Espoir are in an operational headquarters. An early sequence, three minutes in, establishes the interpretation of maps as a key to military strategy.
Later, a local who has specific knowwlege of an enemy base, but no knowledge of maps, isn't able to point to the place on a map.
As a consequence, he has to go with the bomber crew so that he can point to it in reality. Viewing his world from the air for the first time, the terrain is as unfamiliar and unreadable as the map, and it seems the mission will have to be aborted. But finally, in a moment of apotheosis, he is able to say: ‘it is there’, and the mission can be accomplished.
