Reviewed by GREG KING
Director: Peter Weir
Stars: Jim Sturgess, Ed Harris, Colin Farrell, Saoirse Ronan, Dragos Bucur.
Australian director Peter Weir chooses his film projects carefully, and is not interested in empty big budget spectaculars and Hollywood blockbusters, which is why he is not exactly one of the more prolific film makers around. In fact, The Way Back is his first feature film since Master and Commander seven years ago.
The Way Back tells the story of a handful of men who escape from a Soviet Gulag in Siberia in the middle of a harsh winter, and walk some 4,500 miles through some of the most inhospitable conditions to eventually reach freedom in British India. This is a harrowing, epic tale of endurance, survival and the triumph of the spirit in the face of adversity, and explores some of those grand themes that seem to interest Weir.
The Way Back is based on a semi-fictional memoir written by Polish writer Slavomir Rawicz way back in 1956, and has been filmed under the auspices of National Geographic. Although the book has largely been discredited since then, it still makes for a fascinating tale of survival against the odds.
The film is set in 1940, after Poland had invaded by both Germany and Russia. Thousands of Jews and dissidents were rounded up and sent to labour camps. During a severe storm, a handful of prisoners escape. They make their way across the wintry desolation of the Siberian tundra, through the forbidding heat and sand storms of the Gobi desert of Mongolia, and across the snowy Himalayas to India. They endure dust storms, snow storms, hordes of mosquitoes, hunger, dehydration, disease, blindness, and incredibly harsh conditions. While seven prisoners escaped from the Gulag, only four managed to reach safety.
The leader of this motley crew is Janusz (Jim Sturgess, from Across The Universe, etc), a young Polish man sentenced to 20 years for espionage. The group includes Zoran (Dragos Bucur, from The Death Of Mr Lazarescu), a cynical American loner known merely as “Mr. Smith” (Ed Harris), and knife-wielding tattooed Russian gangster Valka (Colin Farrell). Along the way the meet Irena (Saoirse Ronan, from Atonement, The Lovely Bones, etc), a young Polish refugee.
This is a fascinating story of courage that deserves to be told, and Weir certainly gives it a suitably epic sweep. The screenplay from Weir and co-writer Keith Clarke (better known for his tv documentaries) is certainly compelling stuff, and full of incident, but somehow we fail to make an emotional connection with the characters. Although the story is at times rather bleak, Weir directs with restraint.
The cinematography from Weir’s long time collaborator Russell Boyd is gorgeous, and he captures some breathtaking imagery. The human characters are often dwarfed by the expanses of the landscape. The Way Back was filmed in Bulgaria, India and Morocco, and these exotic locations add authenticity to the story. Burkhard Dallwitz’s score also enriches the drama.
Weir draws solid performances from an international cast. Farrell gives one of his better performances here as the menacing thug, while Harris is restrained. The film closes with documentary footage depicting the collapse of communism and the end of the Cold War, which puts the characters’ struggles into context.
The Way Back may have been a harrowing journey for the protagonists, but it also makes for a fairly draining experience for the audience.
★★★
