Film Review with Robert Mann – The Way Back

3rd January 2011

The Way Back ***

The Way Back is one of those films that purports to be “inspired by real events”. As is often the case, though, this statement is one that should definitely be taken with a pinch of salt, not because the film itself is unfaithful to the truth exactly but rather because its literary inspiration has been revealed to somewhat untruthful itself.

Based on The Long Walk, a memoir by Slavomir Rawicz, a man who claimed to have escaped from a Siberian gulag and made a subsequent 4000 mile walk to freedom in India, his journey being documented in his memoir – which was incredibly popular, selling more than half a million copies and has apparently inspired many explorers – The Way Back’s possible lack of truthfulness has been apparent since way before the film entered production. In 2006 it was revealed by the BBC that Rawicz had not escaped from the gulag he was imprisoned in but actually released by the USSR in 1942, effectively making the entire thing a hoax, although the escape is still suggested to not be entirely fictional, the book supposedly being based on the story of another Polish soldier, Witold Glinski. So, at best the film is very loosely based on true events – although there are many people arguing that the entire thing may still be a complete hoax with no truth in it whatsoever. Whether or not the events depicted are true or not, however, is not necessarily something that many viewers will really care about – although knowing that the events depicted were true would certainly heighten the effect of them – what really matters being whether the film is any good. It certainly has the credentials to be with director Peter Weir, for whom this is his first film in seven years, having being nominated for six Oscars – best director and picture for 2003’s Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World, best director for 1998’s The Truman Show, best original screenplay for 1990’s ‘Green Card’, best director for 1989’s Dead Poets Society and best director for 1985’s Witness – something that certainly suggests that he is the right person to lead the epic cinematic journey that is The Way Back But, as an experience that is not exactly the easiest thing to get right and one that is most certainly not easy viewing, does this film manage to be something that will stick with you on the way back home from the cinema?

It is the early days of World War Two and Poland has been invaded by the two opposing forces of Nazi Germany and Communist Russia who have split the country up between then. Janusz (Jim Sturgess) is a Polish spy who, after being informed on by his own wife who has been tortured, has been sentenced to serve time in a gulag prison in the harsh terrain of Siberia. The Siberian gulag is the most terrible of prisons and as one prisoner, Khabarov (Mark Strong), tells Janusz, if he isn’t dead within a year he will be in spirit. Khabarov speaks of escape but doesn’t seem willing to actually go through with his plans but Janusz is determined to make it back home to his wife. One night, under the cover of a torrential blizzard, Janusz, along with several other men – American engineer Mr Smith (Ed Harris); Russian criminal Valka (Colin Farrell); Zoran (Dragos Bucur), a Yugoslav accountant with a cynical sense of humour; Voss (Gustaf Skarsgård), a Latvian priest; and the young snow blind Lazar (Mariy Grigorov) – makes a daring escape from the remote prison but their escape is only the beginning. What follows is a 4000 mile walk that takes them from the harsh desolate terrain of Siberia and through the forests and lakes of Russia to the barren deserts of Mongolia, via the Great Wall of China, though Tibet and eventually across the majestic Himalayas into India. Along the way another person joins the group – young Polish girl Irena (Saoirse Ronan) who is also on the run from the Russians – as they go up against the elements, bracing with sub-zero temperatures, sandstorms, thirst and starvation before they make it to freedom. It’s either make it to India or die trying.

A statement at the start of The Way Back tells us: “In 1941 seven men walked out of the Himalayas into India. They had survived a 4000 mile walk. This film is dedicated to them”. Sticking firmly to the notion that the events the film is based on are true – the film would likely have less impact it the story were conclusively debunked as a hoax – we know that the characters actually survive before the film has begun. Telling us this is something that does not prove very effective in terms of the big picture of the film. While several characters do die during the course of the film – “they won’t all survive” says one character before the escape – the statement at the start of the film informing us that they survive robs many scenes of tension, sequences that see the characters facing life threatening situations losing their sense of peril. With this, a lot of the impact that these scenes could have had is lost. Conversely, however, it could also be argued that it makes it all the more shocking when characters actually do die. This is a major flaw and one of things that results in the film being far from the masterpiece it clearly wants to be. With a plot that doesn’t really prove engrossing enough, characters that aren’t especially well developed prior to or following their escape, aside from scenes that show us their hallucinations – the only limited insights we get into their minds – and some lines of exposition filling in their backstories, and an ending that feels a bit anti-climactic, the overall film really doesn’t prove interesting or engaging enough to scale the heights it is so clearly hoping to soar. Also, despite being seemingly accurately portrayed, not much insight is given into the inner workings of a Gulag prison, the prison only features for about half an hour, most of the film being focused on the journey that the characters undertake. The escape itself is neither elaborate or sophisticated, done without planning on the spur of the moment, the characters simply using harsh weather conditions to their advantage. On one hand the escape seems quite smart but on the other it almost seems too easy. At the very least, though, the journey is undeniably an incredible one and the story is truly inspirational – if it is true anyway. In showing us the terrain the men cross and the hardships they endure the film is very effective. The film also proves effective in showing us how they cope with their predicament, through the use of humour for instance. While by no means a funny film – in fact it is often quite a depressing one – this a film that has some very funny moments, mostly in the form of conversations between the characters as they do their best to keep each other’s spirits up. The success of such moments owes much to the actors who do an excellent job, their performances all being very strong if not quite Oscar worthy. Jim Sturgess proves very capable with what is essentially the leading role, Colin Farrell may not have been able to pull off a convincing London accent in ‘London Boulevard’ but he has no difficulties in doing a convincing Russian accent, Saoirse Ronan is superb, delivering a performance that is both mature beyond her years and totally sweet and adorable at the same time, and even does a good Polish accent, Mark Strong doesn’t play a villain for once – at least not literally anyway – and the Eastern European actors who make up the other principal roles all fare very well too – in their case the accents are probably their own. This is a film that is literally epic in its scope. The desolate wasteland of Siberia is captured in all its barren glory, accurately conveying the brutal conditions and the desolate unappealing environments while some rather beautiful cinematography captures the varies environments depicted on screen superbly. The film is produced by National Geographic Films and it very much feels like the sort of thing you would expect from National Geographic, the places we see being beyond our imaginations, the kind of untouched natural beauty (or ugliness in some cases) that we rarely get to see. The film looks, feels and sounds authentic with good make-up effects illustrating the physical effects that the ordeal has on the bodies of the characters, the big picture appearing to be historically accurate although the details, of course, may well be fabricated and the Russian and Polish accents sounding convincing although the use of both English and Russian with English subtitles does perhaps detract from the sense of realism slightly – one might wonder they don’t just have all Russian as it seems somewhat unlikely that they would have been speaking English in real life anyway. Mostly just focusing on the characters walking, The Way Back is a very slow moving film. Technically it is quite an impressive achievement but at 2 hours 20 minutes one long hard slog to sit though…although nothing compared to what these men (allegedly) went through.

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Review by Robert Mann BA (Hons)

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