When it comes to many things, the truth is sometimes stranger than fiction. In the past 12 months a handful of films have come out that have taken real life tales and spun them into semi-fictional ones for the big screen. Sometimes a good movie gets in the way of things like “facts,” but sometimes we don’t want a straight study of history. A little fictionalization can go a long way in the right hands. In this case they belong to Peter Weir in his first film since Master & Commander: The Far Side of the World.
In another epic tale, The Way Back is based on the novel “The Long Walk” by Slawomir Rawicz, It was a best seller but has since found its credibility taken away when the facts didn’t support Rawicz’s story. There’s something profound and inspiring about his book, documenting his alleged escape from a Soviet Gulag with several other inmates and walking to India, despite its proven fictional basis. The fact that it has been revealed to be a work of fiction takes a bit off the inherent drama involved that a true tale of this scope brings.
But it’s quite a tale of heroism and determination focusing on three men: Janusz (Jim Sturgess), Valka (Colin Farrell) and Mr. Smith (Ed Harris). Janusz is a Polish citizen wrongfully convicted of spying and espionage. Sentenced to the Gulag for 20 years, he’s bound to return to his family. Escaping with the Russian criminal Valka, the enigmatic Smith and a handful of others, they journey from Siberia to India by living off the land and avoiding anything resembling proper authorities. There’s a bounty on their heads and they can’t just trust anybody. It makes for a great premise but Weir does something much more intriguing with the material: he turns it into a character study about three men with wildly diverse backgrounds and worldviews coming together for a common purpose: survival.
Peter Weir certainly has a sense of scope with this film. With looming landscape shots and a suitable orchestral score, Weir sets up this film as a grand tale of human survival through the worst of conditions. From the Gulags of Siberia through the worst that Mother Nature can provide, getting to India seems like a pipe dream at times for the group as there’s seemingly no hope at all, and Weir’s ability to provide tension keeps the film from becoming an exercise in beautifully shot landscapes. It’s the one thing he does better than most directors; there’s never a sense that the happy ending is inevitable. While the falsified history behind it would suggest otherwise, Weir keeps this a high tension affair. It’s just that for a film with this sort of epic scope there isn’t quite as much of an epic feel at times.
The Way Back moves at a rapid pace for its first act, getting the men out of the Gulags quickly, but it doesn’t quite give us as much of a sense of dread about the Gulags as they ought to. It’s a bad place and “kindness kills” but in the rush to escape we don’t get a full sense of their horrors. Escaping from false imprisonment is more than enough to generate the requisite tension, obviously, but with a slower paced first act the impending urge to leave becomes that much more powerful. We’re given only a sense of the Gulags, not an experience, and as such it feels like Janusz is escaping from a bad prison as opposed to one of the worst places in human history outside of the Nazi death camps.
Peter Weir is remarkably selective in his projects, his last one being 2003’s Master & Commander , and The Way Back is a solid addition to his cinematic resume.
Director: Peter Weir
Notable Cast: Jim Sturgess, Colin Farrell, Ed Harris
Writer(s): Peter Weir & Keith Clarke based off the novel “The Long Walk” by Slawomir Rawicz
