The Way Back

"The Way Back" is a masterpiece, a must-see film for thinking people and for lovers of cinema as a serious art form. I was on the edge of my seat through the entire film, and was stifling tears. I could not resist applauding at the end. I couldn't wait to discuss it with friends. Several hours after I left the theater, I kept seeing everything - a meaty sandwich, clean water flowing from the tap - through the prism of "The Way Back." I'm a long-time fan of director Peter Weir, who gave us classics like "Picnic at Hanging Rock," "Witness" and "The Year of Living Dangerously." Weir has outdone himself.

"The Way Back" depicts a long walk that Gulag escapees took from Siberia to India. I've been lucky enough, under luckier circumstances, to travel some of the world the film references, from Poland to the Himalaya. The film's authenticity in language, costume, even hairstyles, swept me up into its world.

Both Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia attacked Poland in September, 1939, thus beginning World War Two. At first, the Communists killed and deported more people even than the genocidal Nazis. Over a million Poles were deported in cattle cars. Many died; many never returned. No one knows exact numbers. Many struggled to return home, traveling on foot through Eurasia, making shorter treks comparable to that depicted in "The Way Back;" I've met such people.

Janusz (Jim Sturgess) is a young Pole falsely accused by Soviets. His wife is tortured to force a confession. Without ceremony, he is shipped to hellish Siberian concentration camps and mines. Janusz determines to escape, with a ragtag, multilingual crew of followers.

Janusz is not particularly handsome, or muscular, or super intelligent. He doesn't have a commanding voice or swagger. His potentially fatal flaw, in this environment, is kindness. Jim Sturgess' Janusz is one of the best aspects of the film. In real life, true leaders usually are not like Arnold Schwarzenegger. Janusz grew up in the woods, and knows how to jerry-rig a compass to point his group south, and a mask to survive blizzards. In the world of Gulag escapees, that's enough to make him the big man. Indeed, Valka, (Colin Farrell), a very tough gangster, declares, or diagnoses, that Janusz is the leader, the man whom the other escapees must obey, both for their own individual benefit and the benefit of group survival.

Prison escapees traveling thousands of miles of the Eurasian landmass with minimal gear face multiple dangers, from malnutrition-caused blindness to mosquitoes to snakes to dehydration. Some succumb, and die en route. You can't help but bet the same horrible game of chance that Valka proposes: who will die next? And will his meat be tender - that is, will we resort to cannibalism? A crew member falls. Surviving companions, in stunning testimony to their own humanity, take the time, burn the calories, devote the effort, to fashioning makeshift graves, and funerals. And then they march on.

What looks very beautiful on a calendar - an unspoiled mountain forest of snow-dusted evergreens - is actually all but an execution chamber for a hungry fugitive with no tools and only rags for shoes. The last thing a good man sees after making the simple mistake of walking too far with a limited light source will not be a breathtaking natural vista but a comforting, wrenching, hallucination of home.

Weir's best choice as a filmmaker here was simply to get out of the story's way. "The Way Back" does not want to be your best friend. Weir makes no attempt to cozy up to the viewer, to sweeten the story with phony warmth or touching crescendos. Weir makes no attempt to juice the action with cinematic steroids. For much of the film, the viewer is watching one grueling step after another.

Guess what? This is what it's like to suffer for a goal, this is what it's like to be crushed, this is what it's like, purely by chance - not because you are a better person or because God likes you more - to survive. You go on, hour after hour after seemingly pointless hour toward your questionable, impossible objective. This film is an endurance test. It will separate the men from the boys. Folks who think a movie about fantasy, sexy ballerinas is "great" filmmaking, and who think that temporarily losing their cell phone service is a human rights violation, will probably walk right out of "The Way Back."

Characterizations come slowly and are not forced. We discover, in a ruined monastery, that one character had been a priest. We discover that a girl can get taciturn men to talk. Characters speak of food, as hungry people do. "Add more salt!" to a fantasy meal, one begs. Valka makes a decision that caused this viewer to cry. I never thought the film could make me care about this murderous thug, but it did. There is inevitable, and surprising, laughter, also not forced, but integral to the circumstances.

There are moments of high drama. The men must fight wolves. Weir could have lavished lengthy close-ups on those sharp teeth, snarling snouts and prickly pelts. He doesn't. The wolves are onscreen only long enough to establish what they are and what they are up to. And then the next deadly and impossible challenge rolls down the shoot at the viewer, just as it did for those who took this long walk, and the millions of other humans like them, who have survived life and death challenges under impossible conditions. "The Way Back" is, like those poignant grave-markers the marchers make en route, testimony to those who have lived anonymous and agonizing lives in this pitiless world. If you don't think about the big questions while watching this film, and if you're not grateful to the film for that, you don't deserve it.

Over the last decade, many have felt increasingly pessimistic about the state of modern American cinema, a growing wasteland of sequels, prequels, remakes, reboots, flashy effects and trashy writing. There have been a few diamonds in the rough, but for the most part, we have watched the art of film rapidly devolve into a soulless industry with strictly financial motivations, pandering to the market of the lowest common denominator.

But the end of 2010 gave us hope for the next decade, with several strong releases, most notably this powerful offering from master film-maker Peter Weir (Gallipoli, Dead Poets Society, Fearless). Weir is at the top of his game, taking us on a journey which, despite its two-hour length, seems to end all too soon. As we follow a group of desperate Gulag escapees battling the cruel and beautiful indifference of nature, we witness not only an incredible story of human endurance, but also the true value of freedom and the price one is willing to pay for it. The performances were nearly perfect - Ed Harris, Saoirse Ronan, and Jim Sturgess are particularly brilliant. The characters are kept somewhat at a distance; we learn only enough about them as to establish a strong connection and human element, as we watch this band of relative strangers create intense bonds with each other during the ordeal. The dialogue is minimal but effective, giving the film a more realistic feel over-all. Cinematographer Russell Boyd, who has worked with Weir on such exquisite films as Gallipoli and Picnic at Hanging Rock, engulfs us in a stunning palette of landscapes across an epic expanse of Asia, from the snow-driven forest of Siberia to the vast emptiness of the Gobi Desert. The cinematography alone makes this film worth the price to see it on a large theater screen, if you can.

Leaving the theater after this film, I truly felt a resurgence of faith in American film. Hopefully we won't have to wait another decade for another great Peter Weir film! The cast and crew of The Way Back have given audiences a wonderful gift, and I thank them for it.

I won't wade into the controversy regarding the facts behind the story of this film. Just how true the story is and to whom it actually occurred won't be my focus. I'll write about the filmmaking itself. Peter Weir's entire career has been focused on this singular theme, man at battle with his environment. From the early day of "Picnic at Hanging Rock" to "The Mosquito Coast", "The Truman Show" and "Master and Commander"... the same theme dominates his expression as a filmmaker. "The Way Back" was the perfect vehicle for him to explore this territory once again. He gets to film everything from wintry landscapes of Siberia, the deserts of Mongolia, to the Himalaya in China and even a little of India.

The cinematography is suitably sumptuous but in no way artificially gorgeous. There is bleakness as well as beauty in the images. The story and characters take second place to the forces of nature. This might be the lethal ingredient to many viewers and their potential engagement with this film. The main character Janusz has a back story and a character arc, but the others are fuzzily sketched. The talents of Ed Harris are mostly wasted but I suppose it's better to have him more in the background instead of how Harris typically dominates his movies with his shouting and lapses into anger. I thought Colin Farrell was miscast as a Russian criminal who provides a bit of comic mischief but the young Saoirse Ronan makes an impression as the lost young girl.

The main message of this film apart from the man versus nature dynamic is the idea that it's better to die a free man than live as a prisoner. Imagine having a sentence in one of those Siberian prisons. Making a break for it even with the high chance of death is preferable in my mind to a dull life of drudgery in this far off prison. Better to die in an icy forest or the rain starved desert die than working in a coal mine against your will. I wouldn't rank "The Way Back" as one of Peter Weir's best films but it's a respectable effort nonetheless, more worthy of a cinemagoer's time and money than a lot of content in theatrical release right now.

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