January 28th, 2011 | 
Author: 
Australian director who often directing Hollywood movies has a project again with a film about the Siberian gulag. Peter Weir is not a new name in the Hollywood movie business. Famous thanks to his films that is so typical kinds of ‘Dead Poets Society’ (1989), ‘The Truman Show’ (1998) and ‘Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World’, Peter Weir may be the most appropriate director for scenario ‘The Way Back’ is derived from Slavomir Rawicz memoir entitled ‘The Long Walk: The True Story of a Trek to Freedom’ which is very popular in Europe when it was published in 1956.
Although the original story based on the story of a Polish, Peter Weir uses Hollywood actors, such as Jim Sturgess, Colin Farrell, Ed Harris and Saoirse Ronan. Fortunately, Weir does not attempt to make the story into Hollywood. As a result, the film is able to describe the atrocities of the Communist regime of Russia (Stalin) and winter the Siberian gulag, as well as a human struggle to gain freedom.
The story of the film itself is reminiscent of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s novel, ‘The Gulag Archipelago’ and ‘One Day of the Life of Ivan Denisovich’. Six people plus one female prisoner of the Communist regime of Russia on foot along the 4000 miles from Siberia are malignant, through Mongolia, Tibet, Gobi Desert, China up to India to escape from forced labor and imprisonment of Stalin’s regime.
Quite heroic escape was led by Janusz, a prisoner who entered the camps of Siberia because of his wife’s betrayal. Seeing the cruelty Siberian prison situation hard to describe with words, he led the breakout with Mr. Smith (an American engineer), Valka (played with impressive by Colin Farrell), petty criminals who are very temperamental and four others with a variety of characters (the artist, a cook, the myopic who died at the beginning of the journey, and a priest).
Along the way, they met a Polish girl, Irena (played by the beautiful Saoirse Ronan) who at first did not want, but eventually became the glue among the five men who survived and came to India. In this way, nature is the enemy mercilessly once the six former prisoners friend: famine, cold, heat, illness, wolves, and despair together as if to undermine the spirit of people who are oppressed, first by the political forces, and second by malignant nature.
The walker is survived by eating fish, dogs, moss, snake, and a variety of things they could find on the street. They get blizzards, sand storms threatened to be killed by local residents. All these barriers led them on an awareness that freedom is not cheap.
With material like that story, Peter Weir is able to show the struggle and the triumph of the spirit of a man. Filled with images of the extraordinary work of cinematographer Russell Boyd, ‘The Way Back’ is a journey that tested the strength in sustaining human life. Although not as dramatic as sensational and Hollywood movies, this film is able to give an idea of each character with enough distance so that we can take a lesson from him.
Take pictures at the actual locations (not studio) in Bulgaria, Morocco and India, Peter Weir was careful in describing the various conflicts that occured, so that the character of Irena as the only women be protected from the ‘drama’ typical Hollywood, the women as objects of conquest men. Perhaps it is here, the strength and weakness of this film.
Another problem may be related the existence of documentary footage from the history of Communism in Europe and the text which states that ‘The Way Back’ based on a true story. Today, several parties questioned the truth of memoir Slavomir Rawicz because based on Russian documents, he had been released from Siberia in 1940 and had never traveled to India. However, whatever the facts of history, ‘The Way Back’ is a fiction film that would make Peter Weir still revered as a master who produce quality films.
Posted in Film