The Way Back is a 2010 drama film about a group of prisoners who escape from a Siberian Gulag camp during World War II. The film is directed by Peter Weir from a screenplay also by Weir and Keith Clarke, inspired by The Long Walk (1955), a book by Sławomir Rawicz, a Polish POW in the Soviet Gulag. It stars Jim Sturgess as Janusz, Colin Farrell as Valka, Ed Harris as Mr. Smith and Saoirse Ronan as Irena, with Alexandru Potocean as Tomasz, Sebastian Urzendowsky as Kazik, Gustaf Skarsgård as Voss, Dragoş Bucur as Zoran and Mark Strong as Khabarov. Plot Janusz Wieszczek (Jim Sturgess), during World War II, is held as a young Polish officer POW and interrogated by the NKVD. The Soviets, unable to get him to say he is a spy, take into custody his wife from whom they extort a statement condemning him. He is sentenced to 20 years in a Gulag labour camp deep in Siberia. There Janusz meets those with whom an escape is made: Mr. Smith (Ed Harris), an American engineer; Khabarov (Mark Strong), an actor; Valka (Colin Farrell), a hardened Russian criminal; Tomasz (Alexandru Potocean), a Polish artist; Voss (Gustaf Skarsgård), a Latvian priest; Kazik (Sebastian Urzendowsky), a Pole suffering from night blindness; and Zoran (Dragoş Bucur), a Yugoslavian accountant. Khabarov secretly tells Janusz that he is planning to escape south to Mongolia, passing Lake Baikal. Mr. Smith cautions Janusz that it is Khabarovs way to maintain his morale. At times Janusz seems to suffer from an hallucination of a country home front door beside it a ledge for plants, etc. with a rock for which he seems to attempt to reach out but in reality seems to represent some form of hindrance such as prison guard, etc. Janusz follows through with the escape with Mr. Smith, Valka, Voss, Tomasz, Zoran and Kazik during a severe snowstorm that covers their tracks. Kazik freezes to death the second night of the trek losing his way back to the hide-away while looking for wood, and is buried by the group. After many days of travelling across the snows of Siberia, the group reach Lake Baikal. There they meet Irena (Saoirse Ronan), a young Polish girl, who tells them a story of her parents being murdered by Russian soldiers, and her escape from a collective farm near Warsaw. Mr. Smith realises the inaccuracies in her story as Warsaw is ruled by the Germans, nevertheless he agrees with the group to let her in. Mr. Smith eventually cautions her about the fib and that he will not tolerate any more to which she admits that her parents were communists but the communist rulers killed them anyway. When the group reach an unpatrolled border between the Soviet Union and Mongolia, Valka decides to stay, as he still sees Russia as his home, and Josef Stalin as a hero. The rest continue to Ulaanbaatar, but soon they see images of Stalin and a red star. Janusz realises that Mongolia is under communist control and tells the group that India is the closest refuge for them. As they continue south across the Gobi Desert, lack of water, sandstorms, sunburn, blisters and sun-stroke weakens the group. Irena collapses several times and soon dies. A few days later, Tomasz collapses and dies. Mr. Smith is on the verge of death, but after being motivated by Janusz, Zoran and Voss, he decides to rejoin the group and the four find a stream of water and avoid dehydration. As they reach the Himalayas, all on the verge of death, they are rescued by a Tibetan monk who takes them to a Buddhist monastery, where they regain their strength. Mr. Smith decides to go to Lhasa, where one of his US Army contacts will help him get back to America. The remaining three continue to trek through the Himalayas and soon reach India. At the end of the film, the final three say their goodbyes as Zoran and Voss stay in India and Janusz keeps walking around the world until 1989, when Poland ousts the communists. The final scene of the film shows Janusz, fifty years after being taken captive returning to his hallucination reaching for the rock and taking a hidden key to open the door and reconciling with his wife despite his experience. CAN WE FORGET IT ??????? NO SOTCHI FOR ME !!!! BOYKOTT AGAINST THE GULAG SYSTEM IN RUSSIA...Violetta
Posted on: Sat, 08 Feb 2014 15:35:10 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015