Peter Weir’s The Way Back may not be as intense and graphic as a film like 127 Hours, but it is another film that the masochists in the audience will enjoy. It begins in a Siberian prison camp, during the time Poland was being invaded in 1939. After a swift prison break, the journey begins – a four thousand mile trek to safety through mountains and desert with almost no food or water, and an enemy even more merciless than Stalin or Hitler bearing down on them at every moment: Mother Nature.
Don’t bring in a sixpack expecting to see some Nazi stormtroopers get their asses kicked – it ain’t that kind of an evening. In fact, there’s very little violence in the The Way Back. But it’s relentlessly grim and grimy, and the characters are increasingly forced to suffer horrendous physical degradation, as feet swell, lips dry up, teeth fall out, and muddy water is sucked from the ground. It’s not really a war movie, nor is it all about a daring prison break. File it under “triumph of the spirit”. As the days pass and the characters are reduced to the sum of their survival instincts, their bond with each other strengthens, and rather than trying to figure out who’s going to be the next to drop, you kinda hope that somehow they all make it.
As dreary as the film is, it draws you in with its captivating, yet sober, cinematography (a travelogue of landscapes that, under the circumstances, fill you with as much dread as awe) and the solid performances of the cast, led by Jim Sturgess (Across the Universe) as the group’s steadfast Polish leader. Backing him up is the American Mr Smith (a brooding Ed Harris) and cutthroat Valka (Colin Farrell with a Russian brogue). Along the way they pick up an educated waif played by Saoirse Ronan (The Lovely Bones). This gives them something to talk about as they shuffle through Russia, Mongolia and beyond.
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Australian director Peter Weir is no stranger to stories which tackle historical figures and settings (Gallipoli, Master and Commander), although it has been debated how much of this story, loosely based on Slawomir Rawicz’s popular autobiographical book “The Long Walk”, actually took place. The endless, treacherous journey undertaken in the film is framed by the decades-long war on communism, with a bite-sized history lesson tacked onto the end of the film to sum it all up. This will be appreciated by viewers for whom watching a bunch of likeable underdogs walk an impossible distance, sweat glands in overdrive and faces beginning to rot, may not be compelling enough.
The light banter that peppers their conversation throughout the journey, while releasing the tension at key moments, contributes to the air of familiarity that hovers over the film. But there is also an air of restraint that gives the film a balance missing from other historical epics with similar subject matter. Having said that, The Way Back is just as much an endurance test for the viewer as for the characters. If you manage to get through it you’ll feel the need to brush your teeth, take a shower, and avoid any trips to India in the near future – or anywhere else where they have sand.
