Review of The Way Back (2011) by Ed C — 03 Oct 2013

One sentence summary: The film depicts a long, heroic trek to freedom across Siberia, Mongolia, Tibet, the Himalayas to India.

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In September 1939, Nazi Germany and Communist USSR partitioned Poland. Many who were in Soviet Poland were imprisoned in Siberia for being politically incorrect. That includes being foreign, being an actor, having advocated freedoms in the past, and other things.

A group escapes from a gulag during World War II, and journey on foot 4000 miles from Siberia across Tibet to freedom in India. The Soviets have offered bounties to any of the locals who capture prisoners.

A party of seven starts the journey and gets away. They face a lot of problems: blinding snow, the ever-present cold, lack of food, hallucinations, each other. They head for Lake Baikal. They soon lose a member who has night blindness, which was sad since he was 50 feet from the rest and their fire when he froze to death. Later, it becomes clear that they got lost on the way. Their best scout sets out to find the lake, and comes back in terrible shape. Fortunately, he did find it.

Irena joins them near the lake. When they encounter the first lake-side town, Valka goes looking for food, and finds some, and steals some vodka. As they move south, there are more people and more mosquitoes. A lucky encounter with locals tells them how to make mosquito repellant necklaces. Irena increases communications among the group.

Further south, near the Mongolian border, they start seeing Soviet military again. Valka decides to stay in Siberia. At the Mongolian border, they discover (how would they have known?) that Mongolia had fallen to the Communist imperialist expansion. So their hopes for freedom are dashed. The shots of the burned out Buddhist temple were heart-breaking. They decide to walk to Tibet, to the Himalayas, to India and British influence.

The desert areas are hard on them. Irena's health fails, and they leave her corpse behind; the party is now down to five. Kazik dies a few days later. The four survivors admire his sketches which he had kept from the gulag on. When they catch sight of the mountains, Smith decides not to go on, and they leave him behind. Later he revives and catches up with them.

They find plenty of water at the base of the Himalayas. Then they have to face the climb, the ice, the snow. They find the Tibetan border. A local points them to Lhasa. They recover for a while in a local village. Zoran, Janusz, and Voss continue to India. Smith continues to Lhasa, where he is sure he can find a way back to the States.

Janusz meets his wife again, years later in 1989, after the Communists are gone.

----Scores----.

Cinematography: 10/10 Beautiful.

Sound: 10/10 Well done.

Acting: 10/10 Ed Harris was great, Colin Farrell did a good job, Jim Sturgess is fine as Janusz.

Screenplay: 9/10 The story moves forward well, and kept my attention. The last stage, getting to India from Tibet, might have been more detailed.