Colin Farrell plays vicious Urki gang member, Valka, in "The Way Back."
The phrase “exiled to Siberia” still resonates as a severe sentence from which one does not return and “The Way Back” is an epic adventure about an escape from such a sentence to exile. For decades, Russia, and then the Soviet Union, exiled criminals, political prisoners and anyone deemed undesirable to the remote, cold region of Siberia.
The Oscar-nominated film is directed by the award-winning Peter Weir, who is no stranger to epics, having directed “Master And Commander” and “Gallipolli.”
Ed Harris, Colin Farrell, Mark Strong and Jim Sturgess play members of an international band of prisoners escaping from a gulag during World War II in one impressive tale of survival.
Based on Slavomir Rawicz’s acclaimed book, “The Long Walk: The True Story of a Trek to Freedom,” and on other real-life experiences, this film is indeed a long walk, thousands of miles.
The reason Siberia was such a harsh sentence is not just its coldness but also its remote isolation. As one character notes, the prison walls in Siberia do not need to be strong because the whole countryside is the prison. In a sparsely-populated land with a harsh climate, hundreds of miles from anywhere, the few local people easily recognize outsiders. Bounties for escapees ensure they are reported.
Life is harsh in the ramshackle, overcrowded gulag. Prisoners starve on the meager rations, develop night-blindness and other illnesses from nutritional deficiencies. They wear filthy rags, infested with lice and fights break out over the warmer rags. Criminal gangs dominate the rickety barracks. New arrival Janusz (Jim Sturgess), a Pole from a wooded region of the newly-occupied Poland, thinks only of returning to Poland. A flinty older American prisoner, who only gives his name as Mr. Smith (Ed Harris), offers to help organize an escape, noting the Pole’s backwoods skills and one “weakness” – kindness – might be useful for the older man’s survival.
They begin a ragged group escape during the height of winter with no real idea of where they are, only a vague plan of walking south. Their one survival tool is Janusz’ skills as an outdoorsman, honed in Polish forests. The prisoners form an uneasy alliance, especially with Russian gangster Valka (Colin Farrell), who forced his way in when he overheard their plans. In their long trek, they are joined by another escapee, a young girl named Irena (Saoirse Ronan).
The whole epic plays out against a breathtaking landscape of natural beauty. Shot beautifully in Bulgaria, Morocco and India, the landscape is a daunting, haunting backdrop, almost a character in the characters’ struggle for survival.
The tone is emotionally muted, with everyone dampening down feelings as they focus on their challenging journey. The escapees may be hardened but there are still flashes of emotion.
The acting is excellent, with each actor carving out believable, well-rounded characters and avoiding familiar stereotypes. Colin Farrell’s Valka is an unrepentant criminal but sporting a tattoo on his chest of Lenin and Stalin, he espouses a strange kind of patriotism. The addition of Irena brings out new emotional dynamics, especially in Harris’ steely-eyed, closed-mouthed Smith, but Ronan makes her a complex character as well.
To the film’s credit, not everyone survives the ordeal and the actors are never prettied up – they look dirty, thin and sunburned – adding a gritty realism as they trudge through snowbound forests, the parched Gobi desert and transverse the Himalayas.
This is fiction, not history, despite its factual inspiration. However, the film is one of those man-versus-nature survival stories that evokes documentaries like “Touching the Void.” “The Way Back” is truly an epic adventure.