The Way Back (2011)

Five-time Oscar nominated director Peter Weir has returned to theaters with The Way Back, his first film since 2003′s Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World. In this new motion picture, Weir once again takes us to the far side of the world, but instead of a long and arduous journey across vast oceans, it’s 4,000 miles of bleak and desolate landscapes under an adverse climate and political conditions.

Set during World War II, The Way Back centers on Janusz (Jim Sturgess, star of 21 and Across the Universe), a Polish man whose wife is tortured by the Soviets into accusing her husband of espionage against Stalin’s regime. Janusz is sentenced to 20 years in a Siberian gulag. As the guards explain upon his arrival at the work camp, their prison is defined not just by fences, guard towers, and dogs, but by the vast wilderness that surrounds them. Even if someone does escape the prison, where can he go and how can he survive when he’s hundreds of kilometers from any other signs of civilization?

But Janusz is young, his spirit not yet broken by the harsh life of the gulag. The other prisoners are a rough and ragged lot, but Janusz eventually befriends several of them, including a mysterious lone American (Ed Harris) who refuses to give his first name and is known only as Mr. Smith, and a mangy schemer (Colin Farrell) who’s the only inmate with a useful knife. Before long, these three are leading a small group of fellow escapees into the snowbound forest on a trek that will test the limits of their endurance. Traveling from the freezing mountains to the barren sands of the Gobi desert in Mongolia and China–and every kind of terrain in between–the men eventually add another escapee to their ranks: Irena (Saoirse Ronan from Atonement and The Lovely Bones), an orphaned teenager who also fled a Soviet work camp.

Co-produced by National Geographic Entertainment, The Way Back features awe-inspiring landscapes; even with Bulgaria, Morocco, India, and Australia substituting for actual Russian and Chinese terrain, it’s all lushly photographed by Oscar-winning cinematographer Russell Boyd. From the harrowing blizzard scenes to amazing desert camera shots from faraway angles, these breathtaking visuals make our intrepid band of escapees appear as nothing more than dots against the immense and barren landscape. It is at these moments when the viewer is most impressed by the distance these people traveled and the scope of their accomplishment.

However, impressive moments are few and far between. It’s a shame, because The Way Back seemed to have such great potential. Peter Weir has a history of thought-provoking movies that take advantage of natural settings, from the mysterious Australian Outback in Picnic at Hanging Rock, to the sun-dappled farms of Witness, to the tropical forest of The Mosquito Coast. Even The Truman Show fits this pattern, although its setting is definitely unnatural, though meticulously designed. So Weir would’ve seemed to be a wise choice for this project.

Likewise for the casting. Sturgess, still early in his film career, does a serviceable job as the determined leader of this band of freedom seekers. Ed Harris is such a great actor that his presence makes any scene worth watching. Colin Farrell brings some welcome edginess to the film with his heavy Russian accent, myriad tattoos (including a huge double-portrait of Lenin and Stalin across his chest), and quick temper. And Saoirse Ronan makes for an interesting extra ingredient to the story, and she handles the role deftly for her age.

But despite the great director, the interesting cast, and the lush photography, The Way Back doesn’t bring all those elements into a very interesting story. Basically, this movie is about a 4,000-mile walk to freedom. That sounds impressive to accomplish, but it’s not all that compelling to watch. Yes, the escapees encounter various hardships along the way, but much less excitement happens on-screen than one might anticipate over such a long haul. Their interactions with others are few, far between, and ultimately inconsequential.

Too much is suggested yet not shown; for instance, we are not shown the actual escape from the gulag, but instead we hear the alarms and see the guards and dogs running around while the escapees are already running through the surrounding woods. Later, the gang sees a lakeside village right in their path, and they debate about whether to go through it or around it; by the next scene, they evidently avoided trouble back there, but there’s no dramatic repercussions from the whole village discussion. It’s like they edited out all of the most potentially dramatic and tension-filled moments of the story. It’s emotionally disengaging for the audience.

The Way Back could have been much more severe in its depiction of Communism under both Mao and particularly Stalin. World War II movies tend to focus on Hitler and his atrocities, whereas Stalin’s reign in the Soviet Union was just as brutal and totalitarian, with even greater loss of life. But Stalin rarely gets the same amount of cinematic scrutiny, and apart from Colin Farrell’s character defending the “Man of Steel” in one scene, the dictator’s dubious legacy remains relatively untouched here, save for a highly compressed and undetailed history of postwar Communism presented at the end of the film. The movie doesn’t hook the audience emotionally or intellectually; it’s just a long, arduous film about a long, arduous walk. It may be pretty to look at in spots, but an actual walk through a park or a nature trail would be more engaging than sitting in a theater for over two hours watching other people do the same.