The Way Back ***

It's almost twelve o'clock on a Friday night and I'm not in some dingy bar singing along to 'Ein Knallrotes Gummiboot'. Actually, I'm doing quite the contrary: I'm at my desk typing away on this blog - whát is my problem?!

Some might say that hanging out at dingy bars, singing along to silly schlager music is my problem, others could point at this blog and mumble the word: 'Problem.'

They'd probably mutter it in some silly Russian accent, the same way they do in the movie 'Eastern Promises'. There's something about those Eastern-European characters in Hollywood movies that makes 'em speak like sixteen-year olds with a swollen tongue, like they just drank their first wodka.

'The Way Back', Peter 'Dead Poet's Society' Weir's new film (Weir also made 'The Truman Show'), is another example of a movie with Eastern-European characters speaking English with a bad accent. (At least these Russians don't roll around naked in a steamhouse, like they do in 'Eastern Promises'.)

I didn't think the heavy accents weren't that much of a problem in this film, as opposed to the Girl Who Shall Henceforth Be Known As N., who sat next to me. Luckily, that was the only time during the movie N. wiggled around on her seat, firing criticism at the actors. (In fact, she loved the film - and N. isn't normally the one to be pleased easily. But passons.)

(I could write a book about N., but I suggest we proceed with reviewing this film. It's waaaay too late to start writing a book.)

'The Way Back' tells the true story of this group of men who escape from the Gulag - the working camps in the Siberian outback where Joseph Stalin and his Soviet regime sent 'the unwilling' to die from starvation, before, during and after World-War II. (These 'unwilling' being the state's literati; engineers, lawyers, artists and so on who wouldn't comply with the Communist ideas and were thus seen as 'enemies of the state'.)

The journey of this motley crew, comprising of The Elder Statesman (Ed Harris), The Young Idealist (Jim Sturgess), The Rugged Crook (Colin Farrell), The Sensitive Artist (Alexandru Potocean) and some bleaker hangers-on, only begins after they find their way out of the camp - if they make it out at all.

...

Okay, so they get out of the camp - if not 'The Way Back' would be a short-film. But after escaping, they must find a way to survive through the bone-crunching cold of the Siberian woods, the blistering heat of the Mongolian desert, and then once again the cold of the Himalaya, on their way to The Promised Land: India.

Now, there's always a risk involved when you film a story which stretches out over thousands of kilometers in a timeframe of several months - you risk losing the voltage, the pressure of the story.

I've gotta say that I normally don't like those kind of stories (with the exception of 'Forrest Gump'). The movies I like best happen within the frame of a few days, with only a limited number of actors interacting on a certain number of locations.

I loved the first part of the movie, which took place in some god-forlorn Gulag camp. After that, the DNA of the film gets stretched to a maximum, with its storyline sometimes skipping a few days and with alternate sidestories getting cut short. About halfway, I was starting to feel uneasy about this.

But the two things that won me over in 'The Way Back' were 1. The honesty and warmth of the characters and of their interaction with the group (that's a typical Peter Weir trademark you'll find in the characters of 'Dead Poet's Society' and 'The Truman Show' as well) and 2. The wonderful feeling you get by watching the characters travel through the most breathtaking landscapes you'll ever see on the big screen.

Watching 'The Way Back', even though it hardly depicts a walk in the park and the characters do suffer deeply, makes you feel like travelling. I'm sure N. felt the same way about it.  She probably would even give this film four stars. I'm sticking with three.

N., don't give me that look. It's MY blog!!