Film Review: The Way Back

The Way Back. Rated M (mature themes and coarse language). 133 minutes. Directed by Peter Weir. Screenplay by Peter Weir and Keith R. Clarke. Based on the novel by Slavomir Rawicz.

It’s hard to believe that it’s been eight years since Peter Weir’s last film – Master and Commander, which starred Russell Crowe and won Oscars in 2004 for Weir’s frequent collaborator, cinematographer Russell Boyd, and sound editor Richard King. What is even harder to believe is that it is 36 years since the first Weir/Boyd collaboration – 1975’s Picnic at Hanging Rock – a film that, even today, remains in a class of its own as an example of outstanding Australian cinema.

With The Way Back, Weir (The Last Wave, Gallipoli, Witness, The Mosquito Coast, Dead Poets Society, The Truman Show) returns to familiar territory – following a group of people in extraordinary circumstances (in this case, prisoners of a Soviet labour camp), taking on hostile and unfamiliar environments (a treacherous Siberia) in an attempt to regain their freedom – both physical and spiritual.

Underscored by Burkhard von Dallwitz’s (The Truman Show and TV’s Underbelly) moody original score, Boyd’s cinematography is, at times, quite astonishing in its depth and breadth, while John Stoddart’s (Fearless, The Mosquito Coast, Careful, He Might Hear You, The Getting of Wisdom) and Wendy Stites (Master and Commander) brilliant production and costume design, respectively, bring a wild and inventive theatricality to the screen that is equal to the epic visual magnificence of the film’s many challenging locations.

Jim Sturgess (Crossing Over, Fifty Dead Men Walking) is outstanding as ‘Janusz’, the young Polish political prisoner who yearns to return to his young wife in Poland, while Colin Farrell, Ed Harris, Drago Bucur, Mark Strong, Gustaf Skarsgård and Saoirse Ronan (The Lovely Bones) provide excellent support as the band of loyal followers who take Janusz’s lead in the 4,000 kilometre trek south to freedom and, hopefully, peace. Sebastian Urzendowsky’s cameo as ‘Kazik’ – a young prisoner who suffers from night-blindness – is both memorable and deeply affecting.

While the ending feels a little all too neatly sewn-up, there is no question that this is an often engrossing journey of triumph (and failure) against extreme physical, mental and emotional adversity – and a story from one of Australia’s master film-makers that is most certainly worth sharing in.

This review was commissioned by the Geraldton Newspaper Group.