02 Feb The Way Back
The Way Back, Movie starring Ed Harris, Jim Sturgess, and Colin Farrell
(2010) This movie was directed, co-produced, and co-written by Peter Weir who directed several other movies I’ve enjoyed: Witness, Dead Poet’s Society, The Truman Show, and Green Card. We are told in the opening credits that it is inspired by a book titled The Long Walk by Slawomir Rawicz.
The Walk was long, and so was the movie, more than two hours. But I have to admit that I was only wishing for it to be over so I could make sure they got there.
The story takes place at the beginning of WWII. Germany has invaded one side of Poland, and the Soviet Union, the other. The country is split in two, and how the Polish people did suffer.
Our main character, played by Jim Sturgess, is sent to a prison camp in Siberia. He organizes an escape with six other men. Ed Harris plays the American known only as “Mr. Smith,” and (unrecognizable at first) Colin Farrell, with a tattoo of Stalin on his chest, plays the part of the “bad boy” who is unable to leave Russia after all.
They set out on this impossible journey. And that is the controversy. Did it really happen? Did it happen to Slawomir Rawicz? Perhaps not as the book and the movie portray, but I have now read about many Poles who undertook unimaginable journeys in their desperate search for freedom.
No Comments