Peter Weir's movie, inspired by a true escape story - escape from a Soviet gulag - came out the same year as Emilio Estevez's The Way (2010). Though I retain a small, a very small soft spot for the Estevez movie, Weir's drama is the richer, fuller expression of the pilgrimage spirit.
Janusz (Jim Sturgess) is accused of expressing anti-Soviet statements, negative appraisals of Comrade Stalin, by his wife. He is sent to Siberia and to a gulag work camp. The new arrivals are told that it is really Nature that is their jailor, for there are millions of square miles of wilderness all around, and a bounty on the head of escapees. Nevertheless, Janusz intends to get away.
Janusz is initally under the wing of Khabarov (Mark Strong) but eventually finds his true ally in Mister Smith (Ed Harris). When they are transferred to mining work there is no more time to waste. With five others, including Colin Farrell's killer/gambler Valka, they break out and escape into the snow storm. And so it begins. The very long walk to freedom.
Watching people merely walking is basically boring, unless the act of putting one foot in front of another can itself be dramatised. This is something Weir's movie achieves admirably, in contrast to Estevez's comfortable stroll of a movie. Granted, the escaped convicts have much more to contend with and dramatically different territory to cross, everything from forests and rivers to deserts and mountains. They have to do it with barely enough food or water to survive, and for a while they are all very taciturn. They become more of a family, less of a band of opportunists, when they are joined by Irena (Saoirse Ronan), and like a good fairy she helps humanize them, one to the other. How? The oldest female curse-cum-virtue, incorrigible curiosity.
Ronan's pale, innocent face is the perfect contrast to Ed Harris' magnificently weather-beaten old one. Here is an actor who has the capacity to fascinate simply by his physical bearing. Like Tom (Martin Sheen) in The Way, Harris' Smith is carrying a private pain, but although not the focus of the drama, Smith's pain is augmented by a sense of guilt, and again, in contrast to Irena's gentle graceful compassionate look there is something wonderfully masculine about Harris' Smith. Even though he's not an ideas man they need him to make it, just as they don't want to go on without Irena when she starts to flag.
Weaknesses? The movie could have done with more scenes inside the camp, to really ram home the awfulness of the gulag existence. Also, there is no sense of pursuit beyond the day of escape, and a little more jeopardy, aside from the perils of the wilderness, would have been compelling. Mark Strong is sadly underused (how often is that the case), and just maybe the leading man, Janusz, could use a little something extra to make him more interesting.
But this is a story of dogged endurance, a real drama of pilgrimage. A pilgrimage towards a destination that keeps getting further away. The gang have to be creative, they have to pool their limited resources, scour the recesses of their memories for useful tidbits of practical information, such as sucking on pebbles to combat thirst, or using the skin of birch trees to make masks to prevent snow blindness. Like good pilgrims they rely on good will and good fortune, not credit cards, and they have to make their own way, haphazardly, bleeding and chapped and sunburnt. Their faces get more interesting the more weatherbeaten they become. There is also the beautiful landscape photography to enjoy, epic where Estevez's was so much dusty banality. Music is used sparingly.
Not likely to be a movie you'll programme every six months, but when you do you'll be awed by it all over again.
Janusz (Jim Sturgess) is accused of expressing anti-Soviet statements, negative appraisals of Comrade Stalin, by his wife. He is sent to Siberia and to a gulag work camp. The new arrivals are told that it is really Nature that is their jailor, for there are millions of square miles of wilderness all around, and a bounty on the head of escapees. Nevertheless, Janusz intends to get away.
Janusz is initally under the wing of Khabarov (Mark Strong) but eventually finds his true ally in Mister Smith (Ed Harris). When they are transferred to mining work there is no more time to waste. With five others, including Colin Farrell's killer/gambler Valka, they break out and escape into the snow storm. And so it begins. The very long walk to freedom.
Watching people merely walking is basically boring, unless the act of putting one foot in front of another can itself be dramatised. This is something Weir's movie achieves admirably, in contrast to Estevez's comfortable stroll of a movie. Granted, the escaped convicts have much more to contend with and dramatically different territory to cross, everything from forests and rivers to deserts and mountains. They have to do it with barely enough food or water to survive, and for a while they are all very taciturn. They become more of a family, less of a band of opportunists, when they are joined by Irena (Saoirse Ronan), and like a good fairy she helps humanize them, one to the other. How? The oldest female curse-cum-virtue, incorrigible curiosity.
Ronan's pale, innocent face is the perfect contrast to Ed Harris' magnificently weather-beaten old one. Here is an actor who has the capacity to fascinate simply by his physical bearing. Like Tom (Martin Sheen) in The Way, Harris' Smith is carrying a private pain, but although not the focus of the drama, Smith's pain is augmented by a sense of guilt, and again, in contrast to Irena's gentle graceful compassionate look there is something wonderfully masculine about Harris' Smith. Even though he's not an ideas man they need him to make it, just as they don't want to go on without Irena when she starts to flag.
Weaknesses? The movie could have done with more scenes inside the camp, to really ram home the awfulness of the gulag existence. Also, there is no sense of pursuit beyond the day of escape, and a little more jeopardy, aside from the perils of the wilderness, would have been compelling. Mark Strong is sadly underused (how often is that the case), and just maybe the leading man, Janusz, could use a little something extra to make him more interesting.
But this is a story of dogged endurance, a real drama of pilgrimage. A pilgrimage towards a destination that keeps getting further away. The gang have to be creative, they have to pool their limited resources, scour the recesses of their memories for useful tidbits of practical information, such as sucking on pebbles to combat thirst, or using the skin of birch trees to make masks to prevent snow blindness. Like good pilgrims they rely on good will and good fortune, not credit cards, and they have to make their own way, haphazardly, bleeding and chapped and sunburnt. Their faces get more interesting the more weatherbeaten they become. There is also the beautiful landscape photography to enjoy, epic where Estevez's was so much dusty banality. Music is used sparingly.
Not likely to be a movie you'll programme every six months, but when you do you'll be awed by it all over again.