Starring: Jim Sturgess, Colin Farrell, Ed Harris, and Saorise Ronan
Distributor: Roadshow Films
Runtime: 133 mins. Reviewed in Nov 2011
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It has been a long while since Peter Weir’s last feature film (“Master and Commander”, 2003), and a film from this director is always worth waiting for. This is not the best of Weir’s work, but it stands tall in a list of very fine movies that have been directed by him.
The film is based loosely on “The Long Walk,” a book by Slawomir Rawicz, a Polish POW in World War II. It tells the story of a group of seven men, who escaped from a Soviet gulag internment camp in Siberia in 1940. The men attempt to walk 4000 miles to freedom in India, pitting their resolve and determination against almost impossible odds. The escapees themselves provide a wide sweep through humanity. They include, Janusz, a sensitive Polish inmate of gentle nature (Jim Sturgess), Valka, a hot-headed Russian criminal (Colin Farrell), and Mr. Smith, a cynical American engineer (Ed Harris). All of them, in some way or another, are threatened with the loss of their spirit and will to live, and only three of them manage to find freedom. On their march, they pick up a young Polish girl, Irena (Saorise Ronan), who lies to gain the group’s protection, but then earns their affection. She joins the group after running away from her parents, but dies from dehydration along the way.
The photographic work in the movie is stunning, The camera traverses the wintry forests of Siberia, the rolling plains of Mongolia, the Great Wall of China, the Gobi Desert, the Himalayas, Tibetan plateaus, and Indian villages. As with most of Weir’s movies, the environment frequently threatens the people who live in it. This group fights to stay alive in the freezing Siberian winter, and the searing heat of the Gobi Desert.
The film begins with scenes of the inmates coping with the ill-treatment of their Soviet captors, while planning their escape. The early scenes are vicious and inhumane, and the prison environment is one where we are told kindness can kill. As the men begin their march to freedom, the film gains emotional force. What stays in the mind, after the movie is over, are the reasons why some finally make it to freedom, not the physical stresses faced along the way. Janusz, the leader of the group is motivated by his need to forgive his young wife, who, under torture, informed on him, causing him to be sentenced to internment for 20 years. The last scene of the movie, where Janusz and his wife, now old people, embrace, provides an unforgettable emotional moment in a very powerful film.
The movie is full of spiritual and religious imagery, and some of it seems too obvious. A head-covering on Irena to protect her from the sun is intended to remind us of Christ being crowned with thorns on his walk to his death. But there is much that is compelling. Janusz’s humaneness to others is what allows them to survive, and the movie tells us in a highly moral and vivid way that kindness is necessary to overcome the inhumanity of people to each other.
There are moments of high spectacle in the film that give it a grand visual sweep. The desert sandstorm horrifyingly envelopes the group, and the blanket in the sand carries the imprint of a skeleton corpse, which anticipates what will happen, if the group continues to walk on.
This film is quality viewing from a craftsman director, who is assured and confident about what he is doing, and it provides a genuinely uplifting experience. Questions have been raised about the credibility and authenticity of events depicted in the movie, but Weir’s brutal and honest focus on the motivations of people, amid the visual sweep, stays with the viewer, and not the unfolding of any dramatic plot-line or scenic displays. The film reveals powerful emotional insights into the purpose of life, and it teaches us a great deal about how diverse are the motivations that underlie human resolve.
Eight years on, this movie continues the contributions to quality movie-making of one of Australia’s finest film Directors.
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