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The Way Back
A small band of multicultural convicts stages a daring escape from a WWII-era Siberian gulag, and embarks on a treacherous journey across five countries in a desperate race for freedom and survival.
2010 · Directed by Peter Weir · 133 min · Drama · Adventure · History · Screenplay in the scene database · 9 frames
Tagline
Their escape was just the beginning.
Plot
After the Soviet invasion of Poland in World War II, Polish army officer Janusz Wieszczek is held prisoner and interrogated by the NKVD. Unable to force a confession of espionage from him, the Soviets torture his wife until she denounces him. He is sentenced to 20 years in a Gulag labour camp in Siberia.
Janusz is imprisoned with Mister Smith, an American engineer; Khabarov, an actor; Valka, a hardened Russian criminal; Tomasz, a Polish artist; Voss, a Latvian priest; Kazik, a Pole suffering from night blindness; and Zoran, a Yugoslav accountant. Khabarov confides a plan to escape to Mongolia, passing Lake Baikal. Smith cautions Janusz that Khabarov discusses escape plans with newcomers only to maintain his morale, but nothing will come of it. Janusz intermittently hallucinates the front door of a country home and adjoining window ledge with plants and a rock he attempts to grab for but never quite reaches.
Janusz escapes from the camp with Smith, Valka, Voss, Tomasz, Zoran, and Kazik during a severe snowstorm that covers their tracks. Kazik freezes to death two nights later after getting lost while looking for firewood. Several more days of hard travel through Siberian snow brings them to Lake Baikal where they meet Irena, a Polish girl. She tells them that Russian soldiers murdered her parents and sent her to a collective farm near Warsaw from which she escaped. Smith knows Warsaw to be occupied by the Germans, not the Soviets, but despite misgivings that she'll slow them down and tax their meager food supply, he agrees to let her accompany them. He confronts her about the lie and she admits her parents were communists who were killed, leaving her in an orphanage.
Plot summary from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA.
Crew
- Screenplay: Peter Weir, Keith R. Clarke
- Cinematography: Russell Boyd
- Edited by: Lee Smith
- Music: Burkhard von Dallwitz
- Production design: John Stoddart
- Produced by: Nigel Sinclair, Peter Weir, Joni Levin, Keith Clark
Cast
- Ed Harris as Mr. Smith
- Jim Sturgess as Janusz Wieszczek
- Saoirse Ronan as Irena Zielińska
- Colin Farrell as Valka
- Mark Strong as Andrei Khabarov
- Gustaf Skarsgård as Andrejs Voss
- Dejan Angelov as Andrei
- Dragoș Bucur as Zoran
- Sally Brunski as Janusz's Wife, 1939
- Alexandru Potocean as Tomasz Horodinsky
Production
- Country: Poland, United Arab Emirates, United States of America
- Language: English, Polish, Russian
- Studios: Exclusive Media, National Geographic Films, Image Nation Studios, Exclusive Films
- Budget: $30,000,000
- Box office: $24,172,201
- Themes: escape, world war ii, soviet union, anti-communism, india, gulag, american, thug, based on memoir or autobiography, communism
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