מהויקיפדיה האנגלית
The Way Back is a 2010 drama film about a group of prisoners who escape from a Siberian Gulag camp during World War II. The film is directed by Peter Weir from a screenplay also by Weir and Keith Clarke, inspired by The Long Walk (1955), a book by Sławomir Rawicz, a Polish Prisoner of war in the Soviet Gulag. It stars Jim Sturgess as Janusz, Colin Farrell as Valka, Ed Harris as Mr. Smith, and Saoirse Ronan as Irena, with Alexandru Potocean as Tomasz, Sebastian Urzendowsky as Kazik, Gustaf Skarsgård as Voss, Dragoş Bucur as Zoran, and Mark Strong as Khabarov. It was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Makeup.
העלילה[]
During World War II, Janusz Wieszczek (Jim Sturgess), a young Polish officer held by Soviets as a POW, is interrogated by NKVD. When the Soviets cannot force him to admit he is a spy, they bring his wife and extort from her, a statement condemning Janusz. As a result, he is sentenced to 20 years in one of the Gulag forced labour camps deep in Siberia.
At the camp, Janusz meets Mr. Smith (Ed Harris), an American soldier, Khabarov (Mark Strong), an actor, Valka (Colin Farrell), a hardened Russian criminal, Tomasz (Alexandru Potocean), a Polish artist, Voss (Gustaf Skarsgård), a Latvian priest, Kazik (Sebastian Urzendowsky), a Pole suffering from night blindness, and Zoran (Dragoş Bucur), a Yugoslavian accountant. Khabarov secretly tells Janusz that he is planning to escape south to Mongolia, passing Lake Baikal. Mr. Smith tells Janusz that it is just one of Khabarov's fantasies to keep his morale high, but Janusz decides to implement the plan. He escapes with Mr. Smith, Valka, Voss, Tomasz, Zoran, and Kazik during a severe snowstorm in order to cover their tracks.
During the second night of their trek, Kazik freezes to death after losing his way to the hide-away while looking for wood, and is later buried by the group. After many days of travelling across the snows of Siberia, the group reach Lake Baikal. There they meet Irena (Saoirse Ronan), a young Polish girl, who tells them a story of her parents being murdered by Russian soldiers, and her escape from a collective farm near Warsaw. Mr. Smith realises that her story is a lie as Warsaw is ruled by the Germans and that she is a Russian, but agrees with the group to let her in.
When the group reach an unpatrolled border between Russia and Mongolia, Valka decides to stay, as he still sees Russia as his home, and Josef Stalin as a hero. The rest continue to Ulaanbaatar, but soon they see images of Stalin and a red star. Janusz realises that Mongolia is under communist control and tells the group that India is the closest refuge for them. As they continue south across the Gobi desert, lack of water, sandstorms, sunburn, blisters and sun-stroke weakens the group. Irena collapses several times and soon dies. A few days later, Tomasz collapses and dies. Mr. Smith is on the verge of death, but after being motivated by Janusz, Zoran and Voss, he decides to rejoin the group and the four find a stream of water and avoid dehydration.
As they reach the Himalayas, all on the verge of death, they are rescued by a Tibetan monk who takes them to a Buddhist monastery, where they regain their strength. Mr. Smith decides to go to Lhasa, where one of his US Army contacts will help him get back to America. The remaining three continue to trek through the Himalayas and soon reach India.
At the end of the film, the final three say their goodbyes as Zoran and Voss stay in India and Janusz keeps walking around the world until 1989, when Poland gets rid of the communists. The final scene of the movie shows Janusz, fifty years later, returning to his house, seen in several hallucinations, and reuniting with his wife.
הצוות[]
- Jim Sturgess as Janusz Wieszczek, a young Polish inmate taken Prisoner of War during the Soviet invasion of Poland
- Colin Farrell as Valka, a tough Russian inmate.
- Ed Harris as Mr. Smith, an American inmate.
- Saoirse Ronan as Irena, an orphaned teenage Polish girl on the run from Soviet Russia who meets up with the fugitives near a lake.
- Mark Strong as Khabarov
- Dragoş Bucur as Zoran
- Gustaf Skarsgård as Voss
אתרי הצילום[]
Shooting for The Way Back took place in Bulgaria, Morocco, and India.
הרקע[]
The film is loosely based on The Long Walk: The True Story of a Trek to Freedom, a book by Sławomir Rawicz, depicting his alleged escape from a Siberian gulag and subsequent 4,000-mile walk to freedom in India. Very popular, it sold over 500,000 copies and is credited with inspiring many explorers. In 2006, the BBC unearthed records (including some written by Rawicz himself) that showed that, rather than having escaped from the Gulag, in fact in 1942, he had been released by the USSR.[1][2] In May 2009, Witold Gliński, a Polish World War II veteran living in the United Kingdom, came forward to claim that Rawicz's story was true but was actually an account of what happened to him, not Rawicz. Glinski's claims also have been seriously questioned.[3][4][5][6] In addition, in 1942, a group of Siberian Gulag escapees is said to have hiked into India.[1] However this too is suspect.[3][7][8] Though the director Peter Weir continues to claim that the so-called long walk happened, he himself now describes The Way Back as "essentially a fictional film."[1][9][10]
Regardless of whether this particular 'long walk' really took place, during World War II other Poles undertook difficult journeys attempting to leave the Soviet Union. Accounts of their escapes can be found in the archives of the Polish Institute and Sikorski Museum in London, England, and in the Hoover Institute, Stanford University, in California.[11] Also, several relatively verifiable and believable escapee autobiographies have been published in English, e.g. Michael Krupa's Shallow Graves in Siberia.
תגובות הצופים[]
The Way Back received generally positive reviews. Review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes reports that 75% of critics gave the film a positive review based on 93 reviews, with an average score of 6.8/10. The critical consensus is: "It isn't as emotionally involving as it should be, but this Peter Weir epic offers sweeping ambition and strong performances to go with its grand visual spectacle."[12] Empire awarded the film three out of five stars and said "It’s good, but from this director we have come to expect great."[13] The Guardian awarded it three out of five and said "Weir has put together a good film – oddly, though, considering its scale, it feels like a rather small one."[14] The Telegraph called the film "A journey that feels awful and heroic and unfathomable – and one you’ll want to watch again."[15]
הערות שוליים[]
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 How The Long Walk became The Way Back. Retrieved 2010-12-05.
- ↑ Levinson, Hugh (2006-10-30). "Walking the Talk?". BBC. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/6098218.stm. Retrieved 7 August 2011.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 Strandberg et al, "The Long Walk To Freedom" Retrieved 2010-12-31.
- ↑ Leszek Gliniecki, “I have proof Glinski didn’t do The Long Walk” Retrieved 2011-01-04. Gliniecki claims that in 1940 and 1941 in Russia he and Glinski were fellow students. His article offers testimony, contemporary documents, and an analysis of the Glinski story as reported by John Dyson in the May, 2009, Reader's Digest, and Linda Willis in her November, 2010, book "Looking For Mr. Smith."
- ↑ John Dyson, "Regarding Gliniecki´s solid evidence" Retrieved 2011-01-21. In addition to John Dyson's response to Gliniecki, this webpage also has two posts from CuChullaine O'Reilly and Leszek Gliniecki replying to Dyson, as well as a post from Linda Willis in which she acknowledges knowing nothing about Gliniecki.
- ↑ Leszek Gliniecki, "Thank you for allowing me to comment on Zbigniew L. Stanczyk’s submission" . Retrieved 2011-02-05. Gliniecki offers further details rebutting Glinski's story.
- ↑ Zbigniew Stanczyk, "Mysterious group of Polish escapees in India". Retrieved 2011-02-05. On February 4, 2011, Zbigniew Stanczyk described newly discovered evidence which may confirm the presence of Polish Gulag escapees in India in March 1942.
- ↑ Att fly från Gulag – eller fängslas av kalla krigets myter?.
- ↑ Peter Weir February 16, 2011 Australian Broadcasting Corporation interview, part 1 Retrieved 2011-02-19.
- ↑ Peter Weir February 16, 2011 Australian Broadcasting Corporation interview, part 2 Retrieved 2011-02-19.
- ↑ Zbigniew Stanczyk, "Mysterious group of Polish escapees in India". Retrieved 2011-02-05. Specific references or citations are needed to support this assertion.
- ↑ "The Way Back Movie Reviews, Pictures". Flixster. http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the-way-back/. Retrieved 2011-01-05.
- ↑ "Empire's The Way Back Movie Review". Empireonline.com. http://www.empireonline.com/reviews/reviewcomplete.asp?FID=135919. Retrieved 2012-02-27.
- ↑ Bradshaw, Peter (2010-12-24). "The Way Back – review". The Guardian (London). http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2010/dec/23/the-way-back-review.
- ↑ Sandhu, Sukhdev (2010-12-23). "The Way Back, review". The Daily Telegraph (London). http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/filmreviews/8222533/The-Way-Back-review.html.
לקריאה נוספת[]
- Linda Willis, 2010. Looking for Mr. Smith: The Quest for the Truth Behind The Long Walk, the Greatest Survival Story Ever Told. Skyhorse Publishing.
קישורים חיצוניים[]
- [Official website|http://www.thewaybackthemovie.com]
- [http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?