Peter Weir
The Way Back

I'll start broadly, beginning with Italy. Because frankly, I can't understand how films are "distributed" in our country. There's the idea of "advertising," the prevailing image of the "family movie," all of that is understandable, but often, especially in recent years, remarkable films and authors have ended up being almost completely marginalized. Before Weir, another not too distant case was that of John Hillcoat, with “The Road,” based on the novel by Cormac McCarthy, considered a film not very suitable for the general public due to its subdued and “sad” tone.

These questionable choices have contributed to making “The Way Back,” the latest cinematic effort of a filmmaker of undisputed talent, almost impossible to find in Italian theaters. The Australian Peter Weir has not only created works that have earned a rightful place in cinema history (think in particular of “Picnic at Hanging Rock”), but he has also developed a unique way of doing his job by focusing on themes that recur. Consider the poetic and troubling interplay between nature and man. An interpretative model of Weir present in several of his films. The core of “The Way Back” is this very duality of man/nature that returns again as a hallmark of Weir's cinema. Starting from the escape of some prisoners from Stalin's Siberian gulags, Weir describes an endless journey towards freedom, life understood in the most “visceral” sense of the term.

From the condition of absolute deprivation in the gulag, to the “imprisoning” freedom of the Gobi desert. From one extreme to another, in a triumph of images and locations among the most exciting ever seen in cinema. Weir brings to life a film where a majestic, wild, stark Nature reigns, harsh, "stepmotherly." “The Way Back” is first and foremost a film that lets the images speak, where there is ample space for silence. In truth, the rare dialogues do not shine too much, due to a script (written by Weir himself) excessively tending to emulate that nature which serves as the backdrop to the story: thus a plot far too sparse, lacking a real ability to penetrate beyond the simple external characterization of the characters. Along with the slowness of the work, probably the most pronounced flaw.

This long epic has the faces of important actors such as Ed Harris, Colin Farrell, Mark Strong and younger talents like Jim Sturgess and Saoirse Ronan, the only female figure in the story. A notable cast that manages to perform its task accurately, even if the narrowness of the plot often leaves the actors in the condition of merely being dots on the horizon, both in the icy lands of Siberia and in the infernal Mongolian desert.

The background of the film, the gulag system glimpsed in its harshness in the first minutes of the movie, fortunately remains in the background: Weir managed to avoid the trap of political analysis of that specific historical moment, which would have turned “The Way Back” into an overly predictable historical piece, also affecting the story in its entirety.

Seven years after “Master & Commander,” (“The Way Back” is from late 2010), Peter Weir has returned bringing to the big screen the usual grand work of class and craftsmanship of a “classic” author, one of the last greats of contemporary cinema. A sprawling, challenging work, certainly not without flaws, but at the same time grand and successful in its simplicity, in its sacredness.