The Way Back

Peter Weir, 2010 (8.2*)
This incredible story begins with "In 1945, three men came out of the wilderness after a 4,000 mile walk from Siberia - this film is dedicated to the memory of these men."

Based on a memoir by Slavomir Rawicz called "The Long Walk", which depicted his escape from a Siberian gulag and subsequent 4000-mile walk to freedom in India. This popular adventure became a bestseller, selling over 500,000 copies. Credited with inspiring explorers, one survival expert recreated the same hike himself and served as a technical advisor on this film. However, the BBC unearthed records in 2006 (including some written by Rawicz himself) that showed he had been released by the USSR in 1942, while another former Polish soldier, Witold Glinski, claimed in 2009 that the book was really an account of his own escape. ("I walked 4000 miles!" - "No, I did!")

Whatever the facts, the film depicts a tribute to the survival instinct of man, a harrowing wilderness adventure trek across Siberia, Lake Baikal, Mongolia, Tibet, and finally emerging in the Indian Himilayas.

The story follows seven men who escape from a Siberian gulag consisting of foreign workers who were jailed by Stalin while working in Russia, and the typical assortment of lifetime criminals, led by Colin Farrell, who carries a knife, and a tattoo of Lenin and Stalin on his chest. He escapes with an international group led by American Mr. Smith (Ed Harris), Pole Janusz (Jim Sturgess), a Swede, Russian, and a Hungarian (or was it Romanian?) They are followed by a young Polish teen, who eventually joins the group, played by Saorise Ronan (who celebrated her 16th birthday on the set). Of her talents, Weir said "She was born with a particular acting talent that can't be learned".

The film perhaps loses it's emotional intensity along the way and becomes a slow walk to inevitability, so in that regard it's not as artistic as most of Weir's better efforts, such as Fearless, Witness, and Picnic at Hanging Rock. In spite of that, it's an adventure that needs to be told, and if true, one of the most amazing feats in human history. Similar stories have been documented as many prisoners spend years returning home after wars, many walking as far at 8-10,000 miles, so this story is not that unbelievable.

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Gallipoli

Peter Weir, Australia, 1981 (7.8*)
Memorial Day War-a-thon film #17
Two sprinters from Ausralia, played by Mel Gibson and Marc Lee, are sent to the Gallipoli campaign in World War One, as battlefield runners, the speedy who carry messages between military commanders in days before radios and easier communication.

If you don't know the history of this battle, I won't spoil it here, but the battle footage is well done, fairly realistic (and without CGI). The main themes of the film will hit you like a brick wall at the film's conclusion, and they are the universal themes of all wars: on the whole, they are a futile exercise, but in some individual cases, heroes may rise from among average men and attain at least a moment of timeless glory.

Winner of 9 awards, 20 nominations, including 8 Australia Film Institute awards (Film, Director, Actor for Gibson, Supporting actor for Bill Hunter, Screenplay, Cinematography, Sound, Film Editing) - it didn't win any international awards, just Australian.Dur

Another in a line of excellent Peter Weir films, which include Fearless (my favorite), Witness, Picnic at Hanging Rock, The Last Wave, The Mosquito Coast, The Year of Living Dangerously, The Dead Poets Society, The Truman Show and Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World.

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The Mosquito Coast

Peter Weir, 1986 (8.2*)
Harrison Ford is an American inventor who has finally had it with civilization and all its debris. Against the wish of wife Helen Mirren, he decides to move his entire family to the jungles of Belize in Central America, and establish a family farm commune there that he hopes will become self-sustaining. His lifetime dream is to bring ice cream to primitives in the jungle.

There he finds a new chance but once again religion in the form of a fundamentalist missionary with his own brand of God's wrath crosses his path and becomes a metaphor for facing spiritual issues head on. This is another of master director Peter Weir's good films; nearly all of his are worth viewing and this is no exception, as it concerns man's basic instinct for survival vs. personal ideals.

Look for Butterfly McQueen from Gone With the Wind and her squeaky voice as a follower of the primitive missionary in a religious commune, in one of her last roles. The late River Phoenix plays one of Ford's kids.

Quote: Are we still going upriver?
Quote 2: Man's biggest mistake - walking upright and exposing all his vital organs.

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Picnic at Hanging Rock

Peter Weir, Australia, 1975 (8.6*)
Moody and at times surreal, this is based on a true story around the turn of the last century when a group of Australian schoolgirls disappeared while on a simple country outing. Master Australian director Peter Weir made his mark with this spellbinding, small, and austere film. It's a great example of doing a lot with a little, without letting the director or process interfere with the story itself.

Weir always makes films worth seeing, such as Fearless, Witness, Dead Poet's Society, Mosquito Coast, and Master and Commander. In this small gem, many think he made his finest film. It's certainly one of his most unique.

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The Truman Show

Peter Weir, 1998 (8.4*)
This parable on modern existence from master Australian director Peter Weir (Witness, Fearless, Picnic at Hanging Rock, The Last Wave, Mosquito Coast) was a breakthrough for comedic actor Jim Carrey: we all finally discovered he could seriously do drama as well. Here he plays unsuspecting ‘everyman’ Truman Burbank, who doesn’t know that his every move is being watched as a live reality show, and is extremely popular, as his audience is addicted to his everyday struggles with life, work, romance (with Laura Linney), and friendship with Noah Emmerich.

The tv show is brilliantly conceived and directed by Oscar-nominee Ed Harris, in perhaps his best performance; he has to deal with a couple of hundred cameras, and an unpredictable, curious, intelligent, and increasingly mobile subject; he also has to exploit the audience's sense of conscience without having much of one himself; in short: he's the god of Truman's world. Truman is a likeable guy, so everyone pulls for him and the film audience becomes like the tv audience, so there’s a nice circularity to it all. This is a fantasy bordering on modern reality, perhaps a bit too accurately – it’s actually kinda scary in a Big Brother kind of way, where God is the director and everyone’s watching our every mistake and apprehension and shortcoming blown up larger than life, without our knowledge, but somehow with the feeling that we’re being monitored. Paranoia Planet!

Note: If you like this concept, check out the more comedic Ed TV from director Ron Howard, in which Matthew McConaughey signs a contract to do the show so he knows he's being filmed by producer Ellen Degeneres. Unfortunately, he's not the actor Carrey is.

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Witness

Dir: Peter Weir, 1985 (8.6*)

This is a tight, well-made thriller from Australian Peter Weir, almost a film noir. A young Amish boy visiting the city is accidently the only witness to a murder, so detective Harrison Ford goes undercover in Amish country to help protect the boy, and while there grows attracted to the simple lifestyle and anadorned country beauty of the boys widowed mother, Oscar-nominated Kelly McGillis. We get to sample the simple way of life along with Ford’s character, but eventually, of course, the criminals of the big city have to intrude or we’d have no real good vs. evil story. In a way, this is like a classic western, and seems to perhaps even be based on High Noon, but Weir always makes films more intelligent than even that classic. If you like Weir, check out my favorite of his: Fearless, The Mosquito Coast, Picnic at Hanging Rock, or even The Truman Show, with Jim Carrey. 8 nominations, 2 Oscars (Editing and Screenplay)

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Fearless

Peter Weir, 1993 (9.0*)
After walking away from a passenger jet crash unharmed, Jeff Bridges becomes fearless of death. Thus psychologically transformed, his wife Isabella Rossellini no longer interests him as much as fellow crash survivor Rosie Perez, as a mother who blames herself for losing her baby in the crash. Rosie turned in her best acting performance which garnered her an Oscar® nomination for supporting actress.

This is my favorite film of Australian director Peter Weir, who always makes intelligent, thought-provoking films (Witness, Picnic at Hanging Rock, The Truman Show, Mosquito Coast), and this strong parable of survival and immortality is no exception.

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