The way back, 2010

The way back, 2010
Director: Peter Weir
Cast: Ed Harris, Colin Farrel, Jim Sturgess


Stage: desktop theatre in a nice hotel room in Sarajevo


The way back in short: In 1941, three men reach India from Tibet, having walked 4000 miles after escaping a Siberian gulag. The film tells their story and that of four others who escaped with them and a teenage girl who joins them in flight. The group's natural leader is Janusz, a Pole condemned by accusations secured by torturing his wife; he knows how to live in the wilds. They escape under cover of a snowstorm: a cynical American, a Russian thug, a comic accountant, a pastry chef who draws, a priest, and a Pole with night blindness. They face freezing nights, lack of food and water, mosquitoes, an endless desert, the Himalayas, and moral questions of when to leave someone behind.


Preps: just a good recomendation, I am not aware of the content nor the cast. Therefore a lot of expectations, I give a lot to this person's opinion.


Reality: Hm. a true story indeed. If you aren't under sheets or somewhere warm, you will get cold in the first 20 minutes. Siberian gulags are places like german lagers in the WW2. Not a place you would want to be in, nor the place you could imagine to survive. There are many thoughts in my mind while watching the beginning of the movie, especially means of surviving in those conditions as those men fought against.
Stalin made sure he had the workforce, namely people that were tagged as the enemies of the system, country, its people (pick your favourite) and put into so called gulags. Treated as animals, without food, conditions to live in, at approximately 40 degrees minus, well, a treat truly. Plus, these were working troops, they built several tunnels for the russians, catered the wood, chopped down forests, made railroads.. a free workforce, you might think of them this way. Most of them were taken because a plain thing they did (and it caused their conspiracy to the mother Russia), even though in some cases it was a plain example of a person taking a photo, or someone just looking at an institution. Before put into those starvation cabins, they were tortured (or their families) until they "admitted" they caused some crimes.
In any case, a truly sad and honest story about gulags, in the first third of the movie. To be honest, the movie isn't about gulags at all. It is about surviving. Some men jump out of their fence and escape. Their enemy, as their watchers so vividly express in the beginning, isn't the dogs or the guardians, it is the nature. Surviving in these conditions, having 1000 km of plain forest and snow in front of them, this is the challenge they are facing. And it's not a light challenge. In my opinion, the movie doesn't really show the way how they survived. I doubt I would be able to survive one single night without freezing to death. Therefore I was interested in what the director might show me. And was dissappointed, because they just skipped the part. The same thing happens at the end. Skipping the long walk through Himalayas. What did Weird think when skipping this part? It would add some content to the whole and it would add credibility. Luckily they didn't touch the long walk through Mongolia, which is as hard as the walk through Sibiria. There they made me a believer again.

The main topic in my opinion touches the frames of one's will to survive. If you want something badly enough, you will get to that point, in this sense, India and reunion with the wife you left behind. There will be casualties, but we are looking at the main character, brilliantly played, who took this long journey. I admire the cast of Mr. Smith (the American)- Ed Harris, that comes all the way to Tibet and stays there. Beautiful. Plus, the connection he makes with the woman, astounding.

There is no way many people could have survived, barefoot in the sand and snow. The power of will is magnificent. And this piece shows it directly, in the bloodstream. It will make you admire the will to live and the will to survive.


My personal rate: 8,0 (remarkable piece on how to live because you really really want to).


The way back on IMDB

Crazy Heart, 2009

Crazy Heart, 2009
Director: Scott Cooper
Cast: Jeff Bridges, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Colin Farrel


Stage: Home theatre

Crazy heart in short:Bad Blake is a broken-down, hard-living country music singer who's had way too many marriages, far too many years on the road and one too many drinks way too many times. And yet, Bad can't help but reach for salvation with the help of Jean, a journalist who discovers the real man behind the musician.


Preps: Another one waiting in the line of those on my disc. Eventually they all come to their turn :)


Reality: Ohhhhhh. So bad it hurts my eyes. I cannot stare at this loser on the screen, representing an old musician, trying to make a dime while drinking for the last dollars he has. Are they for real? What did the director think? The viewer is thrown in a hell he cannot escape from. Do I want to see this drunkard? He's not giving me wisdom, nor simpathy, nor am I feeling empathy, argh. I am wondering, whether the movie is heading anywhere, but I am out of luck, I guess. After a fallen show he's doing for approximately ten people in the bowling arena in some local atmosphere, I give up. The music is something I can't hear. The dialogues are so drunk and stupid. The feeling is shitty. I disrespect the feeling I am getting on a fine Saturday evening. Therefore the end is near and inevitable. I erase the damn thing.
If you have something better to do, do it. Nevermind the fact that we have a Colin Farrel and Jeff Bridges placed inside. They act like puppets. Which you don't want to see ever again. And it should be banned and never distributed, this piece. I am sure that the aim is realistic. The fallout of the stars is inevitable and in most cases so nasty it hurts throughout your veins. But this perticular piece leaves me empty and cold. So I dare to seize into this feeling and delete it.


My personal rate: 0,0 (I erased it after half an hour. Don't waste your time!!)


Crazy Heart on IMDB

Triage, 2009

Triage, 2009
Director:Danis Tanović
Cast:Colin Farrell, Jamie Sivez, Branko Đurić



Triage in short: The wife of a photojournalist sets out to discover why he came home from a recent assignment without his colleague.

Stage: Home theatre


Preps: I do have a thing about psychological effect of wars. If I say in few other blog posts I don't like war movies, by that I mean I don't like to watch 1,5 hours of someone cleaning his rifle, or just wandering around clueless, and also the scenes of constant battle. However, I do admire the pieces, put together on the effect that war has on people. Either locals or the armed men that fight /or in this case, take photos. I am aware that this is one of the coolest things right now, happening at the cinema. I do take the chance and watch it at home.

Reality: This is one of better movies I have seen lately on this topic. I am relieved that the scenery is in Kurdistan, I was sure that Branko Đurić will make another thing in Bosnia and Herzegovina. I am sure we have seen so many crimes there and so much pain that we are somehow spiritually distant from this, maybe because we don't want to see so much pain in the neighbourhood with the fact that we cannot do anything about it (or couldn't in that time).

Nevertheless, the scenes from Kurdistan will rock your boat. Pure, uncensored pain driving through the veins, and all this time I am wondering, whether it's possible you have a war zone and right in the middle, two reporters, just taking photos (and not getting killed for that matter!!). Well, we've seen this in many hollywood attempts, but in my opinion, they stay only in the battlefield. The difference that this one makes compared to others, is in trauma that Mark brings home when he returns, without his friend. Slowly, the psychological personal drama reveals and hurts not only his soul consciously, but also all that he loves around him. The way he copes with this is simply breathtaking, Farrel is brilliant in his role, and on the other hand, everything is not put into viewer's lap at first. What happened to his friend.. well, we find out in the last lap of the movie. And it's the reality this reporter has to face to the rest of his life.

There are several important things the psychiatrist/his wife's grandfather Morales reveals to Mark, I remembered the speech he gave him on the dead and what happens to them:.

Why are you so concerned about what happens to the dead?

Mark reveals some of the "adventures" or shall I call them scenes, he had with his friend on the field, or alone, and they are so cruel and vivid it will rock your peaceful boat very hard. The scene with the skeletons, or the one where a young boy is shot before his eyes.. The scene with his friend David is left almost by the end of the movie, as it is the toughest. Just imagining that one could be going through all that is.. somehow not acceptable and really hard. What must be like to really live this.. I can just imagine.


My personal rate: 8,0 (a truly good piece on the trauma you bring sometimes with you and the way you can or cannot deal with it)

Triage on IMDB