WAY BACK [Blu-ray]

This was a great film overall. Cast, Plot (Based on Actual Historical Events), acting, writing, etc. I had never heard of this film (from 2011) prior to finding it recently in Amazon Prime Movies section. Enjoy!

Great movie, love the true story

To add clarity to this great movie you need to watch You Tube's "Outdoor Disasters" recreation of this incredible odyssey. That will give you a more accurate view of the trek these prisoners of Communism endured.

The formation of this band of escapees into a 'family' is wonderful to see.

I read the book The Long Walk" 42 years ago while working at Prudhoe Bay, Alaska on the pipeline which this movie is based on. Then, the adventure and survival of this group of people shocked me. Siberia is just across the Being Sea. Climate and weather conditions are the same as where I was living and working.The journey of these men and girl has stayed with me all of the years. I borrowed the book from another person in the camp at Prudhoe Bay in 1978, let someone else borrow it who didn't return it. Trying to replace the book, it was out of print for 20+ years. Somewhere in the early 2000's I found it as a reprint. It took some time to track down the owner of the book who still lived in Alaska but 20 or so years later. I bought 3 books: one for the owner, one for my son who was an adventurer and one for myself. The story of this motley crew of survivors is a testament to our courage and ability to move through the most horrific of situations. I am going to send my son-in-law who was raised in Europe but now lives in Alaska this book as I. think it speaks to Alaskans and to where we live on the edge of civilization.The movie does total justice to their courage and endurance. I happened upon the movie by accident. Thank you Peter Weir for making this into a movie.

Definitely doesn't soften the hardships these men endured in the brutal Stalags of Stalin; so horrific they were willing to risk their very lives in escaping this sadistic prison (as bad as Nazi Germany). What's the deal with the Russians and Germans being so barbaric?? And we're not talking about Medieval times, either..The run for freedom which doesn't come for a looooooong time on their walk from the Siberian camp all the way to Tibet & beyond. The harshness they endured as they pushed on, the ones in their number they buried, and their interactions with each other keep you watching.The spirit of being free shines through once again.Communism, socialism, fascism just doesn't allow for that in any shape or form; those who think that any such philosophy and system of governance is a utopia if only "they" institute it are so ignorant of history. NO WHERE any of these have been "tried" worked out well even for the ones at the top (bc eventually they met their downfall). Wake Up, America! The slide into socialism is here :(

I cannot imagine going through this myself but if you want to reach freedom, you will do your utmost to get there. When you go through something like this, you know that you can do and endure anything that could come your way in life after that.Well worth the viewing. I felt exhausted after watching the film. I doubt I would have been one of the final four. Well directed and the actors did a great job with their characters.

I saw this movie when it was new and loved it. I recently heard there was an interesting episode in the mountains that was left out of the movie, so I read the book. After my reading I have to say that the movie is not simply a compressed version of the book, but almost a different story. Watch the movie first, then read the book, because if you read the book first then watch the movie, you will be very disappointed.

Als Geschenk bestellt. Kamm am 20.12..aber nicht schlimm, habe sogar nach Weihnachten erwartet. Top Preis, Versank ganz o.k. Vielen Dank. Schöne Feiertage.

Tratto da una storia vera. Sette prigionieri scappano da un gulag sovietico durante una tempesta di neve. Sono liberi ma con l'incubo di venire riacciuffati da un momento all'altro, devono far perdere le loro tracce. Ma il destino riserverà loro mille altre difficoltà. In viaggio a piedi per migliaia di chilometri, attraversando la ferrovia transiberiana e il deserto del Gobi, patendo fame, freddo, caldo e sete, fino ad arrivare in India nel 1942. Ma come si fa a criticare questo film per mancanza di azione? Certo c'è all'inizio durante la fuga, ma poi non è che durante il film manchi la suspense, vedendo la fragilità di questi uomini in balìa di una natura spietata, senza equipaggiamento a disposizione e sempre in condizioni al limite della sopravvivenza. Chi vuole vedere avventure alla Rambo deve guardare Rambo. Qui le cose sono ben diverse, più reali e anche più angoscianti. Comunque un film molto bello, ben interpretato da tutti gli attori e con scenografie mozzafiato. Buono il BD. Consigliatissimo.

One problem with odysseys is that they completely dominate the narrative. The journey is the story. All else is subservient to it. Naturally, this cannot be helped because the odyssey itself — dramatic and powerful — is what matters most. Therefore it becomes the main character, with the human characters in it, or along it, reduced to the size of ants or termites.That situation is quite evident in this superb film, essentially a true story of an escape from a Russian gulag in 1942 and of the astounding, superhuman trek that led the escaped prisoners from Siberia to Mongolia, Tibet, the high Himalaya and into India, a journey on foot of over 4,000 miles that took them (or some of them) two years. Not all of them made it but a handful did, proof that the human will to endure can survive almost anything.I once trekked with a single Sherpa guide in the desolate Lahaul and Spiti region of northeast India along the border with Tibet. We began at 3,000 meters in a small village north of Udaipur in the Chenab Valley. We walked for 10 days, crossing a subsidiary range of the high Indian Himalaya at Sach Pass (5,300 meters). Permanent snow at that elevation, even in August when we did the trek. By the time we began our descent into the lush green Tisa Valley to the southwest I was barely able to make it to the town of Chambra. In fact I remember cheating and hitching a lift for us the last few miles. Thereafter I stayed in bed for two days with swollen feet and blisters, having walked about 120 miles. I was only in my 30s then and thought I was fit. But even in the town of Dalhousie a day later I was hobbling as if I needed crutches to walk. I would not have made it even a quarter of the way to Lake Baikal from the gulag before dropping dead, so in a very tiny way I can appreciate what these remarkable human beings achieve in their story.The landscapes and vistas are astounding, utterly sublime. Man has not yet destroyed the environment on which his existence depends, though as a super predator at the top of the food chain there is nothing above him to slow down his apparent appetite for destruction. This strange destructive quality seems innate in him, part of his nature, so it's likely it will take a radical makeover, a revolution in thought and action, for his hominid line to survive. In the meantime there are still some places of precious and desolate beauty, true stretches of wilderness, that many have not passed through. So, we are lucky to be able to journey with the survivors. The camera carries us along with a cinematography both grand and epic, not to mention beautiful. It's lovely to see the sky this blue, the air so pure, the greenery of the earth so magnificent. Of course we are allowed to enjoy such comforting luxury, whereas the refugees are not. Under the circumstances there was little energy in them to appreciate the aesthetics of the journey. They were trying to live and also gain their freedom by doing so.If epics on the big screen stir your blood, have it stirred by watching this one. Not since the days of Lawrence of Arabia can I recall a story being told on such a large scale as this. The scenes of Mongolia and the Gobi, incidentally, were filmed in Morocco, as Peter Weir, the film's director, felt the film-support infrastructure in Mongolia was inadequate. But the images of Siberia, Lake Baikal, Tibet, the Himalaya and northern India are authentic. Additional footage was filmed in a remote and mountainous region of Bulgaria. I had no idea that country is so beautiful.The 1 and 2-star detractors of the film say it fails because it does not match the character development found in the book (apparently). But what I've tried to say above is that landscapes, vistas, and wilderness are characters. The ants who crawl through these epic places will be reduced because they are tiny. It seems to me the film is honest in emphasizing this, by not engaging us in a lot of small sub-plots about the lives of the characters. These characters simply represent Everyman, you and myself included. That is our scale — miniscule, insects on the surface of the earth. Yes, there's joy in the end, as there should be, in seeing some of the characters survive, but the film is not only about that. I'm sure there are several subtle readings that can be made of it. My own, as above, is environmental. This film indirectly shows me what we stand to lose if we do not grow up as a species, become adult and responsible in our attitude to nature and stop behaving like reckless teenagers as we guzzle beer in the driver's seat and smash the car into a tree.

1939. A l'ouest les nazis envahissent la Pologne, à l'est les troupes de Staline font de même. Staline et ses "camarades" n'étant pas réputés pour leur bonté, les hommes pris par le régime finissent dans les goulags en Sibérie. Là-bas ou tu survies ou tu meurs. Sept prisonniers sans attaches entre eux décident de s'évader loin de cet enfer. L'aventure commence. Ces hommes courageux vont devoir faire face à la Sibérie, avec ses magnifiques paysages, le froid glacial, les tempêtes de neige, les loups; la Mongolie, leur point de chute initial, d'où ils s'apercevront que Staline est omni présent et qu'ils ne peuvent donc s'y installer; le désert de Gobi et sa terre sèche et aride, sous un soleil de plomb, où certains n'y survivront pas; La grande muraille de Chine; le Tibet et la chaine de l'Himalaya; pour finir en Inde. Les rescapés d'un tel périple auront découvert beaucoup de choses sur eux-mêmes, les secrets ont fait surface libérant ces hommes du poids de la culpabilité. Le courage dont ils font preuve est exemplaire. On souffre avec eux, certains s'arrêtent en chemin, d'autres meurent, mais on ne peut que saluer cette détermination.Inspiré de faits réels, ce scénario est sans défaut, si ce n'est celui, complétement inutile, du rôle de Saoirse Ronan. Les paysages sont magnifiques, les acteurs sont très bons, vraiment de quoi passer un excellent moment à voyager dans son fauteuil et s'en mettre plein la vue.

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