Why the Changes?

Rating: 7/10 (22 April 2012)

When Peter Weir directs and Ed Harris is in the cast, it's a foregone conclusion the result will be pretty good. Also, we all know that changes have to be made when adapting a book to the screen. Complex events have to be simplified, minor characters and events have to be dropped, and so on. But when the changes make the film LESS compelling than the book, that's a riddle. In the book, Janusz' wife isn't tortured. Instead he's drugged into signing the confession. The month long death march to the camp site is completely missing. The deal with the commandant's wife to time the escape until her husband is away isn't in the film. In the book, nobody dies of frostbite in Siberia, and nobody turns back. Two men and the young woman die crossing the Gobi Desert, and a fourth dies within sight of India when a snow cornice gives way. Smith (Ed Harris) did not bring his son to Russia with him. I find it really hard to believe nobody in the group knew Mongolia was Communist - in the book India is the goal from the outset because that's the only place the prisoners know will be safe. All four survivors make it to India - Janusz does not take off on his own. In fact he spends a month in the hospital. This is still a very good film but I don't see how the changes improved in the least on the book. Also, while I'm perfectly aware the authenticity of the narrative has been questioned, I give literary debunkers next to zero credence. Literature as a field of study is a moribund, completely exhausted field and the only thing left for "researchers" is tearing down others' work.