Intentionally Frustrating Film

Rating: 9/10 (28 March 2018)

If you're looking for a film that makes you feel as if you're suffering along with the protagonists, you have come to the right place. The frustration I felt while watching this film is a testament to the wonderful job of the filmmakers and actors to make the plight of the characters palpable. In my opinion, what is the point of making a film about the very boundaries of human suffering if you do not make the audience feel as if they are suffering along with the main characters? Here, my feeling of frustration began in the Soviet Gulag, which is decently depicted in this film. The audience gets a real sense of the crowding, lice and power structures that were an ever-present part of every concentration camp. I was personally impressed at the addition of Valka's character and the representation of the role that "career criminals" played in the camps as the most powerful men in every barrack, namely because of their ability to incite fear and thus get what they want. It was also nice to see the point raised that some detainees in the camp still supported communism. It is important to see this depicted in the film since it is historically accurate that even though these people were imprisoned by the government, they were still loyal to communism and what it stood for. Consequently, in terms of the films accuracy, I was very impressed for a film about the gulags, which are a highly underrepresented subject in Hollywood. If I could change anything I would have added more casualties to the gulag than were shown in the film. It almost makes the conditions of the camp and the brutality of the environment not look as harsh without the almost constant death that would have defined actual life in the gulags.
The feeling of frustration continued as the group escaped and eventually made their way into the desert on the way to India. I kept feeling as if I wanted the scenes in the desert to end so that I would no longer feel the irritation that rose in me as I just watched them walk over miles and miles of desert. I realized later that this was a choice that the directors of the movie consciously made in an attempt to convey to the audience the real frustration and desperation of the characters. Though there is debate about whether or not this walk to freedom did occur, there is no denying that the walk made you feel the pure despair and hopelessness of the protagonists who would go to such lengths to avoid concentration camps. In this sense, I would recommend this film to anyone who is looking for a film about Soviet Gulags. Not only does it provide a painfully real representation of camp life, it conveys the shear desperation that led several men to take on this type of journey. What does it say about the camps that these men would be willing to walk across a continent to escape?