"It is better to die on your feet than live on your knees"

Rating: 5/10 (5 November 2013)

Every nation tells stories with its emotional tone. Americans love happy endings, Russian mentality makes us think about the gloomy "eternal", British stories are dry and melancholic. In this movie we see Polish history. The most vivid expressions of "Polish history" can be found at the Henryk Sienkiewicz's stories. Their striking contrast - the complete lack of causal/effect relationships and the construction of stories in the format of "chain of miraculous events". It is very important that this is not a chain of circumstances, exactly the chain of miracles. A kind of Polish religiosity does not give them opportunity to tell stories without the full intervention of God. "The Way Home" - a typical Polish work. There is no reason, there are only evil and satanic effects. Endless gratuitous evil consequences. Someone was arrested for being a good actor, another - for photographing the Kremlin. Movie with the maximum gain of hysterical expressionism. This even has some logic... But further becomes more frightening. The camp somewhere in Yakutia is full of Poles. No Russians there. Only criminals. In addition there are also the Poles, Lithuanians, and even an American of Finnish descent. All this confusion should not be confusing. Further - better. They walk on foot very, very far away. Here we can indulge in a long discussion on the subject of how long they walked, with no falls, how they didn't inadvertently turn to Kazakhstan, how they passed 4 borders. These little things are not important in this history... I repeat - a chain of divine miracles. On the way, in the taiga (Russian forest ;), Polish expedition meets (a miracle!) Polish girl who followed them a couple of days. From where she was walking and with what point - Polish viewers should not worry. And the further plot is in the same format. Dying from cold wind and hunger, without stealing food (they believe it is wrong and immoral), suffer moral questions, etc. There is no sense to destroy this movie. It is itself pathetic as idle charge. Film joked at itself, making the leading and the most interesting character Valka-Farrell, the Russian criminal, who, by an order livelier, becomes more believable and risky of all these stereotyped characters, for whom the greatest cynicism - is not to give his bread and dying itself to survive. How much idiocy in this movie because of religious fanaticism...
The plot of this film. Briefly. A handful of foreign political prisoners, grinded by millstones of the GULAG, because "Stalin hates foreigners," diluted by one Soviet felon, escapes from pokey. Escaped easily and naturally, under the noses of guards, through meter gap in the barbed wire (probably because there was not enough wood for the camp's (located in the deep wood) fence). Anyway, the writers just did not have time to work on this piece of the script, they were too busy with the anti-Soviet propaganda. However, everyone already has habit for such films, and I wasn't ready for political subtext, so been waiting for the development of the main plot. But the story was not there. At all.
A bunch of motley prisoners of different nationalities, communicating in some way in one language goes, goes and goes to the South... Simple as it is, and all want to eat... Sometimes, they want to drink. No plot, no disputes and disagreements or even no live or "animal" communication (in such conditions and with such contingent!). The problem can't be solved even by a Russian prisoner Valentin (played brilliantly by Colin Farrell, BTW), at the same time being the most appropriate, sober, vibrant, cynical and most paradoxical, the most honest person of all this company. In a short, a film about the tourists who ran out of sausages. Apparently realizing the absurdity and boredom of such a scenario, the authors in a quickly way made a small correction (to create suspense and sentimental tears), consisting in a new fugitive - girl Irene, Polish orphan, whose appearance in the middle of the movie was just as absurd as the film itself. So, going together, they moved and moved on.
But where they were going - is a special dialog...Bad mark for your geography, gentlemen authors! Walking to the South along the shore of Lake Baikal, which extends to the South-West! Then, stubbornly continuing to go to the South, suddenly turn up in Gobi Desert, located far to the east (logically they should have hit the western parts of Mongolia, where rolling hills, numerous lakes, and at least one major river). How the characters could die of thirst all the way long on the open spaces of the Mongolian, immediately after crossing the border, despite the fact that the whole northern part of the country (in the west, and in the east) is covered by numerous rivers?.. It's amazing that our characters are dying from the heat both at day and night, the authors apparently don't know how cold it gets in Mongolia at night. What's next? And then, after passing the Gobi Desert, and continuing to go to the South (even turning once to the east direction), lucky fugitives are in the West, in Tibet! In Lhasa. Did they then cross the Himalayas and they stomping to the south, remained unknown, but I would not be surprised and about this. It is also strange that all this motley crowd, educated, well-rounded cultured and with inconceivable outlook, was not aware of the fact that Mongolia, for more than 15 years (from the 1924th) is ruled by communists. But about Japanese-Chinese War, which began in the 37th, they know. Awesome ... I give 0 points for a ridiculous movie, and 5 for Valka. Let him be the most negative character, but at the same time, the most adequate.