TELLURIDE — Peter Weir is rightly regarded as one of the world’s master filmmakers, but he has not made a movie since 2003′s “Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World,” which surely reflects the growing challenges for directors who choose to follow an uncompromising artistic path in today’s constricted cinematic universe. “The Way Back,” which had its world premiere at the Telluride Film Festival, is a harrowing epic that will not be an easy sell, but it finds Weir again working at the top of his game.

As a technical achievement, the film — which ranges from the gulags of Siberia to the Gobi Desert — is astonishing, but it also showcases powerful themes that make it unexpectedly moving and resonant.

The script by Weir and Keith Clarke (also the producer who helped to shepherd the project through a decade of development) is inspired by true stories of a few people who escaped from Stalinist labor camps. But Weir emphasizes that the characters in the film are fictional.

The Polish protagonist, Janusz (Jim Sturgess), is introduced in the opening scene in 1940, when he is interrogated by a Soviet officer who accuses him of espionage. Janusz refuses to confess to the false charges, but when his wife is tortured and informs against him, Janusz is shipped off to the gulag. There he encounters a number of other disaffected prisoners, including an American engineer (Ed Harris), who came to Russia during the 1930s, and a hardened criminal (Colin Farrell), all bent on escape.

The security system at the gulag is not overwhelmingly efficient because, as the commandant informs the new arrivals, the biggest deterrent to escape is the unyielding natural environment that surrounds the prison.

The least effective parts of the movie are the early scenes in the prison camp, partly because these grim scenes are reminiscent of many other movies, and also because it takes time to distinguish the important characters, many of them played by unknown Russian or Polish actors. After the first half-hour, however, when Janusz leads a group of seven prisoners into the freezing Siberian forest, the film begins to build in intensity. You know that not all of the prisoners will reach their destination, but the fates of the individual characters are always surprising and poignant. Along the way they also meet a teenage orphan girl (beautifully played by “The Lovely Bones” star Saoirse Ronan), whom they reluctantly allow to join their trek.

Working with one of his favorite cinematographers, Russell Boyd, Weir captures the startlingly varied landscapes that mark their long journey. Among the highlights are the stunning desert scenes (actually filmed in Morocco). Weir and Boyd have clearly taken a look at “Lawrence of Arabia,” but to say that their images bear comparison with that masterpiece is high praise indeed. A sequence in which the characters pursue a mirage that might or might not lead them to water will be remembered alongside the first appearance of Omar Sharif in “Lawrence.” A fierce sandstorm that follows is equally memorable.

Beyond its visual splendors, however, the film achieves searing moral power. The most profound question it raises is whether a good man can play a meaningful role during a time of widespread evil. In the prison camp, Harris recognizes that Janusz might be an asset during their journey because he senses that Janusz’s “kindness” could aid their survival. Janusz is determined to make it home not because he wants to save his own skin, but because he wants to forgive his wife for the betrayal that he knows was forced on her. Janusz’s nobility is not oversold, but it helps to sustain all of the prisoners during their savage journey, and it provides an anchor for the audience as well.

The film’s stirring concept depends on the performance of Sturgess, who really has the starring role and subtly conveys the soul of a decent man. Harris also gives a superb performance as a bitter man who reclaims his own humanity during the long march. Farrell bravely highlights the loutish ignorance of a hardened thug whose stubborn loyalty to Comrade Stalin is one of his most surprising traits.

All of the production credits are first-rate. One might question a coda that teeters on the edge of sentimentality. This film has its flaws, but it still stands as a major achievement by one of the great directors of our time.

Venue: Telluride Film Festival (Newmarket)
Cast: Jim Sturgess, Ed Harris, Colin Farrell, Saoirse Ronan, Mark Strong
Director: Peter Weir
Screenwriters: Peter Weir, Keith Clarke
Based on the book by: Slavomir Rawicz
Producers: Joni Levin, Peter Weir, Duncan Henderson, Nigel Sinclair
Executive producers: Keith Clarke, John Ptak, Guy East, Simon Oakes, Tobin Armbrust, Jake Eberts, Edward Borgerding, Mohamed Khalaf, Adam Leipzig, Scott Rudin, Jonathan Schwartz
Director of photography: Russell Boyd
Production designer: John Stoddart
Music: Burkhard Dallwitz
Costume designer: Wendy Stites
Editor: Lee Smith
No rating, 130 minutes

The Dublin drama school that spawned Hollywood hunk Colin Farrell is “bucking the trend” 25 years on.

The Gaiety School of Acting is proving as popular as ever with would-be actors, hoping to follow in the footsteps of Tudors star Jonathan Rhys Meyers, whose training amounted to just two afternoons at the popular establishment.

Director Patrick Sutton, told the Herald that the prestigious centre was still going strong despite the economic climate, on the occasion of the school’s silver anniversary.

“We’ve had a very successful summer, you wouldn’t expect as many people to sign up at this time but we’re bucking the trend.

Human

“We’re had to turn a lot of adults down over the past months, and we’re now offering places for courses starting on September 18,” he said.

Mr Sutton explained that both the ‘acting for camera’ and the basic acting class for adults were constantly oversubscribed as students came back to upskill. “I’ve been the school’s director for the last 15 years and it’s been great,” he added.

“I think our greatest achievement is the fact that children, young people and adults are coming every single year to express their creativity and share it with us. Our country would be dead without this type of imagination and enthusiasm.

“It’s extraordinary to look into the eyes of young performers, they have so much life and energy, they just want to play and that’s what we’re about.”

“We’re all about setting fire to the imagination,” he added laughingly as a “human candle” was lit on top of a gigantic birthday cake to mark the Temple Bar school’s achievements and quarter of a century this week.

Mr Sutton, who took part in the stunt, saw his hand go up in flames as two men holding extinguishers looked on, standing on either side of a cake made of wood and frosting. The stunt was co-ordinated by one of the school’s teachers, Tudors and Camelot international fight director, Paul Burke.

Bug

Mr Burke, who acted as the stunt double of English comedian Lee Evans on Freeze Frame, told the Herald that Irish talent “as good as anything” he’d seen abroad.

“Ireland’s a great location for production companies, there so much talent here and good tax breaks which attracts the industry — hopefully this will carry on,” he added.

Fair City actress Lisa Harding, who plays Connie Doyle, is a former student of the school who now teaches creative writing at the establishment.

“I have huge fondness for the school and great memories,” she told the Herald. “I think now that I am as much a writer as an actress. I have to thank Patrick at The Gaiety for introducing me to the writing bug, he made me realise I could do it!”

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You can tell we’re on the verge of Oscar season as films such as All Good Things and Biutiful have recently landed distribution deals and now an update on Peter Weir’s The Way Back arrives courtesy of producer Joni Levin’s Facebook page (via The Playlist).

Levin writes, “Just wanted to let everyone know that I produced a movie last year that my husband, Keith co-wrote with our director Peter Weir (Master and Commander, Dead Poets Society, Witness, Year of Living Dangerously). it’s called The Way Back…stars Ed Harris, Colin Farrell, Jim Sturgess and Saoirse Ronan….comes out for a week in December, wide release Jan 21st 2011.”

This is obviously big news considering up to this point all that was known was Exclusive Film Distribution had taken over distribution rights, but as to how they would handle that distribution was unknown. A one week release in December obviously signals an Oscar run and considering this is a Peter Weir flick with a certain level of talent involved you better believe it’s not being overlooked.

The Way Back is a fact-based story of the escape of soldiers from a Siberian gulag in 1940. It is based on several sources, most notably the Slavomir Rawicz book “The Long Walk: The True Story of a Trek to Freedom.” The book is Rawicz’s account of being captured by the Red Army in 1939 and his journey to freedom with six other inmates. When they escape a Siberian labor camp in 1940 the seven multi-national prisoners discover the true meaning of friendship as their epic journey takes them across thousands of miles of hostile terrain including the Siberian arctic, the Gobi desert and the Himalayas, finally settling in Tibet and India.
[...]
So be on the lookout for The Way Back in December if you, most likely, live in New York or Los Angeles and if not, then January may be the time to find it at your local art house.

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“Just wanted to let everyone know that I produced a movie last year that my husband, Keith co-wrote with our director Peter Weir (Master and Commander, Dead Poets Society, Witness, Year of Living Dangerously). it’s called The Way Back…stars Ed Harris, Colin Farrell, Jim Sturgess and Saoirse Ronan….comes out for a week in December, wide release Jan 21st 2011.”

synopsis :
Each person flew to a unique location in the world with a hand-held mini-DV camera. The crews filmed what they saw around them, as they prepared for the big moment – when everyone would turn on their cameras for three minutes. On January 11, 2005 at 12 noon Greenwich Mean Time, those cameras rolled in 27 locations – including USA (Wisconsin, NY, Nevada, Louisiana, South Dakota and California), Chad, Niger, Kosovo, Italy, Chad, China, Jordan, Lebanon, Mexico, Iceland, Antarctica and elsewhere.

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[...]His next film may not have much to delight the horror devotee. A Dangerous Method, based on Christopher Hampton’s play The Talking Cure, is about the relationship between Sigmund Freud (Viggo Mortensen) and Carl Jung (Michael Fassbender) and the woman (Keira Knightley) they both treat.

After that, presuming funding stays stable — Cronenberg laments “a sea change in the film industry” with the demise of several independent backers like Miramax and Fox Atomic — he will be back in Toronto next year to start filming Cosmopolis, starring Colin Farrell and Marion Cotillard, and based on the Don DeLillo novel. [...]
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