Talk:The Way Back (2010 film)

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Please add to this list references that can be used in this article.

• Brown, Rachael (interviewer) (February 18, 2011). "One Plus One interview with Peter Weir". One Plus One. Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

According to the article about Slavomir Rawicz the story is not true. Litawor (talk) 18:29, 1 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

From what I can tell, even though Slavomir did not participate in the escape, the story itself is true. The "Cast" section does not seem to identify any actor as Slavomir Rawicz. Erik (talk | contribs) 18:42, 1 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I guess it is a true story in the sense that the Soviet GULAG camps existed, prisoners of various nationalities were kept in them, some of them tried to escape and some of the escapes have been quite daring. Nevertheless, the story in the movie cannot be linked even loosely to any specific escapees (Rawicz was a prisoner in the GULAG but his escape story is pure fiction), so saying it is "based on a true story" is going too far.

There are speculations (example) that Rawicz may have been writing about a true experience of another Polish soldier that he knew about. Those claims are fairly extraordinary and they would require solid proof to be accepted. Sourcelat0r (talk) 05:36, 25 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The recent edit of the Background section by Felsztyn needs improvement. Felsztyn makes several undocumented claims (e.g., "Regardless of whether this particular long walk really took place, there are numerous examples of the most incredible journeys made by the Poles attempting to leave the Soviet Union during World War Two. Many accounts can be found in the archives of the Polish Institute and Sikorski Museum in London, England and of the Hoover Institute at Stanford University in California."). A statement such as that definitely requires specific footnotes and references. Also the additional paragraphs are unnecessarily polemical in tone. The same points could and should be made in a more neutral, less emotional way. Please consider statements such as "As for Rawicz's betrayal, it was common for people to denounce strangers, acquaintances, friends or even loved ones. Once the NKVD (known today as the KGB) decided you were to be an informant, you had to produce. Failure to do so could result in your own arrest. Good examples of the Soviet mentality can be found in Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's Gulag Archipelago." While no doubt the NKVD did many awful things, is this statement really appropriate for this article?--Wsjacobs (talk) 05:00, 4 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I've basically just about entirely rewritten the plot. It could do with tidying up if anyone's up to the job. I'd suggest other notable events to include would be:

• Mr Smith walking into the forest near the start of the film to save the prisoners from freezing, and being put in the mine for his troubles
• This insubordination leading to mine detail and his subsequent desire to escape as otherwise he will die in the mine
• The importance of Valka's knife
• Who carried Irena before she died?
• The encounter with the Mongolian(?)horsemen who ask if they are pilgrims, and the boy giving them water
• Voss's confession of murder
• The quote about "a big black chicken with no legs" :-)

Brainfood (talk) 20:47, 4 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, sorry, when I had written the synopsis, I had only just seen the film, thanks for correcting it :)

I read THE LONG WALK some years ago. I was very impressed with the story. But I had questions. Did they really see Yetis in the Himalayas? Why isn't this story better known. It is such an epic story of survival and escape from Stalin's USSR, a country that was really just a giant prison camp with lots of prisons inside. Why have none of the others, like Mr. Smith, come forward and told their story? (RMS - 1/25/2011)

I read the book at the time, fifty-odd years ago, and to me it read like fiction, and I said so. Five years later it was admitted to be fiction. 88.17.177.140 (talk) 16:58, 6 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

There was at least one other book published during the 1950s about an alleged escape from a Gulag by a German POW after WW2 had ended. The book was the basis for a miniseries shortly after and a film many decades later, despite historical consensus being that it was a made up story. With Cold War tensions high and little information coming out of the Soviet Union during this time, stories such as these fascinated readers in the West, who often took them at face value. 2A0A:EF40:36C:1101:8E6:178F:14D6:EBD4 (talk) 23:01, 31 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

"which holds plants and a rock he attempts to reach for. " Rock? Looks very clearly a piece of typical Russian black bread to me. And he sees it because he is extremely hungry. Where does the info of rocks come from? 193.208.80.186 (talk) 04:27, 14 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Why would a piece of 'Russian black bread' be left outside a front door? Besides, the protagonist is not Russian, he's Polish. If he's imagining his home, it would be in Poland. 2A0A:EF40:36C:1101:8E6:178F:14D6:EBD4 (talk) 22:53, 31 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

BBC article by Hugh Levinson which describes a meeting with Witold Glinski: How The Long Walk became The Way Back, 4 December 2010. The escapees from Siberia who made it to Calcutta, who were discussed in the 2006 Levinson article, Walking the talk?, are mentioned.     ←   ZScarpia   14:16, 6 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I erased the sentence: "Given these events, for almost all Poles, the painful experience of Soviet brutality has left a residue of anger and hostility enduring to this day." That statement does not resemble Polish reality in 2011 at all. Plaargath (talk) 03:22, 21 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

did they really go to Ulan Bator? I never saw any buildings when they were in Mongolia. 71.194.44.209 (talk) 04:21, 29 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

A very similar story is told in: As Far as My Feet Will Carry Me (German: So weit die Füße tragen) is a 2001 film about German World War II prisoner of war Clemens Forell's escape from a Siberian Gulag in the Soviet Union back to Germany. It is based on the book of the same name written by Bavarian novellist Josef Martin Bauer. The book is in turn based on the story of Cornelius Rost who used the alias "Clemens Forell" to avoid retribution from the KGB. - --89.204.153.67 (talk) 21:31, 27 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I have removed the paragraph beginning "Regardless of whether or not this particular "long walk" really took place, during World War II other Poles undertook difficult journeys attempting to leave the Soviet Union..." This isn't relevant to the specific discussion of the making of the film. The topic in question as far as the film is concerned is not whether "other Poles undertook difficult journeys" but whether the specific account on which the film was based was fiction or not. 850 C (talk) 17:43, 8 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]