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The Way Back (2010)

178 statements
34 feature instances
11 referencing feature instances

The Way Back (2010)	type	TVTItem
The Way Back (2010)	label	The Way Back (2010)
The Way Back (2010)	page	TheWayBack2010
The Way Back (2010)	comment	A film by Peter Weir, released in the last week of 2010, starring Jim Sturgess, Colin Farrell, Ed Harris and Saoirse Ronan.In 1941, seven escapees from a Soviet gulag try to make their way to freedom from Siberia to Mongolia. Along the way, they pick up an orphan runaway, but as soon as they reach Mongolia, they realize that it is Communist as well: they are not safer there than in Russia, and they have to keep going south. This involves crossing the Gobi desert, a part of China and Tibet (which were separate at that time), go through the Himalayas, to make it to safety in India.Not to be confused with 2020's The Way Back.
The Way Back (2010)	fetched	2024-03-16T21:45:51Z
The Way Back (2010)	parsed	2024-03-16T21:45:52Z
The Way Back (2010)	isPartOf	DBTropes
The Way Back (2010) / int_1439161f	type	Heroic BSoD
The Way Back (2010) / int_1439161f	comment	Heroic BSoD: Smith has this after Tomasz dies.
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The Way Back (2010) / int_14ed6ab7	type	Does This Remind You of Anything?
The Way Back (2010) / int_14ed6ab7	comment	Does This Remind You of Anything?: Before they start to cross the Gobi, Janusz makes Irena a hat to keep the sun off her head: a circle of twigs to hold down a piece of cloth over her hair. Irena says it looks like a bird's nest, but it really resembles Christ's crown of thorns. Fitting, considering she's the group's only real innocent, and she dies.
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The Way Back (2010) / int_188668f2	type	Redemption Quest
The Way Back (2010) / int_188668f2	comment	Redemption Quest: That is, in the character development sense of the trope. Redemption becomes a motivation for several people on the journey. Janeusz eventually reveals the reason that keeps him going is to return to Poland and forgive his wife. He knows her spirit was broken when she was tortured to make a false confession condemning him. During the journey, Mr. Smith also learns to forgive himself for his unintentional role in his son's death.
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The Way Back (2010) / int_1ba750d8	type	The Gulag
The Way Back (2010) / int_1ba750d8	comment	The Gulag: Where the story starts out. All but two of the characters had committed no actual crime.
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The Way Back (2010) / int_219cf787	type	MsExposition
The Way Back (2010) / int_219cf787	comment	Ms. Exposition: Irenaâ€¦literally. The men wonâ€™t talk to one another about their former lives, but they will tell her, and sheâ€™s the one who fills each of them and the audience in on each characterâ€™s past. She asks why they didnâ€™t talk to one another, and is told that in the gulag, the less said, the better.
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The Way Back (2010) / int_2562da69	type	Great Escape
The Way Back (2010) / int_2562da69	comment	Great Escape: The opening of the film involves the protagonists planning (and executing) an escape from the gulag.
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The Way Back (2010) / int_269e82c1	type	Death of a Child
The Way Back (2010) / int_269e82c1	comment	Death of a Child: Granted, Irena is a young teenager rather than a small child, but sheâ€™s definitely the baby of the group, and she dies of dehydration in the Gobi desert.
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The Way Back (2010) / int_35b241c0	type	Ooh, Me Accent's Slipping
The Way Back (2010) / int_35b241c0	comment	Ooh, Me Accent's Slipping: A milder case than a lot of movies set in Russia, but itâ€™s still there. Colin Farrel and Saoirse Ronan have it the worst in places, but all of them slip sooner or later. (Ed Harris got to keep his natural American accent, since his character was from America.)
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The Way Back (2010) / int_3b0bd0ab	type	Thirsty Desert
The Way Back (2010) / int_3b0bd0ab	comment	Thirsty Desert: Very thirsty. They have no water bottles or canteens; they're reduced to carrying what small, open pots they could find, which leads to evaporation and other problems. At one point, they do find a well, but the Gobi has very few natural water sources.
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The Way Back (2010) / int_3f11ef74	type	Parental Substitute
The Way Back (2010) / int_3f11ef74	comment	Parental Substitute: Smith becomes a father figure for Irena. She latches onto him in particular because he used to be a father, which is somewhat ironic since he initially didnâ€™t want the group to let her stay.
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The Way Back (2010) / int_40cc0c7e	type	Bittersweet Ending
The Way Back (2010) / int_40cc0c7e	comment	Bittersweet Ending: Several of them make it to India and Janusz is eventually reunited with his wife, but by the time the movie's over half the cast has died pretty horribly.
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The Way Back (2010) / int_49d59be9	type	Scenery Porn
The Way Back (2010) / int_49d59be9	comment	Scenery Porn: All over the place, especially as the film was largely shot on-location. Another excellent work by Peter Weir's frequent collaborator, award-winning cinematographer, Russell Boyd.
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The Way Back (2010) / int_4ee61c1f	type	Liar Revealed
The Way Back (2010) / int_4ee61c1f	comment	Liar Revealed: Several of the characters, but Irena is the most obvious: Mister realizes the story she told can't be true, because the area she said she lived in was occupied by Russia in World War II, rather than Germany. Valka asks why she lied when her real history is awful enough (her Polish parents went to Moscow to work for the Communist Party, only to be executed for no reason and leave her and her brother orphans to be sent to a collective farm), and she says she thought an even sadder story would keep them from leaving her behind.Voss also eventually reveals that he was in the gulag not for being a priest, but for killing a young soldier who had defaced his church. It wasn't premeditated, but it was still murder.
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The Way Back (2010) / int_607d4ada	type	Run for the Border
The Way Back (2010) / int_607d4ada	comment	Run for the Border: Several escapees from The Gulag flee, hoping to escape from Russia and seek refuge in Mongolia. When they finally reach the border, they discover that Mongolia and Russia are now allies. Since the country on the other side of Mongolia also has communist ties, they are forced to cross three borders before the survivors of the group are safe.
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The Way Back (2010) / int_69681e01	type	Big Brother Instinct
The Way Back (2010) / int_69681e01	comment	Big Brother Instinct: The younger members of the group look after Irena like she's a little sister, but it's especially noticeable with Valka — who is also the group's only criminal. They bond over the fact that they were both orphans and homeless children. Voss bonds with her quite a bit as well. He's the one who goes back for her, he makes her a hat to protect her from the sun, and he's the one who carries her when her feet hurt too much to walk.
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The Way Back (2010) / int_6c3252ec	type	Fight to Survive
The Way Back (2010) / int_6c3252ec	comment	Fight to Survive: A long, desperate struggle to walk halfway across Asia on foot.
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The Way Back (2010) / int_7286e96d	type	Idiot Ball
The Way Back (2010) / int_7286e96d	comment	Idiot Ball: Why would you send a guy with night blindness to collect firewood at dusk? No wonder Kazik freezes to death.
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The Way Back (2010) / int_88141a44	type	Heartwarming Orphan
The Way Back (2010) / int_88141a44	comment	Heartwarming Orphan: Played with, but eventually subverted. The gang accept and come to have affection for Irena, but she dies in the desert.
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The Way Back (2010) / int_8ad43dc9	type	Ragtag Bunch of Misfits
The Way Back (2010) / int_8ad43dc9	comment	Ragtag Bunch of Misfits: A priest, an accountant, an actor, a criminal, a cavalry officer, a baker who aspires to be an artist, an engineer, and a young girl.
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The Way Back (2010) / int_95c2a9dd	type	Outliving One's Offspring
The Way Back (2010) / int_95c2a9dd	comment	Outliving One's Offspring: Mister is especially bitter because before he himself was even sent to the gulag, his seventeen-year-old son was shot (and it's implied by Irena that it was done in front of him.)
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The Way Back (2010) / int_a56e3cba	type	Language Barrier
The Way Back (2010) / int_a56e3cba	comment	Language Barrier: To an extent. Because the characters come from all over the USSR (and one from America), English is the only language they have in common, but each person speaks it with a varying level of fluency. Valka struggles heavily, while Voss and Irena, having had a proper education, are fairly fluent. English is Mister's native language, and given that he moved to Russia he presumably speaks Russian as well.
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The Way Back (2010) / int_a90fff3	type	Based on a True Story
The Way Back (2010) / int_a90fff3	comment	Based on a True Story: Sort of. It's based on a memoir, though the extent of its authenticity has been questioned. note If you are curious: loosely speaking, it's generally considered true that a Polish man made such a trek, what's not is who this guy was and how he did it.
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The Way Back (2010) / int_b8ba9b1f	type	Crossing the Desert
The Way Back (2010) / int_b8ba9b1f	comment	Crossing the Desert: The Gobi. It doesnâ€™t end well for most of them.
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The Way Back (2010) / int_c4db6423	type	Yank the Dog's Chain
The Way Back (2010) / int_c4db6423	comment	Yank the Dog's Chain: Half the movie is one long case of that, but right off, thereâ€™s poor Kazik. Their first night of freedom and he gets lost looking for wood and freezes to death. The real kicker is that he saw the fire vaguely and thought heâ€™d come close enough. He hadnâ€™t.
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The Way Back (2010) / int_cd83fa5b	type	Spoiler Opening
The Way Back (2010) / int_cd83fa5b	comment	Spoiler Opening: The opening credits say that only three men made it to India, meaning we know from the first most of the characters are going to die, or at least not make it. Slightly subverted in that Smith and Valka survive, but leave the group before they reach their objective—Valka decides he can't leave Russia and figures even if he's caught again, he probably would be sent to a different gulag (his concern being getting away from the gangsters to whom he owes money in the gulag they escaped from) and Smith thinks he can get to a US army mission in China from Lhasa
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The Way Back (2010) / int_dde43ab	type	Tattooed Crook
The Way Back (2010) / int_dde43ab	comment	Tattooed Crook: Valka, very heavily. Historically accurate, too, as Russian prison tattoos have long and very specific meanings.
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The Way Back (2010) / int_e0904aa4	type	No Party Like a Donner Party
The Way Back (2010) / int_e0904aa4	comment	No Party Like a Donner Party: At one point, Valka asks Janusz who they should eat first, assuming that the reason Janusz brought so many extra people was that there would be something to eat. Janusz is horrified.
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The Way Back (2010) / int_e24de818	type	Cool, Clear Water
The Way Back (2010) / int_e24de818	comment	Cool, Clear Water: They drink unpurified water from streams whenever they find them, with no ill effects. Justified, at least partially, by the fact that most of the time theyâ€™re in the wilderness and well away from human-made pollution, and because they were all used to drinking unfiltered water. Gulags werenâ€™t famous for sanitation; the stream water was probably a lot cleaner than what they were used to.
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The Way Back (2010) / int_e28f88b8	type	Last-Name Basis
The Way Back (2010) / int_e28f88b8	comment	Last-Name Basis: Mister Smith. Some of the group with a shakier grasp of English think his first name actually is Mister.
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The Way Back (2010) / int_e567510d	type	Determinator
The Way Back (2010) / int_e567510d	comment	Determinator: All of them, but especially Janusz, whose motivation is to find his wife and forgive her for the torture-induced "confession" that got him sent to the gulag in the first place.
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The Way Back (2010) / int_e68b72	type	The Load
The Way Back (2010) / int_e68b72	comment	The Load: Kazik. His night blindness (caused by a vitamin deficiency, and not uncommon in gulags) meant he was something of a liability. Sadly, it gets him killed on their first night of freedom.
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The Way Back (2010) / int_fed93e1b	type	Dark and Troubled Past
The Way Back (2010) / int_fed93e1b	comment	Dark and Troubled Past: All of them. They all wound up in a gulag, after all. What's extra heartbreaking is that only two of them are actual criminals — and one of those criminals killed someone in the heat of the moment (out of grief).
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The Way Back (2010) / int_ffad4e9f	type	Shown Their Work
The Way Back (2010) / int_ffad4e9f	comment	Shown Their Work: The tattoos Valka has were adopted by many criminals who hoped to avoid being shot, as it was illegal to deface an image of Stalin. Of course that didn't stop people from shooting them in the head.
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The following is a list of statements referring to the current page from other pages.

Cool, Clear Water	processingUnknown	The Way Back (2010)
The Way Back (2010)	hasFeature	Crossing the Desert / int_49c8a31c
The Way Back (2010)	hasFeature	Films of 2010â€“2014 / int_49c8a31c
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The Way Back (2010)	hasFeature	No Party Like a Donner Party / int_49c8a31c
The Way Back (2010)	hasFeature	Road Trip Plot / int_49c8a31c
The Way Back (2010)	hasFeature	Run for the Border / int_49c8a31c
Significant Sketchbook	processingUnknown	The Way Back (2010)
The Way Back (2010)	hasFeature	Tastes Like Chicken / int_49c8a31c
The Way Back (2010)	hasFeature	The Gulag / int_49c8a31c
The Way Back (2010)	hasFeature	Thirsty Desert / int_49c8a31c

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