Andres Salama An entertaining film about Clemens Forell, one of the very few people that manage to successfully escape from the Gulag. A German soldier in World War II, Forell was made prisoner and sentenced after the war to 25 years in a labor camp in the most remote patch of Siberia, near the Bering Strait, north of the Arctic Circle. Amazingly, he not only escaped the camp but made it all the way from there to Iran mostly on foot (if you don't understand why this is an amazing feat, you can look at a map).The film is more sentimental and melodramatic than it should be, but is still a worthy and entertaining movie, even if at more than two and a half hours is a bit long. One of my favorite parts is when after escaping from the camp he joins a couple of gold prospectors (the no-good prospectors seem almost out of a Western) and they sail through a remote uninhabited river that crosses beautiful conifer forests (that part of the movie, though, was apparently filmed not in Siberia but in Belarus). Even though the movie is based on a real story, some scenes shown here are hard to swallow, like the idea that the camp commander in Siberia followed him all the way to the Iranian frontier only to let him go at the international bridge. My guess is that while the main story is true, the filmmakers embellish it quite a lot.Few known actors in the movie (at least to me), though I recognized Andre Hennicke and Michael Mendl, who played Generals Wilhelm Mohnke and Helmuth Wiedling in Downfall. Also, beautiful international model Irina Pantaeva (who is originally a Buryat, a Buddhist ethnic group in Southern Siberia) plays one of the Chuckchis that shelter Forell for some time after he escaped from the camp (another good section of the movie). Hennicke plays a fellow prisoner while Mendl, even though he is a German is one of the camp doctors (why he was allowed that role is never explained).Some viewers might object that the movie shows the Soviet guards brutality toward the German prisoners, while not explaining that the German soldiers during the war probably engaged in far worse atrocities. Up to a point, this is a fair objection. But one should be mindful that a movie dramatizes a part of reality (whether is based in a real incident or not) and is not necessarily a newspaper article trying to cover all points of view.

hasosch "So Weit Die Füsse Tragen" (2001), directed by Hardy Martins, a stunt coordinator who seems to have a natural great talent in directing and who will hopefully continue making movies in this genre, despite Vilsmaier, has presented a movie that is in two respects more than remarkable: First, it focuses on the often forgotten Stalinistic concentration camps. No one is to accuse the Nazis because of their concentration camps unless he also accuses those of Stalin and makes known of what happened not only before, but also behind the Iron Curtain. Second, the movie tells the story of one single individual without any attempts at generalizing the fate of others or smuggling pseudo-documentary material (f.ex., as it is unfortunately so often the case, in the form of archive footage) into the movie. In its compromise-less realistic and not naturalistic description lies the big value of this movie.Without any scroll-work, the film shows the way of Clemens Forell from his way from Munich to Stalingrad in the last year of World War II, then his deportation to a Stalinistic Concentration Camp in Siberia, afterward his flight, made possible by a terminally ill German physician who provides him with the preparatory work originally intended for himself, then his basically indescribably pains on his unimaginable long and excruciating way through ten thousands of miles of Ice deserts, the taiga, downwards to the South into an Iranian prison, and then his miraculous, yet not fairy-tale-like release and return to his family after more than eight years of absence on Christmas Eve, like scheduled for Midnight Mass.

Neil Turner A soldier in combat is a strange beast. I think the word "beast" is a good one for when you take young men or women who are, not at heart, killers and indoctrinate them as to the evils of the "enemy" and then place them in an unbelievable stressful situation in which their lives are in danger every minute they transfer from human to beast. Of course in every war, there are horrific tales of soldiers who go so far that they completely lose any semblance of humanity, but those are the rare cases. Most of them are just trying to survive so that they can return to their families.This film is the true story of one such soldier. He just happens to have been a German soldier in World War II. All he wants to do is survive and return to his wife, daughter, and unborn child. One could easily substitute him with a guy in Iraq today who just wants to live and get back home.The first filming of this story was a mini-series for German television made in 1959. In Germany, it was know as a "street sweeper" in that it was watched by so many people that the streets were basically deserted during the time of its broadcasts.The script is from a novel by Josef Martin Bauer first published in 1955 that Bauer based up interviews with the real man. In the novel and film, the soldier is given the name Clemens Forell.As Far… begins at a train station where Forell is leaving for the Russian front and saying goodbye to his wife, who is pregnant, and his daughter. He promises them both that he will return. Next we see him as a prisoner sentenced to twenty-five years of hard labor in Siberia. Needless-to-say, the conditions at the prison camp - provided by weather and sadistic guards - are brutal.Forell is at a slight advantage in that he is a mechanic who can repair the old engine running the power supply. Forell is caught trying to escape and punished by being placed in an isolation cell which is really just a hole in the ground open to the elements. After his time in isolation, he is sent back to the mines where his fellow prisoners beat him almost to death. We find later that they were forced to do so. The commanding officer, who sees something special in Forell, sends him to the infirmary rather than just letting him die. This provides the opportunity for Forell to be helped to escape by the doctor who is also a prisoner.Thus begins an incredible 8,000 mile journey back to home and family. Through sheer guts and determination accompanied by some heartwarming acts of kindness of strangers, Forell completes his journey and is finally reunited with his family.Bernhard Bettermann achieves a brilliant piece of acting in playing Forell. From what I can determine, Bettermann is basically a German television star, but he has the combination of toughness, sensitivity, and good looks that could easily make him a major film star.This is one of those stories that, if you didn't know it were true, you wouldn't believe it. Books and films that depict the almost super-human abilities of men and women to survive harsh treatment and conditions help us to reflect upon the value of life - no matter our current condition. Such stories of real people and their accomplishments are always worthy of attention.

chasetime Wars, the most ridiculous way to communicate. It is only try to fill those avaricious and bloody minds. Brining sadness and a mask for every one to protect themselves, it makes nothing reliable or believable. Why people started the war and cry, after numerous families had broken? That is so strange. The movie started at the main character saying goodbye with his family, and promising he'll be back soon. Then when he became a prisoner and seen not to go home forever let me feel sympathize. The escape ways, which he gets through difficulties by his hardened mettle and some nice people's helping is tautness and shows that how calloused the war is. Although most of the plot is full of bleak scenery, nervous ambiance and atrocious truth, it still has a happy and heart stirring ending. I think this movie is inspiration and can teach people lots of things.