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As Far As My Feet Will Carry Me AKA So Weit Die Füße Tragen
R2 - United Kingdom - Second Sight Review written by and copyright: Jon Meakin (21st June 2011). |
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The Film
 As Far As My Feet Will Carry Me is an astonishing story of survival that could speak for itself, documenting one German soldiers effort to escape a Soviet Gulag in Siberia by walking out, with a daunting 8000 miles ahead of him. It’s let down somewhat by a mediocre production with an overdone screenplay and muddy, naïve politics. The Shawshank Redemption made you feel every step of Andy’s escape through that sewer and it felt worse than these 8000 miles! That’s absurd, but sill, it is an engrossing two and half hours nonetheless. It may feel longer for the first section! Clemens Forell (Bernhard Bettermann) leaves his family behind in a dreadful scene. The bright summery day at the train station straight off a tin of chocolates, the perfect child, asking for a postcard with dialogue such as, “a promise is a promise you can never break”. Pardon? I do hope that and other random examples are more to do with poor translation in the subtitles, but it’s awful to watch the cast wrestle with such thumping clichés in any case. I know this is a German film and they are battling against a history of their army being represented as goose-stepping thugs, rather than the family men some of them must have been, but still it’s hard to take seriously, especially when the narrative makes no attempt to ask what Clemens and his colleagues thought they were fighting for. That could have been an interesting perspective given their fate. Prospects for the film don’t improve much when it jumps forward to post-war. Forell is on another train with many more German soldiers, imprisoned by the Russians, and heading for 25 years hard labour in Siberia. Once at the prison camp, they are introduced to an inhumane regime headed by Anatoliy Kotenev as Kamenev. The scenes in the camp are brutal. It may seem too brutal and perhaps being overplayed, but Soviet treatment of their PoWs was notorious and shameful, so this could be the most realistic part. I do think the naïve scenes beforehand undermine what is probably a fair depiction of the camp and by the end there will have been no concession at all to Germany’s recent history in the war. Along with the before-mentioned lack of insight on Clemens part, it is starting to feel like an idealised cover-up by an author with the benefit of third-hand hindsight (this is an adaptation of a book based on the original man, Cornelius Rost and it was made for TV once before). Some context could have grounded the film and made it more challenging. Once Clemens escapes with help from the prison doctor (Michael Mendl), the story takes off and the film is much more successful, dealing with the simple fascinating set-up of the lone man walking for years across thousands of miles from Siberia and into Iran, trying to get home (unfortunately we do have to put up with a few brief scenes from his daughter with the terrible dialogue in that strange chocolate box Germany, now post-war, so even more odd). It becomes clear that Bettermann is an excellent actor and he has great support from Kotenev. There’s little to say about the unambitious photography and the direction is rather uninspired, but finally they are letting the story speak for itself. He meets several people along the way, making it feel episodic and slight, but an easy watch nonetheless. It made me think that it would be a fantastic extended TV series! “Episode 7: Clemens and The Gold Miners” and “Episode 8: Clemens and The Eskimos”, for instance. Plus, in what feels like a dramatic contrivance, Kamenev is chasing him, a bit like the reporter in The Incredible Hulk! I’m being facetious though, because actually, while rather unbelievable, the angry dedicated Russian makes for a great villain, especially in the hands of the charasmatic Kotenev, and he adds an essential ticking clock to the narrative. They meet a couple of times and the scenes are stand-outs. The only thing that really lets the film down at this point is an altruistic Jew that helps him. The scenes are well played and acted, but clearly contrived through guilt; Clemens is shocked the Jew would help him, but I failed to understand how Clemens could appreciate guilt properly. Still, the narrative doesn’t tackle the subject head on and there’s an elephant in the room! I do sympathise with German screenwriters and directors who must feel like they have to tread very carefully though and this is an adaptation after all, so it’s difficult to know where this character came in. Throughout the film, I was occasionally reminded of Doctor Zhivago, which I always found overrated, except for the stunning cinematography. If only David Lean could have told this story, with his beautiful photography of Russia and his practiced irony from Bridge On The River Kwai, it would have been an absolute classic. Surprisingly, because all the family scenes had been very weak, the film is almost redeemed in the finale, possibly helped by low expectations. From a bridge at the Iran border to his return to Germany is brilliantly done. It’s sentimental, but undeniably moving and a film that feels frustratingly uninspired is suddenly easy to recommend.
Video
This anamorphic 1.85:1 release is a bit murky throughout, but it’s fairly consistent. Just a shame the production as a whole never has ambition.
Audio
The Dolby Digital 2.0 is merely ok. Clear, but let down by a score to match the rest of the weak production. Selectable English subtitles are included, although I suspect they are badly translated. I did read that the original release purposefully kept subtitles to a minimum for the Russian scenes, so audiences would struggle with the language as Clemens/Rost would have done. I didn’t feel that once, which might suggest the subtitles are basically wrong, be they for the German or Russian sequences.
Extras
None, but for scene access.
Overall
A half-hearted release of a messy and weak film overall, particularly let down by a painting-by-numbers production, with no effort to place it in context with the politics of the time, so a missed opportunity. But there is no hiding the story and even if we don’t have a clear picture of the man who inspired it, his achievement can never be underestimated. By the end, you may feel it was worth the effort to watch.
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