Zloto

Considering that 'Zolto' was made behind the Iron Curtain it's unsparing depiction of life at the bottom of the Polish heap looks little different from that of the bourgeois west; just as rife with low-level criminality, brawls and knife-fights, and with wage-slaves mired in casual labour.

Our young hero finds himself preyed upon by spivs and other assorted opportunists, while his colleagues possess similar aspirations to their opposite numbers in the west, whose fantasies of winning the lottery and of page three girls find their opposite number in dreams of striking gold and of Polynesian dancers.

Zloto (or, if you prefer English, Gold) is the story of a mysterious young drifter who wanders into a mining camp near the Polish border and gets a job. Is he interested in fitting in with the community, or does he have another agenda altogether? The lead character is a bit of a cypher for most of the movie and it is hard to warm up to him, but most of the characters in the camp are pretty interesting. Overall, it is a good movie if not a particularly compelling one, although it had a pretty strong ending. To be fair, the subtitles on the print I saw were poorly translated and made many of the characters seem like they were speaking non sequiturs. Better subtitles might have improved my understanding and appreciation of the movie.