My Town

Young writer/director Lechki's highly impressive humanist portrait of desultory Silesia shows a precocious mastery of tone and characterisation. Elegantly directed and expressively rendered in desaturated colour, it follows the life of an unemployed yet well-disposed 20-year-old surrounded by the phlegmatically rooted inhabitants of his no-hope mining suburb, including his secretive alcoholic father, his old-car obsessed best friend and an attractive, abandoned newcomer. Essential to the success is the beauty of the performance the director coaxes from Chrzescianski as the boy and the way he manages to cast a fresh eye on what is a staple miserabilist scenario. (Made for Poland's 'Generation 2000' TV slot.