A social drama about a chance for improvement and normal life despite one’s past in a juvenile correctional facility. The film’s advantage is colorful scenery of Gdańsk (shipyard) and the Pier in Sopot.
The leitmotiv is hooliganism and the corrective methods implemented to reeducate the difficult youth. The film shows the peculiarities of a juvenile correctional facility and its influence upon the reactions of other people, friends and colleagues in the future. The main character – Jurek Nowicki, an intelligent high school student, desperate as a result of a complicated family situation, breaks the law and ends up in a juvenile correctional facility where he encounters hostility, learns how to survive in harsh conditions and yet tries to become popular with other boys and seek their recognition. Jurek is involved in a corrective experiment that consists in working in the Gdańsk Shipyard. One day a scandal breaks out, a theft is reported and the boys from the juvenile correctional facility are automatically blamed for the incident. Desperate, they decide to find the culprit on their own and prove their innocence. Together, they attain the goal and Jurek reconciles with his mother. A positive accent in the film is the message that even having been in a correction facility, one can prove one’s worth and usefulness through work.
Excerpt from the movie
