by Doris E Rufli

Created on: October 19, 2008

Yet another quirky foreign movie with a difference. The main protagonist is a man of experience leaving prison in order to build a new life with some rules attached following WWII and the resulting revolution' in Eastern Europe. And thus we become privy to Jan Dite's (Oldrich Kaiser) reminiscence having desperately wanted to become a millionaire and therefore part of the Elite'.

The story is set in Eastern Europe and begins prior to WWII and the Nazi invasion. Young Jan Dite (Ivan Barnev) initially tries his luck selling snacks at the train station but is not entirely successful. However, it is here that he discovers that people will literally fall over one another in order to pick up a few coins on the ground and this, essentially, becomes his quirk' throughout his career in service.

Said service turns out to be initially that of a trainee waiter, after deciding that a career in hotels may well be his ticket to fame and fortune. He soon finds his first job in a small restaurant/bar across the street from a brothel. Therefore, most of its clientele is male and rather welloff usually middleaged upward ie they don't have to work and have money to spend all day long on both sides of the street.

Here the young man learns his first lesson or two, namely to listen attentively as to what is going on but to keep his mouth shut at least where the clientele is concerned. The manager, of course, will want to know. A smack to the head one of many dished out by the manager (guess that could be called his quirk') seals the deal after Jan's initial fauxpas of advising one of the guests at his next chess move. However, word soon gets round that the young man's advice is worth taking and to the dismay of the manager the customers now officially ask the trainee waiter's advice.

During his time of working his first job at the restaurant/bar he also comes across his first encounter with the female of the species away from simple camaraderie that he grew up experiencing. One of the new girls from across the road seeks shelter from a heavy downpour and the manager invites her in, admiring her beauty and, in particular, the now rather seethrough wet dress she is wearing. It is, however, the young trainee waiter who catches her fancy and is subsequently invited across the road after his shift ends.

Following that encounter and a relevant incident with the young woman at the restaurant/bar Jan considers it time to move on and works his way up from a position at a spa for welloff men' to the respected Hotel Paris. Latter he considers his ticket out of poverty and into the sphere of the rich whose company he always craved. Nothing and no one is to stand in his way up to fulfil his lifelong dream of becoming a millionaire himself. His little quirk, however, he never lets go of, no matter in what or how sophisticated surroundings he finds himself in the throwing of coins and watching the rich and powerful crawl on the floor gathering up pennies

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