The film begins with Janusz being interrogated for sabotage and espionage by a Soviet officer but he refuses to plead guilty. However, it becomes apparent that his wife has been compelled to sign a statement accusing him of criticising the Communist Party, criticising Stalin and acting as a spy for foreign powers. On the basis of this statement, Janusz is sentenced to twenty years in the Gulag.
At the camp in Siberia, Janusz meets Mr Smith, an American, in the food queue. After being served, Janusz gives some of his soup to a starving, elderly inmate. Mr Smith remarks that food is valuable and 'kindness can kill you here'.
Other inmates Janusz encounters include an actor Khabarov, a Russian criminal, Valka, who stabs another inmate in order to use his clothes to pay a gambling debt, Tamasz, who makes a living by sketching erotic drawings in exchange for food and clothes. There are also Kazik, a 17 year old Pole who suffers from
night blindness, Voss, a Latvian priest, and Zoran, a Yugoslav accountant with a cynical sense of humour.
[2] Khabarov confides to Janusz that he has a plan for escaping. After a lengthy discussion, they agree to hoard food until the end of winter, when they will both escape. They plan their route southwards to
Mongolia, passing
Lake Baikal. Some time later, on mine duty, Mr Smith tells Janusz that Khabarov is in fact lying about his desire to escape in order to improve his own morale. He adds that, in his opinion, escape is impossible but Janusz maintains his resolve. Valka, who feels his life is under threat due to gambling debts, demands that Janusz includes him in the escape.
One evening during a blinding snowstorm, Janusz decides to implement the escape plan. Mr Smith, Valka, Zoran, Voss, Tamasz, and Kazik escape with him. The snowstorm increases in intensity and the escapees consider returning to the camp. Janusz insists that the weather increases their chance of escape and cuts masks for the group from the bark of trees. The masks protect their faces while leaving eye holes through which they can see. Aided by the masks the group continue on into the forest leaving the pursuing guards behind.
On the first night whilst looking for firewood, Kazik becomes lost. Hallucinating about the end of the journey, he freezes to death. His body is discovered close to where the group made camp for the night. He is buried but the group celebrate the fact that he died a free man.
With Janusz leading the way the party successfully negotiate the first part of their journey across the snows of Siberia. However as the climate improves and they reach the forests they become unsure of the precise direction to the lake. After they have spent some time in a large
rift, living off the local wildlife, Janusz decides to try and find the lake himself. After walking for three days, Janusz sees the lake from the top of a cliff. He returns to the encampment to share the news, almost dead from exhaustion.
The party travel onwards but whilst trekking through a forest on the border of the lake, Mr Smith sees a figure in the woods. After approaching carefully, they see that it is a young
Polish girl. They talk to the girl who says her name is Irena and that she escaped from a
collective farm outside
Warsaw, after her parents were murdered by Russian soldiers. The party leave Irena, deciding that her presence would be a burden.
As they continue their journey around the lake, they encounter a large animal trapped in the mud, and kill it for food. Zoran then realizes that there is now enough food to feed the girl too, and heads back to the forest to find her. Irena joins the group on their journey talking to each of them in turn and finds out that Mr Smith was an engineer whose son was killed by the Russians.
At one point the group have to cross a frozen section of water. The ice is apparently not thick enough to hold the weight of a person so they decide to swim across. Mr Smith asks Irena if she can swim. She says she can but as the group begin to prepare to swim Irena runs across the ice and manages to make it to the other side of the lake. One by one the group follow. Mr Smith discovers that Irena is in fact a Polish-Russian girl who lost her older brother in an orphanage and that she made up the story about her parents, now in prison for apparently being spies. Irena says this was because she believed that her original story would make the group feel more sympathetic, and therefore they would adopt her into the party. Eventually the party reach the Russian/Mongolian border and Valka decides to stay in Russia.
The group continue their journey till they see
Ulaanbaatar and celebrate that their journey is complete but as Irena runs towards a great arch leading into the city, she sees that it is decorated with Russian icons and a red star implying that Mongolia is now a
Communist state and they will not be safe there. They decide that because of
the situation in nearby China, the closest safe place is
India, and so continue south across the
Gobi desert.
As they cross the desert the party become increasingly dehydrated. Some of the party think that they see trees to the East. Janusz says he thinks it is a mirage and insists that they need to continue South. However, in desperation, some of them make their way East and it becomes apparent that they have discovered a waterhole. At the waterhole the group discuss whether to stay or carry on. They stock up with as much water as they can carry and continue on. The water runs out and the group begins to grow weak with blisters and sunstroke. Eventually, Irena collapses and dies from dehydration.
The remaining five head on up to the point where Tamasz dies from exhaustion and Mr Smith loses the will to live. That evening, while Zoran and Voss continue, Janusz stays behind with the apparently dying Mr Smith, who tells him that he cannot overcome the guilt of taking his son to Russia, where he was killed by the police. Janusz explains to Smith that the only thing that he has to see his wife again so he can forgive her and she can thereby forgive herself. Mr Smith rejoins the group and the next day find a small stream of water to live off.
By now they are in sight of the Himalayas and whilst resting on a rock are encountered by a
Sherpa who guides them to a
Buddhist monastery. There they regain their strength but are told by the monks that India cannot safely be reached until spring.
Despite this warning, they continue yet further until they reach the Indian border, where they are given a warm welcome by the locals.
The film ends with Janusz recalling returning home to his wife in 1939, and then shows a montage of the Communist rule in Poland until exactly 50 years later, where he, now free of the Communist rule, re-unites with her.
