Before the holidays, we decided to discuss another movie (here you can find link to the note about the previous one) – this time Karolina suggested a Polish classic, a popular comedy from the 1960s entitled “Sami swoi” (literally “Only our Own” but the English title was “All Friends Here” and the film was released in Czechoslovakia under the name “Ahoj, sousede”).
The movie (1967) directed by Sylwester Chęciński follows two quarreling families, the Pawlaks and the Karguls. The plot consists of a series of pranks, prepared mainly by the heads of the peasant families, Kazimierz and Władysław. Compared to other Central European productions, which denounced and ridiculed the “small nature” of these nations, the setting of “Sami Swoi” is specific. The two families were resettled from the eastern regions Poland lost after the war (so called Kresy) to the “Recovered Territories” (Ziemie Odzyskane), the regions it gained from Germany and from which the German-speaking inhabitants were expelled. Against the backdrop of a comedy, the film depicts phenomena we encountered in our research, such as abandoned German cemeteries, remaining German priests, and looting in towns that became “ghost towns” after the forced transfer of German-speaking inhabitants.