MovieChat Forums > Poklosie (2012) Discussion > Two Questions About the Plot (Spoilers)

Two Questions About the Plot (Spoilers)

posted 8 years ago by heckles
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1. The older priest, unlike the younger one, seemed to sympathize with the younger brother's project of getting the gravestones to a proper place - but then he's depicted having a heart attack when the skulls are discovered under the old house. What relationship, if any, did he have with the massacre?

2. The villagers seem anxious to keep the massacre a secret, because many owe their better farmlands to the massacre. Do they really think relatives of the murdered Jews will come back to claim the pre-1941 plots?

[–] Stovepipe99 8 years ago

1) My guess would be that the older priest may have known the details about the massacre. While I doubt that he necessarily participated, he may have lived with that knowledge all those years (and thus be guilty of helping to conceal such a heinous crime). His guilt might have caught up to him.

2) There have been many movements in the last 20 or so years to return property stolen during times of war. The villagers might imagine that the government would take their land away, restore the pre-war property boundaries, or force them to pay for it or something. I think that part of the movie was about critiquing the way that the people in the village justified thinking of what they'd taken as "theirs". Just the idea that someone (anyone) might come and take away "their" property is enough to get them riled up.

Their fear about their land being taken away might not have been the most logical, but hate and logic rarely go hand-in-hand.