All My Good Countrymen

The film opens in 1945 in a Moravian village, where children play with toy weapons and a land mine is unearthed during plowing. The villagers defuse the danger and celebrate with dancing and drinking at the local pub, before dawn returns them to sleep beneath a tree.

In 1948, months after the Communist takeover, loudspeakers flood the village with propaganda and ration announcements. Four villagers—the organist Očenáš, the photographer Plecmera, the postman Bertin, and Zejvala—conform to the new regime and are shunned by their neighbors. The community grows wary as the state begins to rewrite livelihoods and loyalties.

A landowner is forced to surrender his land for a collectivized farm; his wife tears down pictures of Jesus and Mary as he condemns the change. The communists inspect the property and begin to loot what they can, signaling a broader pattern of confiscation. The couple's confrontation foreshadows the villagers' increasing fear and submission.

A tailor, with his wife and friends around him, sets up a workshop, hoping to prosper under local traditions. But the party arrives and demands he yield his newly built fortune and join a state-planned tailoring collective. The threat to his livelihood underscores the regime's suppression of private enterprise.

In 1949 Bertin is shot after he and his fiancée Machačová are fitted for wedding clothes. A funeral follows as police arrest those deemed responsible. František, a noble farmer, leads the townspeople in demanding that the police reveal the real culprits, while the organist faces death threats and leaves his post. The photographer's wife strains for better status, illustrating personal ambitions amid political turmoil.

In 1951 Zášinek returns home drunk and is haunted by the ghost of his ex-wife, a Jew he divorced to appease fear of the Germans. Her apparition forgives him, but guilt gnaws at him and he sees her again at an afternoon soiree. The town thief Jořka, involved with Machačová, seals his fate by defying the law—he pours acid on his foot, returns a clock, and collapses to die.

Autumn 1951: Zášinek visits the church to confess; at a pub he and the merry widow dine and dance, while a surreal painting sequence distorts the scene. The painting shifts from amorphous shapes to a chaotic tableau, culminating with Zášinek appearing as a devil. He stumbles home the next morning only to be killed by a loose bull impaling him.

At a townhall in 1952, the communists push for more loans; the panel claps for themselves while the audience remains silent. František publicly opposes the decision and leads the villagers away in defiance. The police pressure people to sign statements, but the villagers hold out and resist until force is used.

A former thief returns and is publicly disgraced and dismissed. František has escaped from prison but is sick and near death. The village's grip by the regime tightens as power shifts continue behind the scenes.

In 1955 František's health improves; with almost nothing left he buys a horse and resumes work on the land. The narrator ponders whether a man or a horse can endure more, answering that a man endures because he bears responsibility.

In 1957 the regime pressures František to persuade others to declare their harvests. He refuses, and eventually all villagers sign except František.

In 1958 František agrees to take over the former landowner's house and lead the collective. A carnival procession of masked villagers encircles him; the photographer and his wife are pulled from their car, and the photographer suffers a fatal heart attack.

In the Epilogue, Očenáš returns to the village and encounters Plecmera, now blind and divorced, fallen from power. The photographer quips that 'the best people go and the blackguards stay' as František has recently died. Očenáš speaks with František's daughters, who recall his last words urging people to listen to the workers in the fields and to sing again. He rides away on his bike, lamenting what has become of the village.