Na svoji zemlji (1948)

"Slavica" was a quite decent feature film, but "Na svoji zemlji" (On Their Own Ground), the first effort by the Slovenian film studio Triglav film, is considerably stronger fare.  

Daniel J. Goulding tells us that the director, France Štiglic (1919-1993) was the first Yugoslav director after the Second World War to receive an international award.  Although the award "The Bronze Lion of San Marco," was for a documentary film, "Na svoji zemlji" confirms him as a strong director of feature films.  

This film is based on a novel by Slovene author Ciril Kosmač (1910-1980) for which he won the prestigious Slovenian Prešeren award in 1949.

Like "Slavica," "Na svoji zemlji" was made with the assistance of the Yugoslav Army.  Štiglic was also a Partisan veteran.  The film opens with a bucolic forest scene such as we would expect from a movie set in Slovenia.  A group of soldiers runs through the forest until they reach a cliff where they can look down at "our Baška grapa," a valley in western Slovenia.  There is a hilarious little dialogue very early in the movie when a peasant woman remarks that they have been let down before by the perfidious Anglo-American allies and must therefore rely on their Yugoslav and Soviet friends instead.  These Slovene peasants sure knew their geopolitics!


Speaking of geopolitics, this film was released in November 1948, about five months after the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia had the momentous falling out popularly known as the "Tito-Stalin" split.  It is therefore quite noteworthy that the film – which was quite possibly made before the split, contains a number of positive references to Stalin.  Indeed, here we see Stalin's and Tito's portraits hanging side-by-side in the improvised Partisan headquarters as the excited Partisans listen to the radio for news from other fronts.

We see at the outset of the film that many of the peasants are skeptical of the partisan movement, and that some of them even assist the occupying forces.  This skepticism is a recurring theme is a recurring theme of early partisan films, and the Partisans have to struggle to win the “hearts and minds” of the people to the cause of the “national liberation struggle.”

As Goulding writes, the title has several meanings.  It is about being in control of your own country and your own destiny, but also about the Slovene peasant’s ties to the land.  This is symbolized in a scene where the peasants take off their shoes and stand with their bare feet on the ground before being executed.

In this case, the Italians are the initial occupiers.  Although they are portrayed as being a bit sinister, there is an undercurrent of satire and ridicule.  Generally speaking, the Italian forces in partisan films are shown as being somewhat incompetent and buffoonish.  This contrasts with the standard portrayal of Germans as cruel, humorless and thoroughly efficient.  In “Na svojoj zemlji” the Italians face the problem that fascist rule in Italy is collapsing.  When an SS officer shows up and takes over local command, the contrast between the departing Italian commander and his German replacement is played out in both words and body language.  Here we see the Italian on the left and the German on the right.

In the SS officer’s view, all Slovenes are bandits and cannot be trusted.  As for the domestic Quisling forces, these are portrayed – as in later partisan films – as being a bunch of sadistic brutes who are often drunk.

Quite abruptly and without much explanation, the partisan forces take control of the valley.  We are treated to a stirring primordialist pep talk for mobilization in which one of the Partisans tells us that Slovenes have been around for 1,300 years and that they have been tossed between the big nations of because they live in “the heart of Europe.”  We then follow the Partisans as they fight to liberate Slovenia, forge ties to the other Yugoslav Partisans and seek to “liberate” Trieste, a city which Yugoslavia claimed for itself at the end of the Second World War.

A note on violence in these early partisan movies: there are combat scenes, some more stylized than others, as well as scenes in which the occupying forces (but never the Partisans) execute civilians but generally speaking we always never see blood or people dying.  We may see the Partisan machine gunner shooting at the approaching enemy, and afterwards the camera may pan over a battlefield strewn with bodies, but we rarely actually see people falling in combat.  When people do die on camera, it is of course in a highly artificial manner.  In a strange way, it is almost as if the Hays Production Code were in force in Yugoslavia.

There are two things in this film that made me think of more recent war films.  One of the story lines involves a mother who has already lost many sons to early European wars – this obviously makes the modern viewer think of Steven Spielberg’s “Saving Private Ryan.”  And the winter scene in which the Partisans, cold and tired from a long march, are falling asleep in the forest reminded me of the final scene in “Stalingrad.”

The film ends on a typically heroic note as a group of male and female Partisans finally arrive at the coast, securing Slovenia an outlet on the Adriatic Sea.  While an old Partisan sheds a tear, a young boy who has joined up with the Partisans proclaims that he, too, can now be a free man in his own country.


"Na svoji zemlji" is available on DVD and online at Genspot.