Gruntovčani () is a Yugoslav drama series that originally aired on JRT (RTV Zagreb) between September 21 and November 23, 1975. The story of this TV-series, directed by Krešo Golik and written by Mladen Kerstner, is mainly set in a fictional remote village of Gruntovec, located in Podravina (a cultural region of Croatia), and revolves around a peasant Andrija "Draš" Katalenić nicknamed Dudek (played by Martin Sagner) who lives with his wife Regica (played by Smiljka Bencet) and whose troubles ensue from his honest and naive nature, since his fellow villagers take advantage of him to the greatest extent.
Synopsis The microcosm of the rural environment of Podravina was filmed by Krešo Golik according to Kerstner's script. Mladen Kerstner invested several years of his life in this scenario, visiting various local village pubs and taking notes of adventures by various “characters” which form the backbone of social life in small Pannonian villages. Gruntovčani introduces viewers to the world of the Podravina village, where stratification conditioned by socio-economic circumstances leads to numerous existential problems of its inhabitants. Credible characters and situations, in which the author Mladen Kerstner delves into the soul of a typical Podravina man, line up with a mild humor, which often conceals bitterness. Ten episodes show ten stories centered on the character of Dudek with his worries stemming from his habitus of a naive, honest, little country man. Dudek has no permanent employment. Here and there he helps the villagers, but always draws a shorter end.
Background and production
Filming locations Most of exterior scenes in the series were filmed in the village of Sigetec near Koprivnica, including scenes in which the exteriors and interiors of the show's main characters’ houses appear. Scenes depicting the fictional town of Srednjaki (near Gruntovec) and its railway station were filmed in the town of Ludbreg.
Language Despite the fact that the characters in the series speak the Kajkavian dialect (one of the three dialects of Croatian language), the use of the dialect in this series did not hinder the understanding of content by viewers from other parts of Croatia and former Yugoslavia - on the contrary, it enabled a wider audience to experience life stories from other backgrounds. At the same time, these characters are more trusted because they seem to be more convincing when they say their native word.
Main cast Martin Sagner as Andrija "Draš" Katalenić – Dudek Smiljka Bencet as Regica Katalenić Adela Horvat as Maga Helapova – Babica Zvonimir Ferenčić as Franc Ožbolt – Cinober Marija Geml as Kata Ožbolt Mladen Šerment as Imbra Grabarić – Presvetli Marija Aleksic as Cila Grabarić Eugen Franjković as Martin Škvorc Vjera Žagar Nardelli as Greta Škvorc Zvonimir Torjanac as Pišta Joža Šeb as Čvarkeš Rikard Brzeska as Gaber Kuzma Nikola Novosel as Tuna Pišpek Biserka Alibegović as Franca Pišpek Jagoda Antunac as Fika Frkač Slavko Brankov as Ivo Zoran Pokupec as hairdresser Gašpar Dragutin Vrbenski as Blaž Bedenec Tomislav Lipljin as Ferči Franjo Majetić as Đuro Mikulec – Besni Slavica Vučak as Klara Mikulec Drago Meštrović as Matula Štuban Vanja Drach as Kuzminec Antun Nails as inspector Ante Vican as man from Dalmatia Vinko Lisjak as Laci Bahmec
Lead characters of the series Andrija “Draš” Katalenić - Dudek, is the central character of the series. The central idea around which the character of Dudek is built is the mythically understood good. He is honest, modest, naive, always ready to help everyone. His attachment to Gruntovec, whom he does not want to leave despite his poor financial situation, is very pronounced. He is not a classic comic character because his development in the series was marked by tragedy.
Regica Katalenić is Dudek's wife. She is a character without particularly prominent flaws or virtues - she is honest, but sometimes ready for a small settlement. She does not inflict injustice on others, but she is always ready to fight for her justice.
Franc Ožbolt – Cinober is Dudek's uncle and first neighbor who lives with his wife, Kata. They are relatively wealthy and Kata supports her husband in everything. Although Dudek is his nephew, Cinober constantly tricks him with his combinations. He is a character ruled by the rigidity of the soul and whose actions are motivated by greed and the pursuit of material goods. However, he finds it difficult to hide it, so his hoaxes, for which he ioften doesn't get punished, are in most cases revealed at the end. However, in addition to material gain, Cinober is very often tormented by envy, especially towards his next-door neighbor Imbra Grabarić. This envy additionally burdens his comic character, so that he often equalizes on the border between the positive and the negative, the comic and the non-comic. Many comic and non-comic situations are built around his envy and greed in which he is gullible, and very often in the desire to earn extra money, he ends up being mocked by others.
At first glance, Imbra Grabarić – Presvetli seems like a respectable and rich peasant master, calm and pious, gentle in manners, though his character is also based on the rigidity of the soul and rests on the vice of greed and insatiable hunger for material goods.
In each episode of the series, the plot gets entangled in the same way - Presvetli and Cinober see an opportunity in which they can either make money or in some way raise their value on the social scale. To achieve these goals, they exploit Dudek who most often finds himself on the path to their success by chance. Sometimes, when they are seeking mutual benefit, Cinober and Presvetli work together. However, in most situations they act against each other because both have essentially the same goal - to get money and reputation in society.
The first episode introduces the viewer to the world of Gruntovec and all the characters together with their basic characteristics. From the very start, Mladen Kerstner divides the good from the evil, the powerful from the powerless, the rich from the poor, the cunning from the honest. He places them within the framework within which they operate, thus enabling the viewer to know in advance how a character will react in a given situation or what was the main motivator of a decision or act. So Dudek will never become a liar or a thief and will never acquire wealth, Cinober and Presvetli will always get rich at the expense of the weak and deceive to gain wealth, innkeeper Martin, president of the local community, will always be respected in the village and Regica will always be hardworking and realistic. Besni will, thanks to his work, be the richest villager and everyone will envy him. In the first dialogues, Kerstner already determines the relationships between the characters, which essentially do not change significantly until the end of the series.
Contents of the episodes
Episode 1: "Božja Vola" Dudek, shown walking down the road, eating an apple and holding an umbrella in his hand, is the first character we meet. Behind him, someone riding on a horse-pulled cart full of pumpkins returns from the field. It turned out to be Besni, who will later in the series prove to be the richest and most ambitious villager in Gruntovec. Besni stops and offers Dudek a ride, which he accepts. In their conversation about the fact that Dudek was at the brickyard where he unsuccessfully looked for a job, the viewer gets acquainted with his situation which remains unresolved until the end of the series. Later on, Dudek managed to get a job through the local community - his main task was to break the hail bringing clouds using rockets. He got the job because Regica, after hearing in the village store that the job was open, turned to the president of the local community, Martin Škvorc, who, fearing that the village would accuse him of not wanting to help the "poor", decided to hire Dudek instead of the candidate who first applied and whom Regica called "the richest man in the village." At that time, Dudek was unemployed, temporarily helping Cinober repairing the roof. By not defining the salary Dudek would receive, Cinober took advantage of him - once again calculating that he will cover his debt towards Dudek with a small amount of money that will be enough for Dudek to buy a box of cigarettes.
However, Presvetli gets involved in the whole story by telling Regica in front of Cinober that, in today's world, everyone is just looking at how to exploit the person. Cinober was offended by this and started defending himself by saying that if anyone cares about Draš, it is him. By the way, he always justifies his profit and his bad behavior with the fact that Draš is his family and that everything he does is exclusively for his good. So Dudek really becomes a village rocket launcher but fails to manage his duty well because of helping Cinober at the same time and eventually loses the job. The whole village than start to condemn him because, as they say, the hail destroyed the whole crop because of him. The most effective scene in the whole episode is the one where the storm began to prepare and Cinober doesn't let Dudek off the roof until he's done - despite the whole village gathering on his fence and yelling at Dudek that his place is near the rocket, not on the roof. It shows Dudek's desire to please everyone - at the same time to save the village from hail that will destroy their year-round work, but also his weakness to resist Cinober and his blackmail. In addition, this scene depicts how society is ready to fight the enemy together only if it benefits from it. Those who have vineyards and are afraid for their property, readily unite and decide to shoot from a rocket, while those who have nothing, do not want to participate. Nevertheless, the hail begins to fall at the end of the episode - in the last scene we see Dudek watching how pieces of ice destroy the village.
Episode 2: "Jelen" In the second episode, Dudek and Regica suspect that deer is destroying their corn and decide to report the whole situation to the local committee in order to at least get compensation for their damage. Dudek, determined in his plan, goes to Martin Škvorc, who sends him to the hunting association because, according to him, the local committee and the community have nothing to do with the reports of damage from wild animals. After learning from the secretary that the hunter Laci Bahmec is not in his office but at the local animal fair, Dudek goes there to find him. However, there he meets Presvetli who arrived to buy a cow. Presvetli than manipulates Dudek to go and buy a cow with him. At the end of the purchase, Presvetli sends him with a cow to Gruntovec, so Dudek comes home to Regica without doing the job and reporting the damage. In order to secure the evidence, Dudek decided to catch the deer by himself and to prove everyone that he was right. After that, hunter and director of the local agricultural company make a plan according to which they will expose the deer to the bank director's gunpoint – on this way they will please the director who will then approve the credit to the agricultural company. Presvetli and Cinober, of course, decide to involve themselves in the whole story. Presvetli, who always invokes himself on the law, thinks that the deer doesn't belong to the agricultural company but to the hunting association. Cinober, out of spite towards Presvetli, thinks that agricultural company should take the deer. The two of them start to pull Dudek each on their side, while Dudek, at the end of the episode, decides to release the deer.
Episode 3: "Babica su Nakanili Hmreti"