A parody of people who want to get rich regardless of the costs and who see material wealth as something to judge people’s value by. Envy and jealousy mix with naivety as the excessive need to impress others fuel the main plot. One of the later films by Wanda Jakubowska “the mother of Polish cinema” and the screenplay debut of writer Edward Redliński.
The Dębik family’s aim in life is achieving wealth. They choose snail farming for export as the method to reach their goal. They use their three teenage girls for help. Their son Marcin who dreams of the city life and his own car isn’t interested in his father’s idea. After a fight at a rural party he decides to run away to Lublin, where his paternal uncle runs a photo shop. The uncle soon dies and Marcin takes over the shop. His resourcefulness and unconventional ideas turn the studio into a profitable business. He still dreams of owning a car, so he saves every penny. The car is to help him impress Ania. He loans some money from his father and buys a Pontiac. The sight of the Dębik family driving the car to church astounds the village residents. The Wróbel family envies them the most – this makes them decide to get their sons to marry the Dębik girls. Meanwhile it turns out the Pontiac was a piece of junk skillfully prepped by the salesman. It keeps braking down and takes tons of gas. There’s a crash in which the car is totally destroyed. The Wróbels help repair the car under the condition that the Dębiks will include it in their daughters’ dowry.
Excerpt from the movie
