Der Tag eines Spinners

Even though I've lived in Poland for over a year now, I generally don't watch many Polish movies, especially newer ones, which I've found to be very derivative of American and British films. This movie however is a true gem. A rare film that makes you take stock of your own choices in life. The movie focuses on a day (though actually it has to be more than one day) in the life of Adas, a 49 year old high school teacher from Warsaw who's first words to us are "I'm afraid of waking up", and we soon learn thats not all he's afraid of. Adas is deeply dissatisfied with every aspect of his life. From his noisy neighbors, to his broken family, to the Polish government, to his own inability to climb out of his personal hell. Told mostly through narration voice-over which clues us in to Adas's thought process, the film explores the turmoil of middle age with an honesty and poignancy rare in film. While certainly hilarious in moments, this movie serves up an equal (or greater) amount of melancholy as well, balancing the two aspect, delicately. As Adas passes from compulsion to depression, to denial, to rage, we learn more about him, and come to empathize with him. The most striking feature of this movie for me, was the universality of Adas, and the relate-ability to him. Yes he is Polish, with some uniquely Polish complaints and problems, but he could easily be any middle aged man in any western society. While he's a wacko in his own way, what the movie says is, "aren't we all?", "aren't we all this man in some way?" This movie did for me, what hardly any movies do anymore; it made me think and reflect about my own life and my own choices, and any movie that can do that, deserves praise in my book.

If you're looking for a comedy to spend some time laughing you've got the wrong movie. This one isn't funny and if there scenes to laugh about it's not because they're "funny" but because they're true.

"The Day of the Wacko" is about one day taken from a life of a underpaid, depressed, Polish language teacher in Warsaw. But it's also about getting old and tired of life that seemed so happy and nice at first and then turned into a total disaster - a disaster that a lot of people getting old (not only in Poland) experience. Another movie about Adas Miauczynski is true to the bone, it tries to picture the confrontation between the idealist dreams that all of us had while being young with reality that, often, is depressing and sad. And it does..."The Day of the Wacko" also makes a few points about us, Polish people (or rather people in general), that we often try to hide or make them go away in our minds. I believe each and every person after watching the movie will feel that this it's, even in a flash, about themselves.

The screenplay, and directing is really good, but the movie would be poor if not for some excellent acting by Marek Kondrat as Adas Miauczynski - he's not excellent, he's absolutely wonderful as a man that considers himself as the lowest of the low. In my opinion this is one of the most universal Polish movies ever made (at least after 1989) and anyone interested in Polish cinema should take a while to see it.

10/10

DAY OF THE WACKO, directed by Marek Koterski, is a rather droll comedy about the daily life of an eccentric and depressed Polish high-school teacher. He's angry, lonely, underpaid, unappreciated, and can envision no end to his predicament. Imagine a film in which the ambient spirit of Eleanor Rigby is reconfigured as a very frustrated Polish, middle-aged nerd, and you come close to the tone of this dark farce. There are some scenes which are very funny, and others are just plain odd. Yet, overall, the film is worth a look. When the hero visits the beach to relax and unwind, he meets some of the craziest and bizarre characters that one could imagine. A few of these scenes are flat-out hysterical. Bonus Features are all in Polish without sub-titles.

Dzien Swira ( Day of the freak) is Koterski's latest addition to an already impressive portfolio. Like his other semi-autobiographical move titled Nic Smiesznego ( nothing funny), Dzien Swira records the inner dialogue & the prose of a single day in the life of Adam Miauczynski, a character based on M. Koterski. Miauczynski, like Koterski, is an compulsive-obsessive, excentric, bitter & disillusioned individual caught in Poland's post communist reality, a reality as Ill suited to him as the communist one was. One of the reasons why Koterski's work is either loved or intensly disliked by Poles, is the painfully acurate description of polish hell, made all the more vivid by his insistance on showing the trivial & at the same time essential moments of daily life in excruciating detail. life is all the more hell when the damned are aware that life could be different, and this is what makes Miauczynski's suffering all the more real. A number of the scenes are classics, unequalled by any of Koterski's contemporaries, especially the scenes depicting Miauczynski's relationship with his son, the senate, train toilet and street demonstration scenes.

It is unfortuante for the western viewer that the context & language of the film make it very difficult to translate adequatly, refering as it does to polish classical literature, contemporary culture and nigh-untranslatable street slang, the contrast being all the more vivid, since Miauczynski is a Polish literature lecturer obsessed with what he percieves to be the decay of the language he loves.

If I were to compare Koterski to any western director, it would be to Britain's Mike Leigh. An insane Mike leigh with an infectious sense of humour & a penchant for social commentary.

All in all, This is Koterski's finest work to date, perhaps the finest Polish film in the last 5 years. My rating is a solid 8/10

The film does not consist only of flat humor as of vulgar speech and behave of the protagonist but has a very deep social critic (as for example the popping up of 3rd world scenes or showing how neighbors treat each other or in general how people talk to each other). The protagonist appears as a freak but compared to the rest of the world he is the most normal one, it is the behave of the society which leads him to his abnormality. An other strong critical emphasis is put on the consume-society of our world. TV advertisements are shown totally ridiculously and the products they advertise are totally non-sense. It may appear quite funny, but if we think about this fact it is shown like it is in reality. Profit and consume dominate about rationality and humanity. It is one of the best movies I've seen in the last year, the humor is not typical American slapstick or "Al Bundy -like" but the vulgar talking of the protagonist calms the pathetic style and makes it easier to watch and also very funny. A+!!!