Reviews

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

Golasy is a visually & technically sparse, but interesting experiment. The use of nudity ( all of the characters are nude ) as well as the scenery ( all of the scenes are shot in two drab rooms and a hallway ) serve the purpose of focusing the viewer's attention on the action & dialogue which, while not sparkling, witty or ornate, precisely captures the atmosphere of a single day in a small office in an anonymous Polish bureaucracy.

The subtleties of the dialogue will likely be lost on western viewers, but not on other denizens of former soviet satellite countries for whom all of the characters represent archetypes present anywhere a soviet-style bureaucracy was to be found...

All of the characters are portrayed not by professional actors but by extras & the idea behind casting/nudity, at least according to the director, was to capture the most honest, primal reactions ( changes of stance, posture, muscle mimicry, color) which are best visible without our clothes.

While Golasy is not a ground breaking film by any standard, it is an entertaining & insightful as well as honest look at the human condition