Cinema
The House of Fools
Dom wariatów
Marek Koterski · 1985
Synopsis
Adaś Miauczyński, who is approaching thirty, returns to his parents' home for the first time in a long while. The visit is unannounced, and it takes an alarming length of time to open the barricaded door; his mother greets him without effusion, his father is getting ready for bed. Then begins, over the course of an evening, the spectacle of each one's quirks: the father contradicts everything his wife says and tells stories he cannot finish, and Adaś, still treated like a little boy, rediscovers the atmosphere of his childhood.
Context
Written by its author, partly drawing on his own life, this first feature film was shot in 1984 at the Karol-Irzykowski studio, with Marek Kondrat, Tadeusz Łomnicki and Bohdana Majda, after Aleksandra Śląska had left the role of the mother three days before shooting. It was released on 10 September 1985. It introduces Adaś Miauczyński, whom the author would bring back in eight other films, up to 2018, played by different actors, including his own son.
Who it is for
Ninety-three minutes of family quarrels, in crude, relentless language, somewhere between the grotesque and drama.
Prizes and reception
Prize for best first film at the Koszalin festival, and the darkest of the films devoted to its main character.
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