INNER LIFE [1986]
year:
- 1986
release date:
- 28 VIII 1987
runtime:
- 86 min
directed by:
- Marek Koterski
written by:
- Marek Koterski
director of photography:
- Jacek Bławut
cast:
- Wojciech Wysocki [Michał Miauczyński], Joanna Sienkiewicz [Ola, Miauczyński’s wife], Maria Probosz [Ewcia, a neighbour], Jolanta Nowak [Blondewcia, a neighbour], Antonina Gordon-Górecka [Miauczyński’s mother], Henryk Bista, Jan Machulski [Miauczyński’s father in law], Eugenia Herman [Miauczyński’s mother in law], Zbigniew Buczkowski [Wisiek], Anna Milewska [a judge], Ewa Ziętek [a woman in the elevator door]
edited by:
- Mirosława Garlicka
production design:
- Wojciech Saloni-Marczewski
produced by:
- Studio Filmowe im. Karola Irzykowskiego
executive producer:
- Jerzy Kajetan Frykowski
Konsultacja muzyczna :
- Unisława Głażewska
awards:
-
• Film Debut Festival Koszalin "The Young and the Cinema" 1987: Jury award for Marek Koterski, best performance awards for Wojciech Wysocki and Joanna Sienkiewicz, ZSMP Award for Marek Koterski
• Polish Feature Film Festival Gdynia 1987: best director award for Marek Koterski, best editing award for Mirosława Garlocka
• Warsaw Mermaid 1987 for Marek Koterski
About the film
Impossible to classify as one specific genre, the film describes chronic loneliness, neurosis and disintegration of the protagonist’s personality.
His inner life is practically nonexistent, replaced by morbid fantasies and progressive aggression. The horror of an existence devoid of spirituality is appalling, yet comical and coloured with a healthy dose of grotesque, black humour.
The protagonists of the film are: Michał Miauczynski − a forty-year-old man, his wife, and their neighbours living in the same block of flats. Michał takes the elevator to go to work. When a neighbour with their child tries to stop the elevator, he pushes all the buttons.
The elevator goes off and Michał is pleased to hear the women cursing and insulting him. When he throws bottles into the rubbish chute, he is attacked by a neighbour's dog and, panicking, tries to force open the constantly jamming door of his own apartment. At dinner, his wife tells him about a meeting with the "vampire", a terroriser of all the women in the district. After dinner, Michał mulls over the problem of the difference in skin colour between blacks and Swedes.
At night, he dreams of sexual relations with his neighbours. Each subsequent day is only a slightly modified replica of the previous one. Elevator, rubbish chute, dinner, tinkering with home appliances and shouting at his wife.
A visit of the in-laws, an evening stroll, being stopped by the police, a struggle with a dog owner, the desire of some mythical sexual fulfilment − all this determines the “inner life” of the protagonist. Once again riding the elevator, Miauczyński hears the scream of a woman who thought he was ... a vampire.
Waldemar Piątek, Leksykon polskich filmów fabularnych, Warszawa 1996
