Day of the Wacko

I'm not sure what some get so uptight about nitpicking some small details and missing the whole big picture and the wonderfull moments of the film. I also left Poland as a child in 1979 and one thing I had to live through is bad Hollywood films:P This movie can be crude, but why shouldnt it be. If your life turned out like this you would be extremely unhappy and likelly using rather colorfull words when you reached the boiling point as the main character has. The film is simply art, it had no typical pre-fabricated way of telling the story, it was simply a day in life of an angry man with a life time of regrets and love that he yearned for. It also had some critisisms of Poles in general and I have to agree, sometimes there was to many "me me me" when I have visited insted of "we". I think the prayer at the end summoned it up. Most of all it is a satire, it is taken to extreme in places, thats what satires do, so dont take this to literally, just enjoy and try to understand that it is not you regular moron proof hollywood movie where everything is laid out in front of you and overexplained so the dimmer amongst us dont ask to many questions. To me its one of the best films I have seen in the last ten years, a pleasant surprise.

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

I don't watch foreign movies very often. Day of the Wacko was an exception. But I was glad I saw it. Would not have missed it.

The title of the movie contains exactly what the film is all about. A day of the life of a real wacko. Watch this strange man, doing everything in his own careful way. As he has been doing his whole life. The man tries to escape from his town, his habits.. his life. Will he manage to do this?

A strange movie. But really good. And with some clear messages for all of us. If you get a chance to see this one, be sure to watch it.

You will not be disappointed.

It's a shame that this film isn't available on dvd in Europe.

I think it definitely is. Recently Polish films were pretty much always with Olaf Lubaszenko and Cezary Pazura. A decent director/actor pair but nothing special. Their films like "E=mc2" and "Chlopaki nie placza" were funny but rather mundane, just vulgar humor followed by slapstick. It's funny, but you get sick of it after a while. Then there were movies like "Psy" which are Polish wannabe American crime thrillers and action movies. Again they were decent efforts, but not comparable to movies of the same genre from Hong Kong (Hard Boiled) or America (Resevoir Dogs). This film however is a true work of art. Not just made to look cool, but to express a directors point of view. I think it compares to Aronofsky's masterpiece "Pi," in that it's story about a man lost in the search for something. Granted is the fact that this is a very different film than "Pi" in its story, but artistically it's a good achievement for a Polish director who looks like he is on his way to be among Wajda and Kieslowski. 9/10

No MPAA rating. Contains strong profanity

I'm not Polish, but I had the pleasure of visiting most of the country on multiple occasions, I studied there, I dated there. To all the critics who despise the use of profanity, the vulgar approaches of the protagonist, or the economical background, I invite them to take a closer look around Poland. If the described situations are unrealistic, then this is only half true. There are much worse and true facts that are either not mentioned or unexplored in this movie, like the feeling of unsafety, the neediness for capitalism and the exploitation hereof, and the careless and emotionless attitude of the young (men).

Apart from that, this movie nails it. I saw it during a screening in my classes on Polish culture (braught by Polish teachers). I laughed out loud after the first words were uttered when the main character woke up. How sad, but how true his words were. Of course this is satire. What happens here to one person could at most be the combination of a hundred people involved. Still, the pain is real. It's not an easy life out there if you're a local. Everyday is a struggle, the English language is an unrealistic necessity, money is a key word.

Keep an open mind when you watch this one. Seek out the good parts (I enjoyed all the dog references, since I'm not a big dog fan), and know that politically, economically, and privately, this does represent a part of Poland. I love that country though, with all its flaws. It's just not always easy.

The movie gets a 10 from me. I haven't seen anything like it, and I've seen most.