The House of Fools

Adaś Miauczyński (Marek Kondrat) is getting on for thirty. He returns to his family home for the first time after a long absence. To be fair, the visit is unexpected, but still it takes a disturbingly long time for the barricaded door to open. Finally, his mother (Bohdana Majda) appears in the doorway and greets her son without any special affection. His father (Tadeusz Łomnicki) is getting ready for bed. A display of the family members’ weird behaviours begins. Each of them has their little obsessions. Adaś falls into the nightmare of his family’s daily life that has always persecuted him and which there is no escaping. Here, the boundary between normal human kindliness and hatred has long been obscured. The first in a series of films with Adaś Miauczyński as their protagonist. Brilliant auteur cinema balancing between the grotesque and genuine drama. (Warsaw Film Festival)