One of the most perspicacious analysts of Polish soul. Born in 1942, graduated from Polish Studies at Wrocław University. He wrote scientific papers and essays and planned an academic career. Yet he gave up a scholarship in France and took entry examinations into Faculty of Painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw, with no success however. In 1967 he was admitted into Directing Department at The Polish National Film, Television and Theatre School in Lodz. He graduated from it with honours 10 years later. He is an author of over a dozen documentary films shot mainly between 1975 and 1986. Koterski was convinced that documentary is, to a significant degree, a creative form rather than an objective mirror and he gladly exploited possibilities it offered. Films from that period are void of journalistic pretence and political ambitions that were typical of Polish Moral Anxiety Cinema. Koterski was more inclined towards impressions and staging elements with author’s individual mark clearly visible.

He waited for his feature debut for a long time. The idea of “House of fools” (1984) was conceived unexpectedly, during his crisis as an artist. Koterski was exasperated with being a second director and filming documentaries. The screenplay was written barely in three weeks and was “a trauma climax”.  The main character became Adas Miauczynski, the director’s alter ego, who would grow up along with him in subsequent films. An oaf, a loser, a typical Polish intellectual – frustrated and perceiving the world around as accumulation of absurdities and hopelessness – bound to become a new Piszczyk and a true hero of the generation. Already the first film by Koterski was clearly autobiography-marked with its characters resemblance to his real family, with re-enacted places and situations he remembered from his own life.

“The house of fools” was filmed upon Koterski’s screenplay. The director remained faithful to his decision to work only with his own texts. Most often the films are based on revised theatrical plays Koterski adjusts to requirements of the cinema. As much as his next work,  “Inner life” (1986), was a serious vivisection of marital relations, his “Porn” (1989) was a shift towards comedy. These 17 erotic stories, marked with insatiation, are according to the director himself a merger of “cash with style” – an attempt to make a film ambitious and commercial at the same time. One million viewers who saw “Porn” made the film the greatest hit of the year.

In “Nothing funny” (1995) and in “Ajlawju” (1999)  Koterski is further developing his unique ability to catch living speech and twisting Polish language up to a comic extreme. The language becomes a barrier to mutual understanding and a source of communication mistakes. Juicy vulgarisms render well the nature of colloquial language and bring the characters closer to imperfect everyday speech. Koterski’s efforts are crowned with “Day of the wacko” (2002), a chronicle of disappointments of a bitter Polish studies teacher. It is, at the same time, the most complete depiction of the Polish everyman motive – forever at odds with surrounding reality. In a few films by Koterski his own son, Michal, makes appearances.  “We’re all Christs” is the director’s another review of his life and his son becomes an equally important character in the story. In most recent “Man, Chicks Are Just Different” (2011) a car journey through Poland becomes a pretext for daring dialogues diagnosing mid-life crisis. Marek Koterski always speaks with his own voice and knocks the viewers out of their blissful complacency.

photo: Michał Mutor | Agencja Gazeta