Kolya
A movie by Jan Sverak
Cellist Frantisek Louka (Zdenek Sverak) is an aging playboy. Since he was thrown out of the National Philharmonic Orchestra because of "subversive remarks" (the movie takes place before the communist regime in Czechoslovakia came to an end), he only plays at funerals and makes some extra money re-painting gravestones.
Because of his pressing financial needs he agrees to a fake marriage with Nadeschda (Irina Livanova), a Russian woman who wants to obtain czech citizenship.
According to their agreement they shouldn't see each other again till the divorce, but she escapes to the West and thus draws the attention of the police to him. To make things worse her mother suffers a stroke and the paramedics leave Nadeschda's five-year-old son Kolya (Andrej Chalimon) with Louka.
Louka doesn't know what to do with the frightened child who doesn't even speak his language. His mother refuses to take care of him because she hates the Russians. So Louka is stuck with Kolya and even has to take him to work. Kolya is fascinated with the crematory. He keeps drawing coffins that go through doors and once even re-enacts the scene with his puppet theater.
Louka tries to hand the boy over to the authorities, but they are too busy and tell him to wait. After a while Kolya starts to fit into his bachelor's life. When finally a social worker shows up and tells him that Kolya will probably be sent back to the Soviet Union he and the boy hide with a friend in the countryside.
After the communist regime in Czechoslovakia crashes Nadeschda comes back to get her son.
Jan Sverak has made a movie that's neither kitschy nor exessively cute. Andrej Chalimon is a real treat. The chemistry between him and Zdenek Sverak is great. Kolya is no precocious boy wonder and Louka doesn't become an unbelievable super-dad.
KOLYA concentrates on telling the story of the two protagonists, but doesn't neglect the important events of 1989 and shows in an unobtrusive way details from daily life in Czechoslovakia.
Louka goes to Prague with his friend Houdek to celebrate their new freedom - and meets the two policemen who questioned him after Nadeschda disappeared. Now the wave czech flags like all the others.
There are more charming minor characters. Louka gets his girl friends to help him care for Kolya. The teacher Susie reads a Russian fairy tale to the boy over the phone while her husband is next door taking a shower. The singer Klara helps him to take care of Kolya when he is sick.
Another highlight is the grave-digger's crazy family. He is Nadeschda's cousin and the fake marriage was his idea.
All in all a great movie. Please give us more of that.
Gesehen und Gelesen: Buch- und Filmkritiken http://www.inka.de/sites/darwin
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews