KOLYA
A film review by Mark R. Leeper
Copyright 1997 Mark R. Leeper
Capsule: KOLYA has a safe-bet plot: a fifty-
five-year-old bachelor suddenly reluctantly
inheriting a son. After he stops fighting it, he
finds parenthood fulfilling an emptiness in his
life. The familiar plot is made somewhat more
interesting by being set in a Czechoslovakia while
Soviet rule is crumbling. If the plot is
unambiguous, at least the film is well-photographed
and has a good score and the screenplay by Zdenek
Sverak (who also stars) is frequently touching.
Rating: high +1 (-4 to +4).
New York Critics: positive: 7, negative: 0, mixed
0
Frantisek Louka (played by Zdenek Sverak) is a fifty-five-year-old Bohemian--both figuratively and literally. He plays the cello for the Czech Philharmonic when he can, plays for funerals when he must to make ends meet, and supplements his meager income by performing cosmetic maintenance on gravestones. He still retains some of his good looks so that he can still womanize. His only responsibility in life is occasionally taking care of his mother. But times are hard in 1988 Prague and he has to look for money where he can. That was how he learned of Nadezda (Irena Livanova) an attractive Russian woman looking for a technical husband so that she can establish Czech citizenship. She is willing to pay well and reluctantly Frantisek agrees to marry her for one night. Even then she disappears into the night, escaping to West Germany and leaving her son Kolya (Andrej Chalimon) with his grandmother. Frantisek is pleased that the incident is over when suddenly the grandmother suffers a stroke and Kolya has to go to live with his new stepfather, Frantisek
This year's nominee for Best Foreign Language film from the Czech Republic is a nice amiable movie that has been done many times before in several different languages. A bachelor finds he has inherited a five- year-old. At first the child is a monumental inconvenience and the man wants to see the boy gone. But of course they learn to love each other and then have to struggle to stay together. . The old man and the boy go through much the sort of relationship that has been shown so often before. We have the scenes of the father's sex life being interrupted by the presence of the child. There is the requisite sequence of the child getting sick and the father worrying over him. It would be nice to accept this film as a creative entry from Eastern Europe, but so much of the film is predictable and taken up with sequences that have become hackneyed that one has to start faulting the film for this lack of originality. KOLYA is too much like THREE MEN AND A CRADLE/BABY, KRAMER VS. KRAMER, BABY BOOM or LITTLE MISS MARKER- -with minor variations in each case. The plot has an irresponsible adult reluctantly forced into a parental role discovering what he (or she) has been missing all these years. It is at heart an affirmation of parenthood that pretty much cannot fail to win the favor of the audience.
Where this film gets much of its novelty is in the political climate of Czechoslovakia in 1988. Nearly everyone in Eastern Europe had an intense hatred of anything Russian. Frantisek has to hide the fact that Kolya is Russian. Even Frantisek's mother does not want the boy in her house when she discovers that he is Russian. Frantisek in talking to the boy compares his inability to get rid of the boy with his country's inability to rid itself of the Russian occupiers. We get some idea of why the Russians are so hated by seeing the Soviet Police and their interrogation of Frantisek when they believe he has married Nadezda to get around the law. Our last scene with the two policemen makes the single most striking irony of the film.
KOLYA was directed and co-produced by thirty-one-year-old Jan Sverak. He is the son of Zdenek Sverak, who plays Frantisek. Zdenek co-authored the screenplay. He is well-cast as Frantisek, still having much of the verve of his youth but matching it with distinguished good looks. One could believe that at fifty-five this man could still fascinate a string of lovers. Andrej Chalimon is, of course, an adorable child with a round face and big eyes. He perhaps cries a little, understandably, but he never seems to have the sort of bad- behavior days that real children seem to have. He is just a bit too perfect. Such children do exist, of course, but after what this child has been through it seems unlikely that Kolya would still be one. There are a number of attractive paramours for Frantisek, but the sex is never explicit. In general this film is a bit too likable and neat. This is good entertainment rather than good art. Overall I would rate it a high +1 on the - 4 to +4 scale.
Mark R. Leeper
mleeper@lucent.com
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