Kolja

Plot synopsis:
The film begins in 1988 as the Soviet bloc is beginning to disintegrate. František Louka, a middle-aged Czech man dedicated to bachelorhood and the pursuit of women, is a concert cellist struggling to eke out a living by playing funerals at the Prague crematorium. He has lost his previous job at the Czech Philharmonic, having been half-accidentally blacklisted as "politically unreliable" by the authorities. A friend offers him a chance to earn a great deal of money through a sham marriage to a Russian woman to enable her to stay in Czechoslovakia. The woman then uses her new citizenship to emigrate to West Germany, where her boyfriend lives.
Due to a concurrence of circumstances, she has to leave behind her 5-year-old son, Kolya, for the disgruntled Czech musician to look after. At first Louka and Kolya have communication difficulties, as they don't speak each other's languages and the many false friend words that exist in Czech and Russian add to the confusion. Gradually, though, a bond forms between Louka and Kolya. The child suffers from suspected meningitis and has to be placed on a course of carefully monitored antibiotics. Louka is threatened with imprisonment for his suspect marriage and the child may be placed in a Russian children's home. The Velvet Revolution intervenes though, and Kolya is reunited with his mother. Louka and Kolya say their goodbyes.
Bachelor Louka ends up fathering a child with his girlfriend - perhaps a replacement for lost Kolya - and regains his position as a virtuoso with the philharmonic orchestra.

Tags: romantic, historical, storytelling

Review:
Take the old formula of two mismatched people being forced to live together, and rejuvenate it by losing the cliches and adding excellent script and direction, and utterly superb acting by all the cast, especially the two leads (the grouch and the boy).
Set in the twilight of Communist rule in Czechoslovakia, we find Louka, a 55-year old confirmed bachelor, blacklisted concert cellist, and womanizer, struggling to make ends meet.
She promptly flees to the West, leaving Louka with her 5 year old, Russian-speaking son, Kolya.
Czech people used to learn Russian language at schools so they can appreciate it.I am so sorry that there is no way that you could enjoy even these parts of the movie.
Kolya works as a film on several levels at once -- political, artistic, personal, etc.
The performances are magical and the entire film is encased by music of very great beauty and humanity by Dvorak and other great Czech composers.
The vintage film footage of Kubelik conducting Smetana's Ma Vlast at a concert at the end of the Russian occupation is a wonderful touch.
Although I'm sure many other Czech films deserve Oscars, I am glad Kolya was recognized.
Seeing this makes me understand how Czechoslovakia could have a fairly booming film industry.This movie came on on cable network IFC and it first grabbed my attention because I didn't recognize what language the characters were speaking.
Indeed I was late to work and really wanted to get going, but I was unable to tear myself away.Beyond the great writing, acting, and directing, this film has some truly amazing cinematography.
I really didn't know where the movie would end up, and in fact it was portrayed so subtly that I had to rewind the final scene to be sure what had happened, and then go back and re-watch a prior scene that contained a seemingly throwaway line that bears on the ending..
Louka, played by Zdenek Sverak who also wrote the screenplay, is a onetime philharmonic cellist who has lost his orchestra job because the Soviet era Czech communist powers-that-be deem him unreliable.
This ultimately results in Louka becoming solely responsible for the woman's five year old boy -- who only speaks Russian.
(it is very similar to the film Ponnette) But what I considered to be the best part of this movie was the little boy's performance.
After all there are still good movies made about underdog sports teams prevailing, and even the exact same material (thinking Shakespeare here) can be made fresh through different productions.The man in question here is Frantisek Louka, the place is the Czech Republic, and the time is 1988 (just prior to the "Velvet Revolution").
This leaves Louka to care for the child "Kolya." One thing that makes this movie stand out is the quality of the acting by all involved.
A lot of little scenes exemplify the underlying tensions, such as Louka's being expected to display both the Czech and Russian flags in his window, Louka's mother refusing to let some Russian soldiers in to wash their hands by lying about her having no water, and Louka's purposeful refusal to learn the Russian language.
How the political situation drives the action makes for a singularly interesting story.The musical score that contains works by the Czech composers Dvořák, Suk, Fibich, and Smetana adds a special quality.Don't be turned away from seeing this because it touches on familiar themes; it is a quality film with unique characteristics..
A good Czech film--but there are better ones.
While "Kolya" is refreshing compared to American standards, it lacks the maturity of say Kadar's "Lies my father told me" (Golden Globe winner for best foreign film in 1976) made in Canadaa film in English with a Czech heart and soul or Forman's "Loves of a blonde" (also about music and musicians).Czech cinema gives a lot of importance to classical Western music.
There have been better Czech films unknown to American and West European audiences..
The effort to make the movie more understandable for foreign audiences might have upset some film critics here, maybe even make some jealous with all the awards and positive responses it got.I personally am in love with all work of Sverak.
I think that performances of all actors in this movie are great and camera work and music is just enchanting.So 10 points coming from Czech Republic..
In this case Louka (Zdenek Sverák), a confirmed bachelor, marries a Russian woman to get her Czech papers and to get him some money to buy a car and fix his house and pay some debts.As soon as they marry, she heads to Germany.
her son, Kolja (Andrei Chalimon), a little five-year-old, ends up with Louka, who soon finds that he is bonding with the boy.It is a beautifully touching story with some outstanding performances by the two leads and Libuse Safránková as Klara.It is fascinating that star and writer of the screenplay is also the father of the director.
From another user comment, I gather that this film is packed with humor and references that will only be apparent to those familiar with Czech language and history.Despite that, to me it was an eminently satisfying film.There are three inter-related, connecting narratives, all intensely interesting, that propel the film and our attention.One is that this largely captures the time just before the revolution against Soviet occupation.
And a little of what it was like in the transition to greater freedom.Another narrative deals with the life and times of a bachelor professional musician, a cellist, who long ago had to decide between having a family OR being a serious professional musician.
Due to a realistic but complex series of events, Kolja cannot accompany her.The film deals with trying to accomplish that and its aftermaths and consequences.I thought "Kolja" did a good job of showing SOME of the pain that a child -- separated from biological father, biological mother, biological grandmother, etc.
The characters didn't over play, the little boy was excellent, specially the scene where he talks in the bathtub to his his grandma over the phone was heart pounding.
The music in the film is good, and i like the way the comedy was placed through the movie.
I really kicked my self for not knowing more language to feel certain films like this..
Watched the movie with Subtitles and I wish I knew Russian or Czech to understand the language barrier between the characters.
It is a heart warming story which focuses on relation between a 55 year old man - Louka - a lady's man, who is dedicated to bachelorhood and a concert cellist struggling to make a living and a 5 year old Russian speaking boy - Kolya forced to look-after due to circumstances post a fake marriage in exchange of money.
The photography is a pleasure; the story line, well, a bit predictable in places, but not jarringly so; the acting from all principals, including the little boy, utterly convincing; and the background is the Czech countryside (masking its pollution with beauty, as shown in a strange scene in the otter-less Otter Creek), the incomparable Prague, and picturesque villages.
An especially good scene in the film is at the beginning, when you see Kolya looking out the plane window.
Kolya is a great film which was filmed in 1996 by Jan Sverák, the son of the actor, director and screenwriter Zdenek Sverák who played the main character in this film.
Despite the fact that even american consultants were involved in the film in order to make Kolya understandable even for the Americans, I do not think that Americans could understand it in as properly as we Czechs do.
Czech and Russian, which makes the film very difficult for the Americans to understand.
Louka (Zdenek Sverak), a 55-year-old, self-centred, womanizing, bachelor Cellist enters a fake marriage-of-convenience and ends up alone with a 5-year-old boy, Kolya (Andrej Chalimon),  to look after.
This film is an absolute mastership of movie making.
The plot might seem simple to some - older man taking care of a child, but the epicness of this drama lies in the historic setting of this story which is amplified by the absolute mastery of displaying the scenes both through the eyes of a 6 yrs old as well as as the portrayed every-day struggles of a grown individual in the "normalizing" era of Czechoslovakia.
The film will captivate you from it's beginning to the end, throughout the whole story in it's heartbreaking moments as well as by the easy set scenes.
Pictures how a child can change a crazy man into an excellent father, pictures how love overcomes the nasty feelings toward a particular nation due to occupation, and outlines the real life situation during the last breaths of communism in an iron curtain country.
Kolya, a 1996 Czechoslovakian movie by Jan Sverak makes this point very beautifully.
In desperate need of money (to buy a car), he marries a Russian girl half his age and with a young son, Kolya, to get some money in lieu of helping the young lady secure the Czech citizenship.
The parting is tragic but Louka seems to have found some direction - he is again playing at the Philharmonic and his companion is now pregnant with their child.This is a very well made movie that brings out the subtlety of relationships with great ease and humor.
"Kolya", an award winning Czech film set in Prague, is a sweet and sentimental story about a boy (the title character) and a male cellist who, through circumstance, becomes his guardian.
The general plot of this movie is certainly not new--a confirmed bachelor having a small child dumped into his lap and the subsequent growth of this individual as a result of raising a kid.
Plus, although this COULD have been a "do it by the numbers film", it diverged into unusual directions (particularly setting the movie in the waning days of communist Czechoslovakia) and the ending was NOT so predictable as well.The acting, pacing and direction were excellent and I had no complaints about this.
The only real complaint I have is that although this type of film is usually intended as family fare, KOLYA is DEFINITELY not--as it has a very brief nude scene.
This is a lovely movie about a cute little boy.
There are so many wonderful, moving scenes there, see Louka's large hand holding Kolya's tiny little hand, this can be a token picture of showing the main theme of this movie.
Luckily, they are not the only virtues of the film - smooth and logical script (still with pleasant turns and realistic ending), talented performances (particularly Andrey Khalimon as Kolya and Zdeněk Svěrák as Louka), and depiction of nonsense of communist times (in fact, totalitarian and miserable when people had to wriggle and invent various options to survive and enhance quality of life as little as possible) compose an integral enjoyment, where comic and tragic elements are in place and balanced.
I was discussing movies with an acquaintance of mine when he handed me a video of a film I had never heard of before, "Kolya".
I was also struck by how beautiful the cinematography was; even Louka's apartment seemed to take on a rich texture of its own.Even if you're not into foreign films, I would recommend giving "Kolya" a try.
Kolya, one of the first movies where I could empathize with a man three times my age..
I don't know much about that part of the world, and I am glad I got to learn a little bit about Czechoslovakia- even if it is through a movie.
Zdenek Sverak is one of best Czech directors and his movies belong to classical movies of Czech film archive and lots of his movies are connected to people brains and hearts very much.
Is that once the Wall is down, the people stop thinking?Right, it got the best foreign movie from Academy.
But then his life changes after he has to take a five-year-old boy under his wing.The cinematography, character development, and historical context all combine to make this one fine movie.
In fact, Zdenek Sverák, the actor who plays Louka, actually resembles slightly the Hollywood actor.All kidding aside, Kolya is actually pleasant viewing, the kind of sentimental middle-of-the-road, life-affirming fare that Hollywood seems to embrace when it comes time to pick out the Best Foreign Language Film nominees (See France's The Choir and Joyeux Noel as examples).
This is not to denigrate its modest virtues, but really, this is the kind of film your grandmother would love.Kolya is about a 55-year old confirmed bachelor who despite his age, can still score hot chicks half his age that look like they came from the pages of Playboy Czech Republic edition (probably not surprising since Sverák also wrote the screenplay of the movie).
But the deal goes wrong when the "wife" defects to West Germany, leaving him in charge of little Kolya (played by cute but not too cute Andrei Chalimon), a kid he can't even talk to since he's not conversant in Russian.One of the most notable things about this film is its subtlety.
But the filmmakers also allow for a happy ending for Louka, in a brief shot that you may miss if you blink.My irreverence toward Kolya does not mean that I didn't like the film.
Kolya was an amazing little film.
Having lost his place in the state orchestra, he must make ends meet by playing at funerals and painting tombstones.Although I am by no means well-versed in Czech film, I have seen a few of the New Wave pieces and have been impressed.
Setting the film in this time creates an interesting dynamic, because Czechoslovakia has a nice distinction of being between the Western world and the Russian world (yes, Russia is part of Europe, but only in the most literal sense)..
This Oscar winner for Best Foreign Film is a sweetly gentle movie that mainly focuses on the budding relationship between the 50-something man and the five-year-old boy.
'Kolya' is not bad and I cried at certain moments both times I saw this movie.
Not only in my view, another movie written by Zdenek Sverák deserved Oscar: I mean 'Vesnicko má stredisková' directed by Jirí Menzel, a film with much better actors than Kolya, less stupid plot, but not less human and touching.
Yeah, it was probably cute, heartwarming, tearjerking, funny, happy, what have you not, but it lacks any technical achievement or story originality to deserve a Foreign Film Oscar.
Sverak seized his opportunity and used the historical fact that people in the west may be interested in a story like this at that time.
This is a Hollywood style made movie that is apparently created by a Czech for non-Czechs and as can be seen from the previous contributions - it found its viewers - people who call it Czechoslovakian - although it is purely Czech, people who believe it describes life in USSR - we were never part of the USSR, and even people who believe it was political and helped us to fight the Russian oppression - the movie was made in 1996, long after the revolution.....after all it shows the communist reality so unrealistic - so sweet....full of romantic pictures....so that the stupid Americans who need to see the world black and white can understand it....it is a well packed sweet product from a far away easteuropan country which explains in pictures how it all was.....I absolutely hate this film and think that there are hundreds of better Czech movies, especially from the 60's, but I am not sure that the people in the West, especially in the US would ever get them - they are too realistic and it takes time and requires some intellectual curiosity which most of them are missing.....The worst thing is that once, years from now, people will look at it, none of them will have a direct experience with communism and they will cry over this story and think of how bad, but actually "interesting" times they were!....I can literally see the annoying tourists coming to Prague these days and bearing in mind this movie with its cute pictures, music, universal story and a "very interesting period called Communism"....I am going to stop now - this movie make me angry even now!.
Well, *eh*, like a Czech citizen I couldn't say, that this film is bad.
It's a well-done work of the "young" Sverak, but every time I read comments like "wonderful", "best movie" or something like that, it makes me sick.
Or -if you prefer art movies- watch the magically amazing black and white pictures from the New Wave {O slavnosti a hostech - for example}, including Forman's Czech films /of course/.
"I didn't look back," the old man says: "So, for me, they'll be beautiful forever." In his dealings with the boy, KOLYA, he learns to look beyond the superficial- and, in the end, can't help but look back..
I just watched this film for the sixth or seventh time and I ended, as always with tears running down my cheeks.
Most of the comments from Americans here in IMDb are very naive and quite hollow, especially when it comes to these Oscar-winning, real life political movies.
And to you, I think you were a Brit, that thought the movie was too sentimental, and that the scene where Kolya tries to ring his Babushka in the bathtub, was ridiculous; I just wonder, where is your heart?
This is a Czech film, The awards it won & was nominated for were all very well deserved.It is about the true meaning of family.Coincidentally the lead actor ZDenak Sverak also wrote the wonderful screenplay & his son Jan Sverak skillfully directed.KOLYA (the title character is a 5 year old Russian lad Andrei Challman, this was the first appearance by this very bright boy, who is now appearing in a Russian TV series,He is now of course a teen stealing teen age girls hearts like he stole ours in the film.The time period is 1988 & the end of Communism,Thankfully there is very little political stuff in the film.The little boy is adrift & is helped by those around him mainly this middle aged lonely man.There is much humour,some sadness & most of all a true sense of what family means.The film is superbly acted & made.