Kolya

Jan Sverák | Czech | 1996 | 105 mins

Franka Louka (screenwriter Znedek Sverák) is a concert cellist in pre-Velvet Revolution Czechoslovakia. After losing his job in the state orchestra, Franka ekes out a living playing at funerals. But he's still in debt. His grave-digger friend, Broz, suggests that Franka could make some money by marrying a Russian woman so she can get her Czech papers. Franke, a confirmed bachelor and ladies man, eventually agrees. But his new wife quickly emigrates to the West with her lover, leaving her five-year-old son Kolya with his grandmother. Then, when she dies, Franka finds himself responsible for the boy. That neither can speak the other's language is only the least of their problems...

This feature from prolific father and son team Znedek and Jan Sverák won the 1997 Academy Award for Best Foreign Film. Sadly, however, this perhaps says more about the mindset of those who decide the Oscars than it does about the quality of Kolya.

While unquestionably well made and acted, Kolya is unfortunately also a film of little substance. Its basic plot dates back at least as far as Charlie Chaplin's The Kid (1921) and indeed the film shows a similarly simplistic and sentimental world-view. There are some nice moments - like the scene where Franka desperately tries to conceal the facts about his Russian son from his elderly mother, who regards the Soviets as hungry pests - but they are not enough.

Even if Kolya cannot hold a candle to great Czech films of the 1960s like Closely Observed Trains, which are equally charming but also far more subtle, ironic and subsversive, or indeed to the Sveráks' earlier triumph The Elementary School, it will still provide those who enjoyed the likes of Il Postino and Life is Beautiful with a pleasant evening's viewing.

Review by Keith H Brown
Taken from EUFS programme spring 2000