Kolja (1996)
Genre: Drama / Comedy
Duration: 105 minuten
Alternative title: Kolya
Country:
Czech Republic / United Kingdom / France
Directed by: Jan Sverák
Stars: Zdeněk Svěrák and Libuše Šafránková
IMDb score:
7,7 (16.927)
Releasedate: 15 May 1996
Kolja plot
František Louka is a gifted cellist, but expelled from the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra for political reasons. He earns his money playing at funerals and restoring tombstones, but he always has a chronic lack of money. Louka is very attached to his life as a bachelor, but that doesn't rule out his fondness for women. It is therefore only out of money that he decides to get married. He enters into a marriage of convenience with a beautiful Russian who needs Czech papers to go west. She leaves her son with an aunt, but when she suddenly dies, Louka is suddenly stuck with the boy.
Actors and actresses
Kolja
František Louka
Klára
Maminka
Brož
Brožová
Blanka
Houdek
Teta
Musil
Reviews & comments
arno74
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- 8700 messages
- 3342 votes
A small and warm film that won several awards, including an Oscar and a Golden Globe. Rightly so, there is little to complain about the plot, atmosphere, direction and acting. The film is about Louka, a Czech musician who starts to thaw thanks to the unexpected arrival (via a marriage of convenience) of a Russian child (Kolja) in his life. It is a film that progresses, during the first half we are introduced to his life in the Czech Republic, which ended in a downward spiral after the Prague Spring. The country is occupied by the Soviet army and the population has to live together with them, thanks to them he has lost his job. As a solution, he is forced to accept money for a marriage of convenience to a Russian woman. This forms the starting point of this warm and honest tragicomedy that, despite the comic, does not lose its sense of reality.
With simplicity and modesty, this director delivers a beautifully warm work without pretensions. 3.5*
Translated from Dutch · View original
Dievegge
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- 3180 messages
- 8228 votes
In part it is a touching family drama in which the cuteness of the boy is played up. However, it is set against the political backdrop of Czechoslovakia in the late 1980s, culminating in the Velvet Revolution.
Zdeněk Svěrák, a cross between Sean Connery and Thienpondt from De Colleagues, plays the cellist Louka. At first he comes across as a womanizer, but thanks to the child he evolves to greater emotional maturity and wins hearts. An individual in conflict with the bureaucracy quickly arouses sympathy; a child whose fate is determined even more by political circumstances.
The austere lifestyle in the satellite state is well depicted, for example with the Trabant, that square East German car that was so popular in the Eastern Bloc. Visually it's also good, especially with those clouds at the end. Birds symbolize peace and freedom. The narrative style is smooth and with a sense of humor.
Translated from Dutch · View original
Movsin
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- 8286 messages
- 8441 votes
I have already seen several films in which the care of a chin is forced on a man, without having experience with that.
However, I have rarely seen one as beautiful as this.
Lots of humor and tenderness and witty, usually sarcastic, allusions to the Russian occupation of Czechoslovakia in the background.
Although the ending may be a bit too sentimental, the beautiful scenes with the growing rapprochement between man and child cannot be ignored.
Beautiful, emotional music accompanies this film, which also excels in its witty, logical and varied structure, imagery and well-thought-out dialogue.
Kolja is a sweet boy and Zdenek Sverák, with the Sean Connery looks, is easy to accept as the new "daddy".
Translated from Dutch · View original
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