Kolya

Rating:
Summary: Interesting, funny, heartwarming
Review: I don't know about many other Czech films, but I do know that "Kolya" is a warm, human film which I found thoroughly entertaining. It was very funny as well: Mr. Louka resentfully accusing a cute 5 year old Russian boy of being an expansionist really got me laughing!

A must watch for any human being! :)

Rating:
Summary: very nice ,funny with typical Sverak's humour
Review: I don't write about the story-I think ,that the story is very good . The best non-speaking english film of 1997 ,he got Oscar. It is a story about one older man and suddenly ,he must care of little russian boy Kolya ,he don't speak russia and little kid don't speak czech etc. I don't konow how americans can understand typical sverak's humour which consits of games with czech language. I really don't know how they can be so bossy ,that they can't make a really good dabing. The subtitles are not good . A man ,who see the foreign film with the subtitles ,he is boring. he must keep his eyes stil on tv ,there you can the problem with american useful and lazy life. back to kolya(rather): The thing that the screnplay ,has been wroten by the main actor .He wrote it for him the best ,for the people to make lot of fun

Thank you for reading my review about KOlYA

Rating:
Summary: Kolya--a boy you will love, a movie you will love
Review: I first saw the child, who played Kolya, while watching the 1997 Academy Awards. I was intrigued by this cute little boy and wondered why he went up the stage as the Kolya was declared Best Foreign Picture. Two years later, I finally got to see the movie and I completely fell in love with it, the screenplay and everything else. I loved it so much I got myself a VHS copy, directly ordered from Amazon.

Kolya is a five-year-old boy, who was left in the care of Louka, a certified bachelor with strings of girlfriends. The friendship that eventually blossomed between this unlikely pair will leave the audience moved. Director Zdenek Sverák has captured the essence of the movie perfectly. The audience will leave the theaters with warmth, joy and bliss.

Kolya is a must-see for art film buffs.

Rating:
Summary: Krassavitza! Beautiful Film
Review: I had heard about theis great little film from a Czech friends but never got around to watching it. i was even diffident that I might like the story. One late evening I caught it on TV and started watching. I became completely engrossed in the film a few minutes later. I realized my apprehension was due to the fact that I often get annoyed at overly sirupy child actors but Kolya was charming, cute, intelligenbt to the point that I would love to have a son just like him. The story is simple but captivating. A bachelor gets involved in a fake marriage to provide legal papers for a pretty russian woman to be naturalized Czech. In the background of the story, communism is coming to an end and mnay Czechs, especially, the bachelor's maother dislike Russians. This characteristic actually serves to make one of the most toughing and charming scenes of the film as the russian boy meets a troop of Russian soldiers and is reminded of home. Also in the background is a beautiful soundtrack of classical Czech music - the bachelor is a cellist.
Every character is well played and despite the foreign language it's very understandable. In fact those who are even slightly familiar with Russian will enjoy the film's mixture of Tussian and Czech languages - shown by italicizing the very good subtitles when Kolya speaks in Russian. In many ways it reminded me of another favoirite film of mine: Cinema Paradiso. After that initial TV introduction I've seen the film many times over and bought the video.

Rating:
Summary: Shame about the subtitles
Review: I have just seen this video version, and I was disappointed with the standard of subtitling, but it is impossible to bring over the full meaning of this film to non-Czech (and Slovak) audiences. I'm afraid that I must be cynical and say that the only reason that this film had so much success in the States is due to the cutesy images that are portrayed. There is absolutely no way that the vast majority of people outside this country can fully comprehend the symbolism of several scenes (the key-ringing on Wenceslaus Square, for example). I must also agree with previous reviewers who say that there are far superior Czech films, for example "The Elementary School" (Obecni skola) which, however, is vastly overpriced at $89 - you can buy it here in the shops for $8.

By the way, the actress who plays Mrs. Zubata ("Mrs. Sharp-toothed" - the child inspector) has just come out of prison where she spent three months for tunnelling funds to her glass company (Just for the sake of interest).

One member of my family, who is Slovak, said that this film is essentially anti-Slovak, and that he sent it back immediately after seeing it. (I think the portrayal of Louka's Slovak cello student did not help). It is this type of subtlety that foreigners just cannot understand. To sum up: if your knowledge of the Czech, Slovak and Russian languages and cultures is not up to scratch, you will not appreciate this film to its fullest extent.

I hope this has been useful

Rating:
Summary: Not a cute movie about a cute kid
Review: I have read the Amazon reviews on Kolya and was subjected to the reviews in the Western press when this movie came out in 1996.

Most people thought it was a movie about an old bachelor whose heart melts when forced to care for a child foisted on him by a marriage scam gone awry.
Think again.

This is a profoundly pessimistic movie that uses the cute device of a child melting a curmudgeon's heart to slip by its point that the Slavs are a divided tribe. The last two thirds of the movie hammer home that Czechs detest and fear Russians. The movie takes place in the late 1980's but the Czech loathing of Russians persists to this day.

Russian soldiers no longer pace the streets of Prague. In their place mafiosi from Moscow, Bryansk, and Ekaterinburg, have made Prague the European centre of money laundering. The invasion of Russian money in the Czech Republic is as powerful and humiliating to Czechs as were those tanks that rolled in back in 1968.

The Czechs I have talked to look on Kolya with revulsion. The old man who takes in a young Russian boy will not wet too many Czech eyes. What is a westerner to make of this movie? Louka (the old bachelor) has a nice apartment in the Mala Strana section of Prague. Interior decorators will take note. Trabant enthusiasts get extended shots of the beloved Trabi doing the rounds of the Czech countryside. Afficionados of movies filmed with diminished lighting will appreciate the relentless chiaroscuro of the cinematographer. And some will get a kick from seeing an old degenerate seducing younger babes.

Viewers without such tastes and who do not know or care about Czech-Russian antagonisms will either see a movie that rambles, or will take the movie seriously and go away believing that Czechs are drunk on sex, mistrust of outsiders, and are willing to cut just about any kind of deal to preserve their creature comforts.

Strangely enough, I liked this movie and believe it to be a great movie. Great movies are like great boxers. They hit their audiences in many places, seemingly at the same time. Those with a glass chin will be knocked out by Kolya's sentimentality. Those with more resistance will feel the body-blows of Kolya's relentless social commentary. Those who like nicely filmed films will just sit back with a brew in hand and let themselves relax. Those who have lived in Prague, and know Czechs and Russians, will reel under this film's objective portrayal of life at the border where two great peoples rub up against each other.

Rating:
Summary: Much watched, much loved
Review: I originally saw this film in a local theater during an International Film Festival, and not long later a co-worker, having heard me rave about it a few times, bought me the video for Christmas. I have watched my Kolya video about once a year since, and I never tire of it. It is just wonderful. I don't find subtitles distracting if they're done well, which they are here (brief sentences, no white text against a backdrop of white walls or tablecloths!) Having always wanted to visit Prague, about which I've heard only wonderful things, I love the film's setting. I think the acting is wonderful, the music beautiful, and the plot charming. You also learn (or are reminded of) some relatively recent and interesting Czech history as an added benefit. There are many clever, poignant and witty cinematic moments in this film (watching it more than once helps you catch them all). And I am utterly smitten by Louka's captivating, romantic tower apartment!! I want one! :-)

This film charms me in such a quiet, touching, unassuming way every time I watch it. I'm glad it's part of my collection.

Rating:
Summary: KOLYA - GOOD, BUT NOT THE BEST
Review: I'm pleasantly surprised that so many Americans and other foreign viewers express such positive impressions of this movie, but, on the other hand, I can agree with reviews of Czech citizens claiming that this is not the best Sverak's work. The screenplayer Zdenek Sverak has written many excellent comedies, especially during the seventies, and, paradoxically, I think that his internationally most succesful movies are his worst. Moreover, I'm sorry that foreigners can't understand some Sverak's puns that can't be translated or are not translated well. However, Andrey Chalimon performing the little Kolya is excellent and the movie is all in all quite good. Zdenek Sverak's son, the director Jan Sverak is now going to shot a new historical drama called The Dark-Blue World concerning fates of Czechoslovak paratroopers in the Great Britain during the World War II. I hope that this movie will be at least as successful as Kolya.

Rating:
Summary: Warm & Charimg
Review: In 1988 Louka, a free spirited musician, is offered a proposal to fake a marriage in order help a young Russian woman stay in Czechoslovakia. This is an offer that Louka cannot refuse, since he is in debt and needs a car. He goes ahead and marries the young woman who has a five year old son named Kolya. Consequently, she flees out of Eastern Communist Europe with a visa that is only allowed to Czechoslovakian citizens. Unwillingly Louka is left with Kolya, but he is forced to take care of him as the Communist government is investigating the marriage. Kolya is a warm and charming drama that softens the hardest of hearts as the audience views the traumatic experiences and love that the film depicts.

Rating:
Summary: A Perfect Movie
Review: Kolya is an absolutely superb movie--I've never met anyone who saw it who didn't love it. It has an almost magical way of making you forget it's a film, so you catch yourself thinking "I wonder how Kolya is doing now?" as if you somehow just had a window on the life of real people. It is shocking that someone has not issued this movie on DVD; come on, it won an Academy Award!