Kolya a Czech film drama (my first Czech
movie)
Kolya is the first Czech movie,
I see. The movie is really good and I would classify it as a really
art movie.
It also bears the sad melancholic atmosphere that we hold on the
Balkans. The movie might be a hard to grasp one for Western people
but would definitely be easily understand by someone who lived in
the realms of the USSR.
The movie is also a movie that presents realities of the decaying
communism, the times before the year of the fall the Berlin Wall
(1989).
What was really worthy and edifying for myself was the sad
realities of a falling Union (a false idealistic empire built for
more than half a century).
The movie starts with the main actor Louka, a middle-aged Czech man
dedicated to music (a cellist funeral crematorium orchestra player
and a self-employed cello instructor).
Louka has one major muse which helps him follow his music career,
the pursuit of new love and sexual relations with woman.
As the situation with falling-communism is harsh and the economic
in the Soviet Union is in downturn this kind of trend is even more
seriously felt among people who are in art like Louka.
Most of the movie is happening in Golden Prague (One of the most
beautiful cities in the world IMHO).
Louka is working a couple of part time jobs next to his music
career in the orchestra in order to be able to pay his daily life
and bills, one of his other ways to get extra cash is the
gravestone inscriptions.
Even though Louka is trying hard to earn money to pay back his
loans and get a normal living, he is unsuccessful in getting enough
money to make a decent living.
Suddenly he gets into huge debts which he is not able to pay with
his earned money. As Louka is single he is offered by one of his
debtors to earn money by a small cheat (a false marriage) with a
Russian woman who needs Czech citizenship in order to be able to
later travel freely to the western part of Europe.
He is offered 30 000 of Czech crons which for that time is a really
solid money, which will allow him to pay back his loans and even
get a small car
Trabant !
Even though Louka tries his best to resist the temptation to do the
criminal marriage at certain point the offered money convince him
to accept the offering and he merries the young Russian
fictiously.
As marriages of this type are quite common in Czech in this days of
communism decay, he lives with the promise by the Russian woman
family that they will get divorced after 6 months time.
Louka gets married and gets his money, but just a 2 weeks later the
Russian young lady emigrates in Germany to her German lover and
leaves her young Russian boy
Kolya behind under the care of
her old mother.
The old mother being unable to accept the sudden escape of her
young Russian daughter, gets insane and enters into a mental
hospital.
Since
Kolya (who speaks only Russian and has not even basic
knowledge of Czech) does not a family to be placed in he is being
brought to the apartment of his (father in law) Louka.
Louka enters into an unexpected hardships, where the policy could
chase him for the illeagal fictious marriage and even worser with a
foreign Russian child.
He has never before had any experience with children, so initially
he faces the hell of taking care for a child.
To make things even worser the babushka (mentally unstable
grandmother) of Kolya passes away after a heart attack in the
Mental hospital.
Now Louka is the only "relative" who according to Czech law has to
take care for the 5 year old kid
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 ...
The movie is a serious drama but is a really touching one as it
presents the power of love and how love can change human lives as
Louka's gradual love for Kolya changes him for good.
Kolya is a wonderful piece of art movie and a real
achievement for Czech cinema. Since it's the first Czech movie I
see I want to see a lot of more.
In the mean time just watch the movie as it's a wonderful piece of
all-time movie classic.