Virginian-Pilot


DATE: Saturday, June 7, 1997                TAG: 9706070026

SECTION: DAILY BREAK             PAGE: E6   EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: Movie Review 

SOURCE: BY MAL VINCENT, MOVIE CRITIC 

                                            LENGTH:   59 lines




``KOLYA'' IS UPLIFTING DESPITE FAMILIAR PLOT

``KOLYA'' IS ONE of those films that makes you feel as if you should, and could, be a better person. It takes a familiar, almost formulaic, plot and quietly, slowly works its way with you. Although the temperature is not right, it would be a fine movie for Christmastime - sweet and yet never cloying.

Louka, the grizzled middle-aged man who, initially at least, is at the center of things, is a loner, a cynic - a man who has seen it all and knows the score. He makes his living playing a cello at a funeral parlor - ironically adding a mellow, dark note to the last rites of the dead. Between notes he uses his bow to mischievously lift the skirt of the soprano who is his accompanist.

The aging Casanova loves 'em and leaves 'em, with no apparent regret. Feminists of the Western world would obviously delight in beating him to death with their bras - or anything else handy. He's the male chauvinist pig supreme.

The setting is Czechoslovakia, with an ample hint of the political turmoil that seems to always be with that country. A Russian woman who needs Czech papers urges Louka to marry her - for politically convenient reasons alone. Feeling nothing, and with his usual cynicism about romance, he enters into the sham. When she promptly runs off to Germany, he is left stuck with her 6-year-old son, Kolya - a little boy who is understandably wary of the grizzled old grouch.

It doesn't take a Sherlock Holmes to figure out that Louka and Koyla are going to grow on each other - and learn from each other. They, in fact, learn to be human beings.

Zdenak Sverak is totally believable as the cynical but vulnerable Louka. The film is directed by his son, Jan.

The predictable heart winner, though, is Andrei Chalimon as the 6-year-old title character - a child actor who actually resembles a child. This, incidentally, is the child you saw carried to the stage at this year's Oscar ceremonies when the film, deservedly, won its Academy Award as the best foreign-language film of the year. (It's in Czechoslovakian with English subtitles). Don't be put off by the language barrier. The message here is a universal one - and a thoroughly entertaining one.

``Kolya'' takes the familiar and makes it particularly refreshing. ILLUSTRATION: Photo

MIRAMAX FILMS

Zdenek Sverak, left, and Andrej Chalimon play a grizzled old grouch

and a young boy who come to care for each other in ``Kolya.''

Graphic

MOVIE REVIEW

``Kolya''

Cast: Zdenek Sverak, Andrej Chalimon

Director: Jan Sverek

MPAA rating: PG-13 (about a child's influence, but not for

children)

Mal's rating: three and one 1/2 stars

Location: Naro Expanded Cinema in Norfolk



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