‘Kolya’ Skirts Cliches About Cute Kid, Elderly Guardian

When “Kolya” was nominated for a Foreign Language Oscar last February, you didn’t need an advanced degree in film studies to predict that it would win.

These days, the best way to please the Academy is to blend political comment with images of a cute child.

Oh, and it helps to be from Eastern Europe or nearby Russia.

That was the case when Nikita Mikhalkov’s “Burnt By the Sun” won the Foreign Language Oscar in 1994. The Russian director’s young daughter, Nadia, was one of the film’s great charms.

And it proved equally true with “Kolya,” a film from the Czech Republic that documents the positive effect that a young Russian boy has on a confirmed Czech bachelor.

Of course, “Burnt By the Sun” and “Kolya” had something else in common, too: Both were excellently made.

Set just before 1989’s so-called Velvet Revolution, which separated Czechoslovakia from its longtime nemesis, the Soviet Union, “Kolya” centers on an aging musician named Frantisek Louka (Zdenek Sverak). A habitual loner, not to mention womanizer, Louka is a classically trained cellist with a problematic past who now makes his living playing for funerals. In between services, he renovates grave stones, visits his aging mother and romances women half his age.

Offered the chance to make an extra bit of money, Louka reluctantly agrees to marry a Russian woman who needs Czech papers. Not only does Louka have no reason to like Russians (a quick course in European history will tell you why), but he is breaking the law. And he is not eager to attract the attention of the secret police.

Which is exactly what happens when his wife defects to West Germany, leaving him with sole custody of her 5-year-old boy, Kolya (Andrej Chalimon). After trying to rid himself of the child, Louka gives in to the inevitable and does the right thing.

Kolya doesn’t make it easy. He may be young and well-mannered, but he is a headstrong Russian. And he misses his mother.

Thus does director Sverak (father of the lead actor, who wrote the script) set the stage for what Hollywood would turn into a saccharine plot resolution. What’s surprising, and welcome, is that Sverak indeed brings the two characters together, but he does so without resorting to easy emotions.

The growing intimacy between the two comes naturally, feeling as easy as a handclasp. Both learn from the experience, and both are affected by the eventual outcome - as should be any viewer sensitive to matters of the heart.

Yes, “Kolya” sidesteps the hard facts of life that films such as “Burnt by the Sun” embrace with Slavic intensity. But it doesn’t avoid them completely; Louka has suffered because of his politics (or lack thereof).

Most of all, the film allows its two main performers ample room to define their characters. The elder Sverak may play a man allergic to commitment, but his Louka is a good-hearted man whose charm is more than a match for his inherent selfishness. As for young Chalimon, it’s hard to imagine a better performance put forth by a mere child.

Acting doesn’t come any more natural than this.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Photo

MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: “Kolya” *** 1/2 Locations: Magic Lantern Cinemas Credits: Directed by Jan Sverak, starring Zdenek Sverak, Andrej Chalimon, Libuse Safrankova, Ondrez Vetchy and Stella Zazvorkova. In Czechoslovakian and Russian with English subtitles Running time: 1:45 Rating: PG-13