Kolya

Pros: Fantastic performances, moving story, excellent score and cinematography.
Cons: None in my book, though some may find subtitles distracting.

I have been fascinated by Prague ever since I first read Milan Kundera’s The Unbearable Lightness Of Being. I spent a week in Prague and other parts of the Czech Republic in 1998 and became even more enamored with all things Czech. So naturally...

Pros: Touching story, superb cinematography and musical score, credibly moving performances
Cons: Broadly predictable (though not in its details)

The 1996 Oscar winning film in the Best Foreign Film category, Kolya, was a family affair in more than one way. It was directed by Jan Sverak, a bone fide member of the Czech New Wave school of cinema, and was scripted by and starred Zdenek ...

Pros: script, direction, cinematography, score
Cons: familiar story, mildly sexist, kid is too sweet, subtitles

After Kolya won Best Foreign Language Film at both the Golden Globes and the Oscars, there was something of a backlash. The film was criticized for its lack of originality. After all, countless films have the plot device of a loveless adult...

Pros: A perpetual adolescent male learns responsibility and love
Cons: I'm not sure the mother SHOULD have the child

Franta, the 55-year-old cellist who is the main character of "Kolya," has his life worked out to a fare-thee-well. He owes one Broz more money than he will ever be able to repay, but Broz is a friend, and apparently put him on to his...

Pros: A story on many levels
Cons: A story on many levels

I have read the Epinion 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...

Pros: The set decorators appear to have used up the world's entire stock of grey paint.
Cons: At all levels this is a completely black and white colour film.

Along with many other movie fans I find myself moving away from Hollywood inspired efforts and focusing more and more on films originating from other countries. I constantly try to get family and friends to watch the latest French or Chinese epics. If I...

Pros: movie making art is present.
Cons: none really, this is an excellent movie.

recently I have been watching more foreign cinema and it is amazing the art that is coming out of europe and asia nowadays. Kolya is a beautiful movie and it deals with so many levels of story telling that I might have to purchase the movie and watch it...

Pros: Beautifully, filmed, acted and poignant.
Cons: None

"Kolya" is more than simply a film about a bachelor taking care of an abandoned Russian boy who he cannot communicate with. It not only shows the character development of Franta, the selfish bachelor, but also the growing character of Prague struggling...