The basic premise of Jan Sverak’s Kolya may conjure notions of banal, feathery frivolty for many film patrons:  An aging, lonely, womanizing Czech has his world turned upside down when a young Russian boy is unexpectedly thrust into his life.  This of course causes all sorts of inconveniences that are eventually overcome, and both their lives are enriched by the unlikely friendship.

This type of crowd-pleasing, feel-good fluff is Hollywood’s bread and butter.  The only thing is that Kolya is a European film, and it’s hardly fluff.

Not that the simple fact of a film’s European origins somehow makes it better as some critics seem to believe; more so that the staging and pacing are generally such that they allot a larger chunk of time for the audience to become acquainted with the characters adequately enough to become emotionally invested in their lives.  This can work equally in favor of or against a film.  In Kolya‘s case, it is a key element in its success.

We are allowed to become intimately involved in the life of Louka (Zdenek Sverak), a virtuoso cellist that has been cast out of the Philharmonic by the Russian occupants in 1980s Prague just prior to the Velvet Revolution.  Now he plays funerals for a meager living.

Louka is a passive rebel.  Too old to summon any great protest; too stubborn to give the Russians any satisfaction from even the slightest compliance.  His steadfast defiance has forced him into odd jobs to makes ends meet as his funeral gig doesn’t quite pay the bills.

Louka has a grave-digging pal with a niece that needs a Czech visa to avoid being sent back to Russia.  The niece pays the reluctant Louka to become her bogus groom allowing her to acquire the visa and Louka a car to travel to more odd-jobs.

The neice then splits to West Germany leaving her 5 year-old son, Kolya (Andrej Chalimon) in Louka’s involuntary hands.  Denial and resentment slowly transform into acceptance, love, and even joy;  emotions that must have felt utterly alien to the grizzled, once lonely old man.

Vivid symbolism is conspicuous throughout the film from the pigeons behind the glass to the falling of the Berlin Wall.  Some insinuations are obvious, others are more ambiguous.  Each lends itself to greater contemplation and admiration than a comparably pitched film.  Kolya is worth the 105 minutes.