Kolya
Director Jan Sverák and writer/actor Zdenek Sverák
In its own modest and gentle manner, Kolya (1996) tackles the weighty issues of personal and political transformation. Set in Czechoslovakia during the last months of Soviet occupation, Kolya follows a roguish cellist named Frantisek Louka as his already marginal existence is turned upside down when he becomes the reluctant guardian of a 5-year-old Russian boy.
With this film, about a boy finding an unlikely father-figure, director Jan Sverák, 31, continues a fruitful professional relationship with his own father, Zdenek, 60, who plays Louka and wrote the script for Kolya.
"A lot of people wonder how it's possible for a son and father to collaborate," says Zdenek Sverák, sitting next to Jan during a recent visit to Detroit. "I think it's a normal situation as in old times." Jan continues the thought, comparing their relationship to that of a craftsman who passes his knowledge on to his son, with the pair eventually working side by side as peers.
Zdenek was already well-known as a screenwriter and actor by the time Jan enrolled in film school in Prague. Having a famous father had its advantages, but also the burden of "heightened expectations."
"Everything I wrote and did, he was looking at it and making comments," says Jan about his skeptical but supportive father, "and those small comments were the best advice, the best school."
It was Jan's Space Odyssey II (1986), a short film made with tongue-in-cheek flair, that convinced Zdenek that his son was on the right track. "This story was so funny and so touching that I was surprised," Zdenek says. "I was suddenly sure that he had talent."
In Odyssey, two elderly women, living in neighboring concrete housing estates, are kept apart by an intimidating patch of snow between their buildings. As one woman makes the journey to visit the other, her actions are underscored by John Williams's music from Star Wars (1977). As they finally near each other, NASA transmissions are heard on the soundtrack. Jan even added long Hollywood-style credits at the end.
In the documentary department where he studied, Jan explains, "the demagogues weren't so demagogic. They were accepting that documentaries were something that expresses our view of real life," even when they included such fantastical elements.
Jan's 1988 graduation film, Oil Gobblers (Ropáci), won the American Film Academy's Oscar for Best Student Film. Then, on his first feature film, Jan began his collaboration with his father. The Elementary School (1991), like Kolya, is concerned with the ties between adults and children, in this case a young boy who idolizes his teacher at the expense of his relationship with his father. Written by Zdenek (who also plays the father), The Elementary School (Obecná skola) was nominated for an Academy Award.
Jan went on to make the 1994 science fiction parody Accumulator I (with some input from his father) and the low-budget road movie The Ride (Jizda) in 1995. Zdenek continued to write scripts and act in other films, which included director Jiri Menzel's Oscar-nominated My Sweet Little Village (1985).
They re-teamed to make Kolya, which has been an enormous hit in the Czech Republic. Already the winner of a Golden Globe, it has also been nominated for an Academy Award as best foreign language film. [Kolya went on to win the Oscar.]
Under communism, Czech filmmakers learned how to gingerly sidestep censors by cloaking their political statements in sly allegories. Audiences knew how to read between the lines. But since the 1989 revolution, Czech filmgoers have become accustomed to openness, and the script for Kolya had to reflect this shift. "It's a different way of writing," admits Zdenek, when "it's not necessary to hide something."
Even in this "new language," he still finds humor. "Don't sleep here," someone says to a drunk passed out in a bar, "you're not at work." Louka and Kolya only know the rudimentary basics of each other's language, and Louka takes advantage of every opportunity to vocally berate the Soviets to Kolya. "Where ever you march, you stay," is one of his typical remarks, delivered in a comforting but slightly peevish tone.
As a member of the intelligentsia, Louka could never have been the central character in a Czech film made before the revolution, Jan explains, because what he has to say, the censors wouldn't have approved.
"Louka is not a hero," Zdenek adds. "He's not brave like the dissidents, but [many people] behaved like him during communism."
"We were like him, we were afraid," concludes Jan. "We were fighting with small things like not putting the flags up [during communist holidays]. We felt that this was something heroic."
While both Sveráks agree that Kolya is anti-Soviet but pro-Russian, there is a palpable anger embedded in this film. "The most stupid people were leading the country," says Zdenek about life in communist Czechoslovakia. "They decided about my life and my work and the future of my children. It was a question of human dignity."
© 1996, Serena Donadoni. All rights reserved.