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Title: | Movie Reviews and Discussion |
Notice: | Please do DIR/TITLE before starting a new topic on a movie! |
Moderator: | VAXCPU::michaud o.dec.com::tamara::eppes |
|
Created: | Thu Jan 28 1993 |
Last Modified: | Thu Jun 05 1997 |
Last Successful Update: | Fri Jun 06 1997 |
Number of topics: | 1249 |
Total number of notes: | 16012 |
Nominated for this year's Best Foreign Language Film Oscar.
Prague, 1988. Frantisek Louka, a 1st-class orchestral cellist, is down on
his luck, having lost his position in a high profile orchestra because of
an imprudent remark on some bureaucratic paperwork. He is making ends meet
playing at cremations and restoring inscriptions on gravestones. He's a
confirmed bachelor, who lives alone in a tower apartment in an old building
in Prague and has occasional affairs with a variety of women.
Louka agrees, for a large sum of money, to undergo a "fake marriage" to a
Russian woman, so that she can get Czech papers. The plan is to divorce
in 6 months. But she emigrates, illegally, to West Germany, and then her
mother has a sudden stroke, leaving Louka with a 5-year-old Russian
stepson he barely knows.
Most of the movie shows Louka coming to terms with his situation, learning
to be a father to little Kolya. Kolya's a cute kid, not in a smartass
Hollywood way, a big-eyed, very lonely, little blond Russian. Man and
child come to love each other. And, although Louka is a pretty apolitical
character, the politics of Czech-Russian relations at the end of the cold
war are ever-present, ironically interwoven with the personal, human story.
(The heart of the movie, however, is the human story.)
It's all very well done, an understated, sometimes humourous tear-jerker
with interesting characters and setting.
-Stephen
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