The film begins in 1988 in Soviet-occupied Czechoslovakia. František Louka, a middle-aged man dedicated to bachelorhood and the pursuit of women, is a concert cellist struggling to eke out a living by playing funerals at the Praguecrematoriums. He has lost his previous job at the Czech Philharmonic, having been blacklisted as "politically unreliable" by the authorities. A friend offers him a chance to earn a great deal of money through a sham marriage to a Russian woman to enable her to stay in Czechoslovakia. The woman then uses her new citizenship to emigrate to West Germany, where her boyfriend lives.
Due to a concurrence of circumstances, she has to leave behind her 5-year-old son, Kolya, for the disgruntled Czech musician to look after. At first Louka and Kolya have communication difficulties, as they don't speak each other's languages and the many false friend words that exist in Czech and Russian add to the confusion. Gradually, though, a bond forms between Louka and Kolya. The child suffers from suspected meningitis and has to be placed on a course of carefully monitored antibiotics. Louka is threatened with imprisonment for his suspect marriage and the child may be placed in a Soviet children's home. The Velvet Revolution intervenes though, and Kolya is reunited with his mother. Louka and Kolya say their goodbyes.
Louka returns to the Czech Philharmonic and plays Má Vlast with the orchestra under the conductor Rafael Kubelík at the Old Town Square in 1990, while his pregnant girlfriend Klára watches from the crowd.
The film was released on DVD and VHS on 2 July 2002.[5]
Reception
The film gained positive reviews.[6][7][8][9] It received Honorable Mention at 53rd Venice International Film Festival. On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 96% based on 25 reviews, with an average score of 7.90/10.[10]
Box office
In the Czech Republic, the movie's country of origin, over 1.34 million visitors made the movie one of the most successful movies ever. In Germany more than 624,000 tickets were sold for the film.[11]
The film was successful on a limited release in the United States[12] from 24 January 1997 and had taken about $5.73 million by 11 July that year after an opening weekend gross on three screens of $37,795.[13]
