The Unbearable Lightness of Being Review
By James Brundage
The Unbearable Lightness of Being focuses on Tomas (Daniel-Day Lewis), a Don Juanist terrified of commitment and a surgeon at a Prague hospital. He is trapped between his platonic and semi-erotic love of Teresa (Academy Award winner Juliette Binoche), a photographer and his wife and a erotic and semi-platonic love of Sabina (Lena Olin), a painter and his mistress.
Teresa is haunted by terrible nightmares and suicidal urges brought on by a love of Tomas clashing with a hatred of his "lightness" or the ability to view sex as entertainment and not commitment. Sabina, on the other hand, is having to deal with her very first tinges of jealousy as the only man she may have ever truly loved is now obviously in love with another woman.
As a necessary subtext, this occurs at the same time as the occupation of Czechoslovakia by the Soviet Union.
This is where the book and the movie, a perfect joined atom before, begin their fission. In the book, a major point was a philosophical protest to the occupation of Czechoslovakia, to the point where the book devotes some one hundred pages entirely on this subject. In the movie, it is a subtext and a backdrop. The few times that it does appear, it does a cameo.
Those cameos, on the other hand, are so powerful in their own respects that they would be academy-award cameos. One such is a magnificent black and white re-creation of the invasion of Czechoslovakia, which is packed with all of the emotional content that the one hundred pages of the book could muster and more. Kudos to Sven Nykvist, the cinematographer of the film.
Following the invasion, Sabina, Tomas, and Teresa emigrate to Geneva, Switzerland, where they end up in the same predicament that they were in at the beginning of the film.
Returning to the part of the story that the film harks on, The Unbearable Lightness of Being is successfully able to ponder: polygamy or monogamy? It also, despite numerous sex scenes and adulterous encounters, paints more poignantly than any other film the damage that Tomas' "lightness of being" (polygamy) does to a faithful person.
Teresa loves Tomas enough, however, not to try to change him. Instead, she herself attempts to experience this "lightness of being", trying modeling for nude photographs by and taking nude photographs of Sabina and a very unsuccessful adultery with an Engineer.
Teresa is unable, of course, to feel this lightness, and instead is only faced with an increasing sadness as she fails again and again. The sadness is perfectly transmitted to the screen thanks to Juliette Binoche's performance. She was, is, and forever will be one of the actresses that does good in any role.
This is not a date movie. The question laid unto the viewer is too heavy for a couple in the early stages of their relationship to ponder. Nor is it what the other critics say: "The most openly sexual American film in ages" (Rolling Stone). Sex was used to advertise it, and, although it plays a major role, the movie and the book are both about love, not sex.
As far as the adaptation goes on other methods, there are several things left out. Teresa's family, mentioned extensively in the book, is brought up only once in the movie. Sabina's affair with a man named Franz is a quick event in the movie, but a major plot of the book. Also, the desire to protest towards freedom is more focused on in the novel.
This is a movie for those few willing to accept the challenge of an intellectually stimulating film with a long running time, difficult philosophical questions, literary references, and political means and motives. If you can deal with that, which I know is a lot to ask, then please pick it up. Please enjoy this film. And, should you enjoy the film, please read the book.
Neither will disappoint.
Facts and Figures
Year: 1988
Run time: 171 mins
In Theaters: Friday 5th February 1988
Distributed by: Orion Home Video
Production compaines: The Saul Zaentz Company
Reviews
Contactmusic.com: 4.5 / 5
Rotten Tomatoes: 95%
Fresh: 18 Rotten: 1
IMDB: 7.4 / 10
Cast & Crew
Director: Philip Kaufman
Producer: Saul Zaentz
Screenwriter: Jean-Claude Carrière, Philip Kaufman
Starring: Daniel Day-Lewis as Tomas, Juliette Binoche as Tereza, Lena Olin as Sabina, Derek de Lint as Franz, Stellan Skarsgård as The Engineer, Erland Josephson as The Ambassador, Pavel Landovský as Pavel, Donald Moffat as Chief Surgeon, Daniel Olbrychski as Interior Ministry Official, Tomasz Borkowy as Jiri, Bruce Myers as Czech Editor, Pavel Slabý as Pavel's Nephew, Pascale Kalensky as Nurse Katja, Jacques Ciron as Swiss Restaurant Manager, Anne Lonnberg as Swiss Photographer, László Szabó as Russian Interrogator, Vladimír Valenta as Mayor, Clovis Cornillac as Boy in Bar, Leon Lissek as Bold Man in Bar, Consuelo De Haviland as Tall Brunette
Also starring: Daniel Day Lewis, Saul Zaentz, Jean-Claude Carriere, Philip Kaufman