Daniel Day-Lewis stars as Tomas, a successful young doctor in Prague thoroughly enjoying a mutual attraction to much of Czechoslovakian womankind. The gorgeous Lena Olin plays Sabina, an open-minded artist who is his lover. Soon, he is also taken by a small town girl named Tereza Juliette Binoche who adds her unsophisticated passion to what had been his Prague bachelor pad. There is, of course, internal tension here between carefree lightness and faithful commitment, and it resounds externally in the thunder of massive Soviet tanks rolling into town and crushing the brief Prague Spring.
Geneva, Switzerland offers the characters a happy-go-lucky option β but it is not home, and Swiss insouciance makes them as anxious as the communists oppression in Prague. Where the film is lacking is in words. The dialog is somewhat terse and superficial. Daniel Day-Lewis spends nearly the entire movie with the same faint smirk on his face, which serves to tell us both that he is very sexually interested in assorted women, and that he deeply resents his communist intimidators.
Overall though, The Unbearable Lightness of Being is worth watching despite its shortcomings. I think it also resonates a bit with current world frictions between the forces of despotism and liberty. See other posts about: movies. Please add your thoughts: Cancel reply.
Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behavior or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions. Functional Functional Always active The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user. The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes. The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes.
