The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1988), directed by Philip Kaufman, is an American cinematic adaptation of the eponymous novel by Milan Kundera, published in 1984.[1] Director Kaufman and screenplay writer Jean-Claude Carrière show Czechoslovak artistic and intellectual life during the Prague Spring of the Communist period, before the Soviet and Warsaw Pact invasion in August of 1968, and detail the moral–political effects and personal consequences upon a bohemian ménage à trois: a medical doctor and his two women.
Plot
The Unbearable Lightness of Being introduces Czech brain surgeon Tomas (Daniel Day-Lewis), a lothario who is a good medical doctor in Communist Czechoslovakia. His lover, Sabina (Lena Olin), is an equally care-free artist. One day, Dr Tomas leaves Prague to operate on a man in a spa town. There, he meets the waitress Tereza (Juliette Binoche), who dreams of escaping her small town life. She follows him to Prague, and cohabits with him, complicating Tomas's extra-domestic sexual affairs.
Tomas asks Sabina to help Tereza find work as a photographer. Tereza is fascinated and jealous as she grasps that Sabina and Tomas are lovers. Her distress about his polygamy is interrupted by the Soviet Army tanks invading Czechoslovakia. Amidst the confusion, Tereza photographs the Soviet invasion, then hands the rolls of film to foreigners to smuggle out to the West. In the event, upon consideration of the coarse reality replacing the Prague Spring, Tomas, Sabina, and Tereza flee Czechoslovakia for Switzerland; first Sabina, then the hesitant Tomas and Tereza.
In Geneva, Sabina meets Franz (Derek de Lint), a married university professor; they begin a love affair. After some time, he announces abandoning wife and family for her. After hearing the declaration, Sabina abandons Franz, feeling he would emotionally weigh her down. Meanwhile, Tereza and Tomas attempt to adapt to Switzerland, a country whose people she finds coldly inhospitable; but when she discovers that Tomas continues womanising, she leaves him and Switzerland, and returns to Soviet-occupied Czechoslovakia. Upset by her leaving, Tomas follows Tereza to Czechoslovakia, despite his confiscated passport, locking him in-country, nevertheless, his return elates Tereza. They are re-united.
In Prague, Tomas tries recovering his old brain surgeon hospital job, but the Soviet-backed régime consider him politically incorrect and stifle his re-employment. Before the invasion, Tomas wrote an anti-Soviet article comparing them to Oedipus Rex; that Oedipus plucked out his eyes when he understood his crime, but that the Soviets have yet to acknowledge their crimes. For his professional re-employment, the régime asks his signature to a letter repudiating the article — Tomas refuses, and is black-listed from practicing medicine; he works as a window washer, and continues womanising.
Working as a waitress, Tereza meets an engineer who propositions her. Having evidence of Tomas’s infidelity, she enters a sexual liaison with the engineer. Afterwards regretful, she fears the engineer might have been a secret agent for the régime, who might blackmail her and Tomas with the sexual liaison; desperate, she contemplates suicide, which Tomas thwarts.
Stressed by insubstantial city life, Tereza convinces Tomas to leave Prague for the country; they go to a village where an old patient of Tomas welcomes them. In the village, they live a farm idyll, far from the political intrigues of Prague. In contrast, Sabina has gone to the US, where she continues in the detached bohemian style of life. Later, Sabina is shocked by the letter telling of the deaths of Tereza and Tomas in a road accident whilst returning home after celebrating in another town. Yet when death ended their unbearably light being, Tereza and Tomas were deeply happy as they drove their truck home.
Cast
The following are the actors and roles:
Production
The film is a United States production and was directed by an American director, Philip Kaufman, but it features a largely European cast, including Daniel Day-Lewis (British), Juliette Binoche (French), Lena Olin (Swedish) and Derek de Lint (Dutch). It was filmed in France rather than Czechoslovakia; in the scenes depicting the Soviet invasion, real archive footage is combined with material shot in Lyon for the film.
Adaptation
Kundera served as an active (but uncredited) consultant during the making of the film. The poem which Tomas whispers into Tereza's ear as she is falling asleep, was written specifically for the film by Kundera.[2]
Reception
The film garnered high praise from critics. The film criticism aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes has The Unbearable Lightness of Being rated as 100% "fresh" (positive).[1]. It is also listed as one of the top 100 love stories in American Cinema by the American Film Institute [3]
Notes
References
External links
