The Unbearable Lightness of Being

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Summary: a postscript
Review: The video may not be available at present, but you can bring back memories of the scene in which Teresa snaps pictures of the Russian tanks. If you visit the Czech republic, or a Czech or Slovak internet CD distributor, look for the CD by Marta Kubisova entitled "Songy y Balady". Then turn up the volume on the cover version of "Hey Jude." It's great, and back in press after an absence of a few years.

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Summary: The Non-Judgemental Bottom Line....(ahem...Jen)
Review: I have spent a good part of my life surrounded by people w/low body fat and good reasoning skills, although who among us always used disgression, especially when it comes to matters of the heart. We may use it one minute to discover some divine truth...next minute we rationalize a decision to satify an ego need.

Is this highbrow? The ability to articulate does not a saint make. Besides, any discussion of morality is purely relative (Why don't people understand this - their is no "right" or "wrong" there is however acting in accordance w/spiritual law and not) People w/ the guts to live life and share their experience w/others are fascinating. Beats sitting out in a salt flat wishing I did not subvert all my drives into cravings for doughnuts.

READ THE TITLE!!! Life is so wonderfully simple...but so damn hard to do! This movie is about simply "being". Being human. The depth of the characters draws you in. They draw you in because they act on there "human" impulses not because they are georgeous. Not being familiar w/ the time or place of the movie, it just kinda washed over me but kept me riveted the whole time.

Some lives are simple and boring like those in Salt Lake City or those of the waitress character. Through circumstance lives do change and life can become adventurous and exciting. It's all part of being human. It does not make one person better than another.

This movie takes you through the lives and interactions of 3 people (compellingly). That is it!! What truly brings this movie together is the final scene. The beautiful simplicity of a perfect evening spent w/wonderful friends. They were so engrossed in "Being"...This is hard to articulate.

The feeling I got after the final scene was crushing and then it was all clear. The simple beauty in "I've never been so happy"...then *BOOM*...Everyone who has seen this remembers exactly what they were doing at the time...am I right?..like as if that was the realization that these 2 soulmates had incarnated to experience and then they could be freed from this life. Gorgeously painful. My heart compressed and then burst open. I wailed in anguish. I realized myself lost I become in the details of life and I was ashamed for overlooking what I felt at that moment, the true essence. This scene is truly sublime.

They had done all this living but had allowed themselves to become distracted from the point of it all. Fantastic ending...perfect.

We really do take life too seriously people. We are so busy analyzing it and expecting things that we overlook the magic that it is to just be alive. The Unbearable Lightness is divinely inspired. Pray for those who get lost in the details...this movie will surely be lost on them.

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Summary: The reality shocks.
Review: For those who want to understand how real life works, why people do what they do when they know it's wrong and that anyone is capable of doing the wrong things (returning back to the oppressive regime), "The Unbearable Lightness of Being" presents a rear opportunity to insight.

I really would like to buy the tape, so when my children are older they could see the movie and may be value more the freedom this country (USA) gifts to its citizens...

If anyone knows how to buy the tape, please let me know -- it is out of production. (MailTo://[e-mail]) Thanks.

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Summary: avid book reader and movie buff
Review: read the book. trust me read the book. ( unless all want to see are the naked in this movie) just go get the book, beats the movie by 10 stars

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Summary: High eroticism pairs with high morality
Review: One of the best movies in the last two decades of American cinematography.

The way Western Europe was depicted, the influence of the Soviet Union over the politics in these countries and the attitude of common people towards this influence - speaking from personal experience - is perfectly correct. The characters, especially secondary ones, are very real without being boring or depressive. The screenplay is as well written as the book and definitely easier digested.

If you like movies that are not easily forgotten the day after you've seen them - try to get this one. You'll have few laughs, few tears and new subject to discuss with your friends or at the next meeting of a local high-brow society.

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Summary: Excellent treatment of novel of 1968 Czech life & death.
Review: Philip and Rose Kaufman scored big with this ren dering of the Kundera novel about life and death in Communist Czechoslovakia in the year of the brutal Soviet crackdown. A womanizing physician, an artist/sophisticate and a country girl-ingenue in a tantalizing, ribald, hilarious and finally tragic love triangle against a background of war and oppression. Good story with multiple messages for all of us.

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Summary: Exquisite Film Was One of The 1980's Best
Review: Phillip Kaufman reached an artistic pinnacle with this elegant translation of Milan Kundera's book about the 1968 Czechoslovokian crisis. Daniel Day-Lewis plays Tomas, a physician, whose life consists in seducing women, one of whom - an artist Sabina (Lena Olin) - is his sexual and spiritual soulmate. Into his life comes another woman, Terezina, (Juliette Binoche) who demands more of a committment to her than he will permit to any woman including Sabina. His crisis between the carefree artist and the more demanding Terezina mirrors the crisis of Czechoslovokia between the "liberation" of the Prague Spring and the Soviet repression of August 1968 although neither Kauffman nor Kundera crudely makes Sabina represent the one nor Terezina the other. Although these characters may lead apparently amoral lives, the film and novel are all about the moral consequences of their choices. Many American critics, similar to the one who provided the first customer review, feel that Kaufmann has simply made a piece of arty Euro-lite soft-core: intellectual and opaque enough to appeal to the high-brow crowd yet tittliating enough to strike at their lowbrow desires. While I'll concede that this judgement applies well to his follow-up film "Henry and June" (1990), it's grossly unfair to characterize this film as such. The narrative and themes are presented clearly, the cinematography is gorgeous but never in an overly-arty way like in "Henry and June", and his whirling direction keeps this film moving along at an effervescent 172 minutes. The actors - especially Day-Lewis and Olin - do phenomenal work and contribute mightily to bring Kaufmann's evocation of late 1960's Europe to life. In a strange way, the film compliments the book rather than adapts it and stands on its own as a fully realized cinematic work.

People conditioned to see sex on the screen as a smutty joke or leading to painful reprecussions had problems with Kaufmann's playful sensuality here. He compounded their discomfort by coating all these goings-on with a veneer of class, larding the film with literary references and putting Janacek on the soundtrack. And it was easy to dismiss the film as nothing but a bunch of amoral European sophisicates who make love in between bouts of literary discussions or fighting political repression. But the film pulls us into these character's lives in a much more impassioned and alive way than European art cinema does with its deliberate distancing effects and pretentious moralizing (good recent example: Lars Von Trier's interminable "Breaking The Waves"). The film weaves its larger concerns about freedom and responsibility seamlessly through the narration - we can follow the film without knowing all the allusions and references. Some may see the characters and their bed-hopping as shallow and affected but they are forced to deal with their country's politics and history and have to come to terms with their own lives in ways that Euro-fluff soft-core comedies like "French Twist" never have to. Indeed, the moral choices placed on these apparently frivolous characters gives the film its greatness.

In other words, "Unbearable Lightness" has a sophisticated air because it is sophisticated: in its ideas, direction, writing, and acting. Kaufmann's work since has generally disappointed but here he's made one of the richest and intelligent films of the decade.

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Summary: So If I'm A Jerk Do I Get To Live In Perpetuity, Too?
Review: Okay, folks. Let's get real. This movie/book is essentially about the insipid sexuality of three spoiled brats with soulful eyes, zero body fat, and no moral compasses. Worst of all, there's no search for the compasses. Why is this exhibition of unbridled existential selfishness so popular? Because the protagonists are European-and "misunderstood" quasi-intellectuals to boot. Translation: culturally paranoid Yanks just eat this kind of lean cuisine right up. If you're the type who likes being hungry 15 minutes after eating, don't miss this movie or "The Sheltering Sky," mind-numbing fare featuring filthy rich American "seekers" ransacking the blistering desert (or desert tray) for spiritual bargains that won't make them too heavy with self knowledge.

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Summary: The perfect and complete love story
Review: This is such movie. This movie began an unwavering appreciation for Juilette Binoche, who plays a simple country girl, that adores the dashing Doctor played by Daniel Day Lewis, but who throughout the movie slowly matures into the stronger and more powerful of the two. It is set in the communist Czeck republic, during the tumuletous 60s, which saw uprisings put down by Soviet tanks and military. The backdrop is perfect for a love story, thier problems as a couple gain perspective next to the prospects going on, they both support the cause, and pay the price of being dissadents, which brings them closer together. It has a completley epic feel. It describes a couple, thier circle, the Country, politics and time perfectly. I don't want to give anything away. It is long, but if you like you will think it ends to soon. It bitter sweet and melencholy, but it is so well written I cannot imagine you wont appreciate it. The characters are more real on film than they ever would be life. I will always love this movie. I highly recommend it.

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Summary: Timeless
Review: This film is by far one of the best ever produced: It`s erotic, humoures, sad, poetic and the protagonists are all interesting. Now, this is why many Europeans critizise American films.... They feel most productions from the US are stereotyped, all glam and over the top, while the European productions tend to move more straightforward into our human soul.... This film is one of those glorious occasions when film is high art and linked to the freespirited human soul.