Product: The Unbearable Lightness of Being (Two-Disc Special Edition) (2006)
Rating: 4.0
Daniel Day Lewis should keep his shoes on
This movie poses the troubling question, "Who is more attractive: Juliette Binoche, or Lena Olin?". For mine, Juliette is the answer, if only by a whisker (Karenin, a very charming dog, also featured in my deliberations). Of course, for those of you who are interested, old hatchet-head, Daniel Day-Lewis, is also given more than adequate screen time, and various parts of his mantis-like body are revealed, including his feet, which prove to be quite repulsive.*Kundera's book plays with philosophical concepts for primarily aesthetic purposes, and the film pragmatically dispenses with this philosophical bunting in favour of a focus upon love and desire and, with surprising resonance, upon the intrusion of public life, in the form of politics, into the private. To extract a conventional and satisfying plot from Kundera's self-conscious and theory-infected text is a credit to the screenwriters - what results is a very watchable, entirely cinematic movie, more in the Hollywood mould than the European arthouse tradition.*A large part of the film's charm lies at the feet of Juliette Binoche (as mentioned previously, Daniel Day Lewis's feet are wholly charmless). Her incredible capacity to portray joy and exuberance lights up the screen; her darker emotions are equally believable - her performance is superb, and prefigures perhaps her most astonishing role in Kieslowski's 'Blue' (a far superior film to 'Unbearable...', by the way - it's available on DVD from Amazon.co.uk). Lena Olin is suitably erotic (nice hat), and Daniel, I concede, methodically inhabits his character of Tomas, using one of his inflexible traits as an actor to effect, namely his staunch refusal to reveal himself psychically, a kind of introversion that lends Tomas much needed mystery - after all, here is a hedonist, a lothario, who is also motivated to dedicate his life to neurosurgery and, ultimately if imperfectly, to his wife, an intensely private man who refuses to yield to political pressures - you need a bit of mystery in order to reconcile the contradictions. Incidentally, all the actors, be they English, French, Swedish, or German, struggle to limp through a Czech accent - forgivable, but not ideal.*The film is long, almost three hours, and falls roughly into three parts, the last possibly being the strongest. If you wanted to give titles to these three 'chapters', you could try: 'Pornography, Exile, Love'. That would be glib, true, but if the film has a failing I think it lies somewhere in the vicinity of glibness - there is something a little too easy about its surface, and the dialogue never dares to flash light on any implied depths (in contrast, say, to Bergman, who always attempted just this, taking risks in the process - you might find yourself laughing at some of his most portentious lines, but you won't here, because Kaufman lacks the courage to disturb you).*So, worth a look, for the pretty pictures is nothing else; Criterion provide a good transfer, which you could well expect, although the actual print shows some signs of wear and tear, oddly so considering its tender age. Criterion have also lost the rights to this picture, so it is out of print as of late 2001 - so order now before Amazon runs out (other retailers already have).