What I Watched -- The Unbearable Lightness of Being

You all may not yet know how I feel about Juliette Binoche. I've mentioned her on this blog before, but didn't really gush. I loved her in Chocolat and Paris, Je T'aime; in looking back at my blog, I realized that I forgot to write a post about another movie I saw with her in it recently.  I'll get to that, if I can remember enough to write something coherent.

But anyway, about The Unbearable Lightness of Being.  I've never read the book, and the truth is that I probably never will.  But for some reason, I thought it was about something totally, um, different.  Maybe that was because a common cover image is a floating bowler's hat, and because the only other image that springs to mind when I think "bowler hat" are the works of Rene Magritte, including "The Mysteries of the Horizon," "Golconda," and most famously "The Son of Man."  All these images, as well as the title itself, conjure in my mind something along the lines of the metaphysical.  I guess I thought the text of the novel would be, for lack of a better word, deeper.  And maybe the book is - like I said, I haven't read it - but the movie is  about a dude who marries one chick but can't stop loving another.  Okay, it's not quite that simple, but that mostly sums up the plot.  It just happens to be very well done.

The film stars a young Daniel Day-Lewis as Tomas, so I couldn't help thinking how similar the story of this character is to his turn as Guido Contini in Nine, but they're different, too.  Perhaps it's because Tomas is so much younger than Guido that he seems somehow more likable, more innocent, even though he knows that his philandering with Sabina (Lena Olin) hurts his wife Tereza (Juliette Binoche).  The trio of lovers hits all their emotions dead-on, and you understand where each of them is coming from, even if you can't always sympathize.

There are a few odd cinematographic moments, though.  For example, there's the seemingly random and context-less cut to historical shots of the Russian invasion of Czechoslovakia.  I'm not too good on Czech history, so I had to look this one up.  Milan Kundera, the author of the book, was born in Czechoslovakia, so I'm sure this all seemed to be a perfectly natural inclusion to him; one of the screenwriters is French and, while not Czech, it's safe to assume he has been at least mildly steeped in European history, unlike us American kids.

The film still manages to maintain a dreamy, melancholic sensibility, and it works.

Bottom line: it's a thoughtful and worthwhile exploration of sex and love, but it's not for the faint of heart.