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[Zabougornov]

Тут на днях посмотрел фильм "Невыносимая лёгкость бытия". Отличный фильм! Никто не смотрел?

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0096332/

Summary written by Dan Hartung {dhartung@mcs.com}
Tomas is a doctor and a lady-killer in 1960s Czechoslovakia, an apolitical man who is struck with love for the bookish country girl Tereza; his more sophisticated sometime lover Sabina eventually accepts their relationship and the two women form an electric friendship. The three are caught up in the events of the Prague Spring (1968), until the Soviet tanks crush the non-violent rebels; their illusions are shattered and their lives change forever.

Summary written by Colin Tinto {cst@imdb.com}
Tomas is a surgeon, living in Prague. He has a physical relationship with Sabina - but not an emotional one. They are happy with the situation. Then, Tomas meets a waitress in a station, but leaves. Eventually, she comes to see him in Prague. Will he go against his 'values' and let himself get emotionally involved ?


Отзывы зрителей

Author: Casey Machula (caseymachula@earthlink.net) from Flagstaff, AZ
Imagine you're at the theater attending a live performance, a truly living performance in which both axioms and mythological truths are entered into and shared by actors and audience alike. Now suppose that the backdrop for all the action is dark, oppressive, and heavy, while all that transpires before it is light, glib, and ineffectual. Now consider that, through the course of the play, all that is bouncy and trivial becomes overwhelmed and absorbed by the gravity of the background, like light being sucked into the gravity of a black hole, so that what was once meaningless and unimportant and even silly becomes increasingly momentous and important and valuable as the play progresses. If you can see this outline in your mind's eye, you have a good idea about The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Milan Kundera's novel by the same name brought to life as a movie. The film, like the novel, declares one thing: `only necessity is heavy, and only what is heavy has value.' I so love this idea, this earth shattering insight: it effortlessly capsizes our Postmodern zeitgeist in one innocuous little phrase. And the film expresses it beautifully.
Set in the Prague Spring of 1968, when the Soviets put down Dubcek's `Socialism with a Human Face,' the weight of these events draws the lives of a Czech doctor, his wife, and his lovers, into its orbit. And instead of crushing them, as one might assume, it becomes the fire that purifies gold. Tomas (Daniel Day-Lewis), for example, had previously written a treatise on Oedipus, a witty exercise in sophistry aimed at the Communist regime as a provocative analogy, nothing more. But as the essay becomes an object of obsession to the Communists, we see Kundera's definition of vertigo come into play. It is not the fear of falling, but the soul's defense against the desire to fall. Tomas wanted to fall. Why? Watch the movie, and find out for yourself.

Author: francois chevallier (francheval@noos.fr) from Paris, France
Romanticism originally doesn't mean romance. The 19th century romantic hero was always a doomed one. The romantic characters long for something larger than life. The frailness, lightness of things is unbearable to those sensitive beings. This is why romantic stories typically end with the death of their heroes. Romanticism is the opposite of Hollywood, as there is no happy end. The epitome of a romantic story is for example "Romeo and Juliet", where death is preferred to an impossible love story.

Because such intense feelings are a threat, some people try to escape them by taking nothing seriously. For example, Tomas (Daniel Day Lewis), a young surgeon living in Prague in the late sixties. He is a perfect womanizer, but he never sleeps together with any woman, because he instinctively refuses any attachment. Such is also sensuous Sabina (Lena Olin), his favorite mistress and best friend, whose utmost erotic weapon happens to be... a bowler hat.

When Tomas is called for an operation at a small country spa, he seduces a young ingenuous waitress named Tereza (Juliette Binoche), but is not aware that she does not take things as lightly as he does. Bored to death with her provincial life, Tereza longs for something larger than life. She is vulnerable, sentimental, attaching. When she shows up by surprise at Tomas's apartment in Prague one evening, he lets her stay. He is trapped.

Neither of them suspects that they are living an intense moment in a crucial place. This is Prague, Czechoslovakia, the Eastern Block. But the winds of change are blowing in general enthusiasm, and Czechs believe that they are about to create " socialism with a human face". Encouraged by Sabina, Tereza becomes a photographer, and captures on film all the small daily life scenes, the beauty and uniqueness of every moment.

Tereza's caring love can't stop Tomas having affairs with "other women", much to her disarray. As she finally can't take it anymore, she decides to leave. But as she steps out on the dark streets, it sounds like an earthquake is coming. The Soviet tanks are entering the city. The reconstitution of Prague's invasion in this movie is extraordinarily intense, even more so as clips of the real events are included in the footage. Those few moments alone are strong enough to make this long movie worth seeing.

Tomas, Tereza and Sabina exile themselves to Geneva. Sabina has an affair with a married Swiss man, who "doesn't like bowler hats". As he eventually decides to leave his wife for her, she is very shaken, but she disappears. No attachment. It's lonely to be free. As for Tomas, Switzerland can't stop him either playing Casanova. Tereza still can't stand it, and she suddenly goes back to "the land of the weak". But I said it, Tomas is trapped. He can't live without her. He can't help following her back to Prague, although it's clear there is no future for them there anymore.

The story is an adaptation of a novel by much praised Czech novelist Milan Kundera, and it is one of those cases when the movie is more intense than the book. Whereas the movie is highly emotional, the book's tone is dry, cold, almost clinical.

Made by American director Philip Kaufman, this picture is European in every way. It captures perfectly well the "old world" nostalgic atmosphere of Czechoslovakia. The music score by Czech classical composers is gripping, sometimes melancholic, sometimes frantic. The lead actors are giving their all, and this film is certainly among their best performances for all three. The supporting cast also has some big European names in it (Erland Josephson, Daniel Olbrychski, Stellan Skarsgård). Cheerful performance by Czech actor Pavel Landovsky, who personally lived the Prague events. Here, he appears as a jolly and solid peasant with a pet pig called Mephisto, who follows him just everywhere, even at wedding parties!

Tomas and Tereza's pet is a she-dog called Karenin. She is the symbol of their love. They adopt her at the beginning of their relationship, take her together to Geneva, but as she escapes, Tereza takes her along back to Prague. As Karenin gets ill in the end, they make her a lethal injection so that she doesn't suffer. Pretty much what will happen to them too.

And well, I never knew bowler hats could be so erotic!

Author: zetes from Saint Paul, MN
One of the most romantic films ever made, it shows the problems of people whose intimacies and personal conflicts are being interrupted by history on the move. I think this film surpasses the novel, which is utterly cynical (although understandably). Even in the last moments of the novel, Teresa is concerned that Tomas is cheating on her. The film also does well by dropping much of Franz's character - he was kind of uninteresting compared to Teresa, Tomas, and Sabina. It also drops such deadweight characters as Teresa's mother, Tomas' son, and Franz's wife. Also, a ton of different coworkers are combined into a few, so that their characters have time to develop. By concentrating on the three central characters, this film blossoms past what the novel ever achieved (although the novel is arguably more historically important). Philip Kaufman and Jean-Claude Carriere also add a couple of beautiful scenes that weren't in the novel, including Tomas' and Teresa's wedding, which is one of the most beautiful scenes in filmdom.

Author: FANatic-10 from Las Vegas, NV
I've not read the book this is based on, so have no way to comment on how this movie translates it. But the film itself has stayed in my mind like few others. Yes, it's very long, but the characters are so memorable that the length didn't bother me at all - I loved the time spent in their company. In particular, Juliette Binoche and Lena Olin are each astonishing in their own way. Olin is ferociously sensual and mesmerizing, while Binoche is superlatively sympathetic and sensitive. Two of the best female performances I can remember. By the end of the film I was totally wrapped up in these people's lives. This film is deeply erotic but in an intelligent and adult way that puts most other film's treatment of sex to shame. I thought it was beautifully handled by all concerned, and if I ever want to cry, I only need watch the scenes with the dog and the final scenes, both pulled off superbly.

Author: rbverhoef (rbverhoef@hotmail.com) from The Hague, Netherlands
'The Unbearable Lightness of Being', a beautiful title, tells the story of a doctor in Prague named Tomas (Daniel-Day Lewis). The year is 1968 and the Russians have yet to invade the country. Tomas has a physical relationship with Sabina (Lena Olin) and they are both content with that. One day he meets Tereza (Juliette Binoche), a waitress, who is the first woman to stay the entire night with him. Eventually they get married, but this does not mean Tomas is very faithful to her. For him sex is sex, not love.

Then the Russian invade and director Philip Kaufman shows us this in a coupe of great sequences. Tereza is a photographer and her camera, and others of course, makes sure things can be shown in other parts of Europe. They leave the country for Geneva where Sabina already was. Tomas continues his sexual relationship with her, Tereza tries to do the same thing but she simply is not like him. Sabina meets a nice guy too. His name is Franz (Derek de Lint) and he loves her so much he is willing to leave his wife for her. The night he decides to do that Sabina and Tereza have a little get together as well; Tereza needs some nude shots to start a career and Sabina is willing to do that.

How the story develops from here I will not reveal. The film takes it time to tell us everything it wants us to know. We learn enough to understand the characters and in the same time we learn enough about Prague after the Russian invasion. You will get carried away by the story. Strong performances always help in a film that really is about the characters and here we get some great ones. Daniel Day-Lewis always find the right note for anything and here we can see almost at once what kind of womanizer he is. Lena Olin plays Sabina as the kind of independent woman who seems to know everything although we always understand she has doubts too. Binoche brings the perfect vulnerability to her Tereza, making her the character you feel the most sympathy for.

There is one thing I did not like that much, a complaint I have with more American films set in Europe. The people in Prague where not talking English in 1968, or now, but they definitely did not speak English with a strange accent. I was annoyed by this from time to time and I really can not understand it. Just let them speak English in a normal way. This is the only real complaint I have, although some will say it is too long. In my opinion no good film is too long and 'The Unbearable Lightness of Being' is definitely a good film.

Author: Roby Kurian from India
Beautiful, Erotic, existential, anticommunist, humane are the words I pick up to describe the 'Unbearable lightness of being'. From the title, we assume that it is a bit philosophical, but much of the hardcore intellectual stuff has been omitted out as is inevitable in any movie adaptation but the director is faithful to Kundera's work.

This tells the interlocking stories of four relationships, Tereza and Tomas, Tomas and Sabina, Sabina and Franz, Franz and Marie-Claude-with a primary focus on Tomas, a man torn between his love for Tereza, his wife, and his incorrigible "erotic adventures," particularly his long-time affair with the internationally noted painter, Sabina told in the atmosphere of the communist invasion of Prague in the sixties. The Unbearable Lightness of Being examines the imperfect possibilities of adult love and the ways in which free choice and necessity shape our lives. Here, lives are shaped by irrevocable choices and fortuitous events. It is a world in which, because everything occurs only once and then disappears into the past, existence seems to lose its substance and weight. Coping with both the consequences of their own actions and desires and the interfering demands of society and the state, the characters struggle to construct lives of individual value and lasting meaning.

Day Lewis has played Tomas so brilliantly that in each and every shot, we see his womanizing thirst in his eyes and gestures. Juliette Binoche is the female lead, and Nykvists camera catches some beautiful angles of her body that this is the most beautiful feminine face and figure I have ever seen on screen. I do not know how to describe the photography. There are some sequences in mirror rooms and with morning fog which are very delicate and Nykvyst well captures the mood. The black and white footage about the Russian invasion is also brilliant.

Well directed, well acted and well designed, this is one of the best movie adaptations ever. My salutes to Nykvist, Kaufmann and the cast and definitely to Kundera.
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A la guerre comme a la guerre или вторая редакция Забугорнова