Better In Your Head?--THE UNBEARABLE LIGHTNESS OF BEING

 

Spoiler Alert: Shout! Shout! Or not. Oh, and the dog dies.

THE BOOK-Written by Milan Kundera, released 1984

THE MOVIE-Directed by Philip Kaufman, written by Philip Kaufman & Jean-Claude Carriere, released 1988

THE STORY-Tomas is a brilliant surgeon. He is also a married playboy who separates sex from love as skillfully as he separates vessels. He seeks the light life, a burden-free existence. His wife Tereza absorbs blows, snaps photos and spoils their dog Karenin (the only member of their household who doesn't take pride in qualities they've no control over). And this is all very fine. Then political upheaval leads to personal upheaval. Surrounded by people who've made peace with their shames, the couple conform to new demands. But can they truly escape the agony of emotions severely felt?

MIND THE GAP-Milan, you a fool for this one, boy!

The Unbearable Lightness Of Being is where yellow highlighters go to die. The wealth of breathtaking insights contained within make it far more enjoyable to read than a beguiling refutation of Nietzschean philosophy costumed as a novel should be. So much emphasis is placed on weight. Carrying too much, or too little, results in catastrophe. Love is not biology; love is geography. Chew on infinity before the finite swallows you whole. The quest for the ideal elevates art and demeans reality. Oh yes, 'tis that kind of book. Prepare for wet-eyed meditations and dry-mouthed excavations. 

A naked woman wearing a bowler hat isn't sexy. It's the sexiest.

Daniel Day-Lewis appears on countless "Best Actors Ever" lists. But is he anyone's favorite actor? His Tomas is a smug, supercilious sleaze hardly worth the affection of wife (doll-faced sweetheart Juliette Binoche) or mistress (Lena Olin, whose name I just typed out). None of the those actors hail from the former Czechoslovakia. I don't care. You might.

I'd never be friends with Tomas or Tereza in real life, but damn if I wasn't fully invested in their story. The revelation of their shared fate midway through the novel imbues the remainder with profound, profuse melancholy. As the film's penultimate scene, it renders the moment not even slightly poignant.

BETTER IN YOUR HEAD-An active consultant on the film, Milan Kundera nevertheless lambasted the finished product and never again permitted an adaptation of his written work. Can't blame him; Philip Kaufman's The Unbearable Lightness of Being is a three-hour slog devoid of the bite marks that make life rewarding. The sex scenes are plentiful and pointless, like U.S. pennies or Lincoln biographies.

What makes the book memorable is what makes it unfilmable. Financial gains for the author aside, there is no good reason for this movie to exist. And no good reason for it ever to be watched.