Unbearable Lightness of Being

This DVD is now available extremely well priced on the “Warner Greats” catalogue and HMV have it for £3.00 in the shops and £2.99 on the web; an interesting pricing strategy! It is based on the best selling novel by Milan Kundera. In 1960s Czechoslovakia, Tomas (Daniel Day-Lewis), an oversexed Prague surgeon, marries Tereza (Juliette Binoche), a beautiful, waiflike country girl. Even though he has taken a vow of fidelity, Tomas continues his wanton womanising, notably with his mistress Sabina (Lena Olin). Escaping the 1968 Russian invasion of Prague by heading for Geneva, Switzerland, Sabina takes up with another man. Meanwhile, Tomas, who previously had been interested only in sex, becomes politicised by the fall of Dubcek and the collapse of the Czech leader's unique brand of limited democracy within the communist system.

Tereza and Tomas, Tomas and Sabina, Sabina and Franz, Franz and Marie-Claude; four people, four relationships which Kundera describes as the Quartet. Milan Kundera's masterful novel, The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1984), tells the interlocking stories of these four relationships, 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.


Milan Kundera

The world of Kundera's novel is one in which 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 intruding demands of society and the state, Kundera's characters struggle to construct lives of individual value and lasting meaning.


A novel of ideas, a provocative look at the ways in which history impinges on individual lives, and a meditation on personal identity, The Unbearable Lightness of Being examines the imperfect possibilities of adult love and the ways in which free choice and necessity shape our lives. "What then shall we choose?" Kundera asks at the beginning of his novel. "Weight or lightness?" This international bestseller is his attempt to answer that question. And the answer is hinted at in the novel's final scene, in which Tomas and Tereza find themselves in a small country hotel after a rare evening of dancing. When Tomas turns on the light in their room, "a large nocturnal butterfly" rises from the bedside lamp and circles the room in which they are alone with their happiness and their sadness.



In 1988, Philip Kaufman's American-made film adaptation of the novel was released; however Kundera hated it and said the movie does not correspond well to the book. Since then he hasn't allowed any other adaptations of his works. However it is often wrong to look for the novel in the movie and visa versa for they are two different disciplines. Even though the film is overtly erotic in tone, there is very little explicit sex in the film. There’s plenty of bare skin, of course, but director Kaufman extracts maximum sensual mileage out of the power of suggestion. The key scene, in which Tereza, seeking to expand her portfolio, shoots nude photographs of Sabina, is an almost wordless ballet of role reversal and subtle seduction. Kaufman also does a superb job of contrasting Prague before the crackdown, colourful and vibrant, and afterwards, grey and rotting. Tomas faces one of his former fellow reformers across a desk as the other man almost apologetically acts as communist stooge, enticing him with working as a surgeon again if he just signs a propaganda document condemning the reform movement. Ultimately, Tomas and Tereza reclaim their freedom by forsaking the city (and any hope of their former lives) and going to live with the farmer on whom Tomas had operated at the beginning of the film. Kaufman and Kundera seem to make the point that real happiness and freedom are independent of politics and material success. For Tomas and Tereza, at least, it seems to be true.


The novel is set against the background of the “Prague Spring” of 1968 when Alexander Dubcek promised communism with a human face and the soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in August 1968. When demanding voices became louder and could not longer be suppressed, political changes came to pass. The post of First Party Secretary of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia was given to a man named Alexander Dubcek in the year of 1968. Alexander Dubcek followed the voice and the will of his people, and started to reform the political and administrative structure of the country. He became loved and renowned, threatening to spread this process of liberation to other socialist countries. If "national" communism was allowed in one satellite, there was a risk that there would be a chain-reaction throughout the rest of Eastern Europe.

After the military intervention on the night of August 20 when 200,000 Warsaw Pact troops invaded, a reversal of the reform policy was carried out It was called the "process of normalization". Foreign troops remained on Czechoslovak soil until the situation had stabilised. They were the "help" provided by the Soviet Union in the fight against counter-revolutionary forces. The Communist Party of Czechoslovakia was forced to suppress all moves made towards democracy. But it finally had to surrender on December 9, 1989, in a revolution later called - "The Velvet revolution".



The political end of the communist era came on November 17, 1989. Demonstrators, mostly students and intellectuals, were brutally attacked by police. This angered other social groups in society and the number of demonstrators grew from 20 000 to 200 000. The human rights organisation, Charter 77, founded 1977 with the help of Vaclav Havel, formed a large organisation, named Civic Forum. Jakes and his group agreed to hold talks with the leader of Civic Forum, Vaclav Havel. The communists in power resigned and were replaced by other communists, which made the demonstrations continue. Three days later, a man from the past, that had been mocked and suppressed, raised his voice for the first time in 21 years. His name was Alexander Dubcek and he was the symbol of freedom and sovereignty for the Czechoslovak people. He expressed solidarity with his people that were once again fighting for their rights.



A couple of days later a coalition government seized the power, with the communists in minority. Vaclav Havel, one of the leading characters of the human rights organisation and the protests 1989, was elected President. He was the first non-communist President in 40 years. After years of tyranny, terror and totalitarianism, the communist era had been ended without a single loss of life - so smooth that it was called "the Velvet Revolution".


The scenes in the movie are shot in Prague, a spa town outside Prague and in Geneva. Matička Praha - 'little mother Prague' - was largely undamaged by WWII, and the cityscape is stunning. Its compact medieval centre remains an evocative maze of cobbled lanes, ancient courtyards, dark passages and churches beyond number, all watched over by an 1100-year-old castle. Kidnapped by communism for 40 years, Prague has become one of Europe's most popular tourist destinations and is undoubtedly the most magical and alluring of all European capitals. The cinematography in the film captures the allure of Prague well and the contrast between the magnificence of this capital of Bohemia and the oppressed lives of the inhabitants under communism. When I went there in 1998 the people were clutching their new found freedoms with a vengeance, a talented proud people in this the capital of Mittel Europa and the only democracy in eastern Europe pre-war whose people found themselves cruelly betrayed in the aftermath of World War II.


Petrin Hill

On our last morning in Prague we had arranged with our driver to go to the Petrin Hill to take in the vista of this inspiring city; Hradčany, the castle district, on a hill above the west bank; Malá Strana, the 13th-century 'Little Quarter', between the river and castle; Staré Mêsto, the gothic 'Old Town' on the Vltava's east bank; adjacent Josefov, the former Jewish ghetto; and Nové Mêsto or 'New Town,' (new in the 14th century), to the south and east of Staré Mêsto and straddling through it all the Vltava River, the Czech Republic's longest river. It was here Tereza, in the novel, climbs the grassy Petrin Hill, Kundera wrote, “On her way up, she paused several times to look back: below her she saw the towers and bridges, the saints were shaking their fists and lifting their stone eyes to the clouds. It was the most beautiful city in the world.” But “The Unbearable Lightness of Being,” first published in a French translation from Czech in 1984, is no love letter to the city; it is a message from a time of oppression, and one worth carrying for perspective on a trip through Prague. Milan Kundera submerges the reader in the undercurrents of political life, the rough passages of far-too-recent vintage and the personal repercussions of an invasive, claustrophobic time. Tereza is climbing Petrin in a dream — a dream in which she will be executed, but only if she convinces the executioners that she seeks death of her own free will. The novel returns again and again to Tereza’s harrowing dreams, simultaneously erotic and morbid.



The driver told us he was taking us on a diversion and we looked at each other nervously for stories and warnings about unscrupulous taxis are legion in Prague. By the Vltava he stopped and asked us to get out and cross the road to see a plinth where a statue used to stand. He explained to us that this is where the Czechs had blown up a statue of Stalin years previously and how proud he now was to be able to welcome us to a free city. Only those who have lost their freedom once can really appreciate what it means to be free.



Kaufman's intelligent, faithful version of Milan Kundera's novel instead wisely jettisons the woolly philosophising, focusing on characters, relationships, and the many facets of loyalty and betrayal. It's a rich, ambitious film, repetitive and voyeuristic in its eroticism, but exhilarating in its blend of documentary and fictional recreation to depict the Soviet invasion. The narrative, now linear (unlike the book), is leisurely, the camerawork evocative; the progress from cynical irony to something more heartfelt rarely falters. Binoche and Olin avoid being reduced to symbols of Tomas' polarised soul, and Day Lewis seems increasingly one of the most versatile actors of his generation. Whatever Milan Kundera's reservations this is an intelligent and charged adaptation and a fine cinematic outing.