one of my absolute favorites!

As somebody who had not heard any of this before, it became a curious phenomenon to sit and watch a film and slowly have the realities begin to click into place.

This movie feels like it was made purely to piss off people who want good shows

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

An adaptation of the novel of the same name by Milan Kundera, 'The Unbearable Lightness of Being' is A Masterpiece of a film. Its difficult, saddening, challenging, but ultimately, affecting. The Top-Notch Performances only add more to the narrative.'The Unbearable Lightness of Being' Synopsis: In 1968, a Czech doctor with an active sex life meets a woman who wants monogamy, and then the Soviet invasion further disrupts their lives.Writer Jean-Claude Carrière portrays the effect on Czechoslovak artistic and intellectual life during the 1968 Prague Spring of socialist liberalization preceding invasion by Soviet led Warsaw Pact and subsequent coup that ushered in hard-line communism. Its an extremely disturbing story, that has layers of some great sexual power, beneath all the sadness. The characters are complex, but expressive. And their journey bristles with anger in those rousing 171-minutes, while this story unfolds.Philip Kaufman's Direction is excellently done. He deserves credit for churning out a film that turns out to be much more than just a dramatic exploration of its characters. Cinematography is proper. Editing is decent. Art & Costume Design are flawless.Performance-Wise: Daniel Day-Lewis, Juliette Binoche & Lena Olin deliver superior performances. Day-Lewis is in very good form, measuring his performance perfectly between sexual temptation & of being a victim of his surroundings. Olin is a marvel, stealing some of the film's best scenes with her seductiveness. Binoche is quietly devastating in her portrayal, matching up to Day-Lewis & Olin at all times. On the whole, 'The Unbearable Lightness of Being' is A Must Watch.

It's 1968 Prague. Tomas (Daniel Day-Lewis) is a womanizing doctor. His often-lover Sabina (Lena Olin) is a liberated sophisticated woman. At a country spa, Tomas is taken with local girl Tereza (Juliette Binoche). He sets free the mousy Tereza and they have a passionate affair along with Sabina. Tomas and Tereza get married but jealousy overwhelms her. Then the Prague Spring erupts.There has been many threesomes in cinematic history. The acting power in these three is one of best. Daniel is able to make the charismatic cad likable. Lena is sexual dynamite. Juliette is pure magic in this one. It is a great threesome against the backdrop of compelling political turmoil.

The Unbearable Lightness of Being is an amazing novel. Therefore one would expect its film adaptation to be at least decent. But no!!! This is just too bad! I admit that I already had an opinion of what the characters should be like. I visualised Teresa as a young, ethereal beauty, with fragile charm which would be enough to make a committed bachelor feel like he needs to take her under his arms and protect her. Albeit, Juliette Binoche acts like a caricature, seems almost mentally challenged at times and fails to portray an amiable character. On the other hand Tomas is a charming mature man of a pensive nature that never fails to smile to and flirt with women. What did we get? A flamboyant womanizer, yet one more caricature, that shared nothing with Tomas and made this film comical and flat. And why the silly accents? Either make a Czech film or an English film. I found this offensive if I am honest. I have not seen any other Kaufman films, but I very much doubt that I will after this traumatic experience. This film is a poor adaptation and even as a stand-alone makes not much sense, being long and slow but without exploring space or time!

I watched this movie on Korean TV, when I was about 16. It was dubbed into Korean, and I did not bother to try to understand it (English is my native language); actually I didn't even pay full attention to the video images, other than the sex scenes. Basically, it seemed to be about this (French?) poet-philosopher guy (Daniel Day Lewis), kinda crazy, who just goes around having sex with women. The sex scenes seemed pretty intense, with loud moans and shrieks by the women. The rest of the movie seemed boring with quaint European landscapes and historical cityscapes, the beauty of which a teenage boy shouldn't be expected to appreciate. Juliette Binoche was the guy's beautiful girlfriend or wife, who was always hurt by his womanizing but didn't divorce or break up with him (or did she in the end? I don't remember). I did not really understand the deep philosophy or message of the movie, if it had one.