Saturday, August 22, 2009

The Unbearable Lightness of Being

After over 20 years of built-up anticipation, I finally saw The Unbearable Lightness of Being. And now, I find myself asking, did I miss something? Sure, it featured two of the loveliest ladies ever to grace celluloid: Lena Olin...

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and Juliet Binoche.

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And a pretty hot Daniel Day-Lewis.

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And I know that the movie was meant to make the suggestion that, while everyone thinks that weightiness -- being burdened -- is what makes life unbearable, perhaps it's quite the opposite. Perhaps, what makes life unbearable is its lightness, its total insignificance. Our lives are short and then we vanish. Perhaps, it's the unimportance of it all that makes things unbearable.

Even so, I'm not sure why all the critics kept saying that the English language did not contain superlatives sufficient to describe the movie. So, OK, we have attractive characters, a lot of sex, some philosophy and the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia -- but it didn't quite add up for me.

Can someone help me out here?

2 comments:

maryharv said...

Attractive characters, a lot of sex...seriously it doesn't get any better than this. One of my all time favorite movies. I melt every time I hear Daniel Day Lewis' voice in my head saying "Take off you clothes". Mesmerizing. Like a drug. Sooo hot. And yet so cool.

James R said...

I've said that often to women ... strangely, without the same effect.