My biggest problem with Philip Kaufman's The Unbearable Lightness of Being is probably something that didn't bother most critics or audiences. It simply is this: the film feels like a composite of two very different, very incompatible films. On the one hand, you have a powerful love story between womanizer Tomas and his two women, the bohemian artist Sabina, and the emotionally reliant waitress Tereza. On the other, the film is a gripping re-enactment of the Soviet and Warsaw Pact invasion in August 1968 and the ensuing government clampdown and censorship. The two plots are technically combined as they force the threesome apart into different countries where they pursue different lovers and lives. But the two parts of the film are so drastically different in tone that it is jarring. You can't take the love affair drama seriously due to the political subtext and you can't take the invasion by Communists seriously because its seen as an afterthought to the aforementioned love affairs. Still, the film boasts some tremendous performances and stunning cinematography by the legendary Sven Nykvist. It just seems so...unnecessary.
7/10
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