The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1988)

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"In the time of the Russian invasion in Czechoslovakia, making love was a way of resisting, a way of being free."

These words of the screen-writer of Lightness sum up this film entirely, an intricate balance between a political film and a love story.

This is stirring and engaging story that thoroughly challenges your preconceptions of sexuality and the Czech people... read more

Since I kept hearing good things about this flick, I was really eager to check it out. Furthermore, I have to say it has one of the best title ever conceived and just for that, I wanted to see it and I had some rather huge expectations. Honestly, I haven't read the book so I don't know if the movie is really faithful or not but it is basically a love story with a historical background. To be hones... read more

The book was a dry read but what the movie also lacks is most of the intellectually engaging parts. So it is interesting at times but for the most part is dry and un-engaging on an emotional level. Good acting cannot save this either. It reminds me of 2001: A Space Odyssey, in that the movie was hard to completely understand without having read the book. However, 2001 was still a very good movie.

Tomas is a doctor and a lady-killer in 1960s Czechoslovakia, an apolitical man who is struck with love for the bookish country girl Tereza; his more sophisticated sometime lover Sabina eventually accepts their relationship and the two women form an electric friendship. The three are caught up in the events of the Prague Spring (1968), until the Soviet tanks crush the non-violent rebels; their illusions are shattered and their lives change forever.

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