Politics Boil Just Below the Surface as an Erotic Personal Drama Plays Out
Rock 'n' roll and rebellion are in the air in that initially happy and relatively free spring of 1968, and Tomas (Daniel Day-Lewis), a young Prague brain surgeon has found a second vocation in womanizing. A hedonist who believes that love and sex are completely separate entities, Tomas has a mistress — the artist Sabina (Olin), who is as footloose as he — as well a string of conquests. A house call at an out-of-town spa leads to a chance meeting with the naive, waif-like Tereza (Juliet Binoche). Seducing her as a matter of course, Tomas instead finds himself seduced, as Tereza follows him to Prague and he falls in love with her. They marry, but marital discord is ensured when Tomas gives up none of his extracurricular activities and when he encourages friendship between Tereza and Sabina.

As the lovers' personal drama plays out, the politics of the day boil just below the surface. Emboldened by the new sense of freedom, Tomas writes an article criticizing the Communists and Tereza takes up photography. When the Soviet tanks roll in to quash the growing rebellion, Tereza and Tomas are in the thick of it, Tereza snapping pictures all the while. Sabina, Tereza, and Tomas escape to Prague, but Tereza, tortured by Tomas' infidelities soon returns to Czechoslovakia. While Sabina emigrates to the United States, Tomas, more in love with Tereza than he realized, follows his wife back to Prague. It proves to be an act of love that will lead both to their ultimate happiness and to their undoing.

At its center, for all of its eroticism, The Unbearable Lightness of Being feels rather chilly. Part of this is due, no doubt, to the politics underlying the drama, as Carriere points out in the audio commentary, this is really about the "erotic resistance to oppression," pointing out that sex and humor are two avenues of freedom in even the most tyrannical society. The other part of the equation, though, is Day-Lewis, whose fastidious detachment seems at odds with his sensual obsessions. We see him operate as a surgeon, but we never see any blood on his immaculate white scrubs, further suggesting a certain coldness on the part of Tomas. When Unbearable Lightness does heat up, it is because of the passionate performances by Olin and Binoche, both warm in their very different ways where Day-Lewis is cold.

A Spectacular Transfer and a Compelling Audio Commentary
Certainly few films are as beautiful to look at as this one. Sven Nykvist's gorgeous cinematography adds a glow even to the typically somber skies. It was no doubt the strength of these images that contributed to Criterion's decision to make this their first anamorphic release. As we've come to expect from Criterion, the transfer here, personally approved by Kaufman, is spectacular. In its DVD incarnation, The Unbearable Lightness of Being looks and sounds great.

The only extra feature on the disc is the audio commentary, but it's a good one, with all four speakers bringing their own areas of expertise to it. (The DVD also indexes the audio commentary separately — a great feature.) Editor Murch, for example, goes on at length on the difficulties of cross-cutting the scenes involving Sabina's many mirrors and talks about how they went about integrating actual footage of the Soviet invasion of Prague with their own recreation. Olin adds both charming reminiscences — recalling, for example, the strained circumstances of acting with Day-Lewis for the first time when the scene involved was one of the intense sex scenes — and comments about her craft as it pertained to the film. As might be expected, director Kaufman takes the long view, describing everything from casting to how the set was dressed with items smuggled out of the then-still-Communist Czechoslovakia. The best comments, though, come from Carriere. As someone who was in Prague that 1968 spring and knew many people whose lives were altered by those events, he weaves a touching recent-history lesson into his thread of commentary.