Possibly Kaufman’s finest work, the adaptation of Milan Kundera’s novel keenly dramatizes personal codes and political ferment swirling about Daniel Day-Lewis’s Czech doctor in the late 1960s as he finds himself entwined with the two women he loves. Day-Lewis mesmerizes and charms, and is matched by Lena Olin and Juliette Binoche. Ann Roth’s costumes and Sven Nykvist’s cinematography enhance the movie’s enveloping sensuality.
The film will be introduced on 12/17 by Columbia University Film Professor Annette Insdorf, author of Philip Kaufman and the just-published Cinematic Overtures: How to Read Opening Scenes (which includes discussion of The Unbearable Lightness of Being). She will sign copies after the screening.
Print courtesy of the UCLA Film & Television Archive