Movie: The Unbearable Lightness of Being

I have tried to read Milan Kundera's novel (1984) several times, so when I ran across the 1988 movie I was surprised I didn't already have it.  It stars Juliette Binoche and Lena Olin, who would be reunited in 2000's Chocolat (an excellent movie).

TULoB, however, I cannot describe as excellent.

It has lots of curiously unpassionate sex.  It has lots of curiously unsexy nudity.  It has lots of curiously unpassionate politics (it takes place during the Soviet occupation of Prague).  In short, it moves through nearly three hours of dramaless drama.  

You're not moved to care about the characters, you're never invested in the action, you're not bidden to care about the politics.  The only part that moved me was when the dog died of cancer, but that's a particular weakness of mine so it didn't take much.

The scenes of the invasion are intercut between real newsreel footage of the actual event and reconstructed scenes showing the actors.  It's pretty well done, but still obvious.

Blah.  The scenery in Czechoslovakia, France & Switzerland is nice.  The music of Leos Janacek is good. That's about the best I can say for it.

Huh, okay. I'm impressed.

I'm watching the "making of" documentary on disc two. The scenes of Prague, of which there are many, were actually filmed in Lyon, France. Czechoslovakia was of course still under Soviet occupation in 1986 and they weren't allowed to film there. So through some very clever set decoration Lyon stood in.

I was fooled. Apparently many Czechs were fooled as well.

Saw that movie many years ago. One big yawn.

Ha, here's another big aha moment, gleaned from the commentary track.

There are many scenes shot with and around mirrors. Normally, in a mirror, left and right are reversed.

The cameraman discovered that if these scenes were filmed naturally, the swapping back and forth between left and right became disruptive to the scenes. So every time he shot the couple reflected in the mirror, he had them swap places so their relative positions stayed the same both inside and outside the mirror.

Odd, it seemed so natural I never noticed.

_Howard wrote:

One big yawn.

Overall, not an inaccurate summary.

Also a good explanation for why I've never been able to finish the book.

NoCoPilot wrote:

Ha, here's another big aha moment, gleaned from the commentary track.

There are many scenes shot with and around mirrors.  Normally, in a mirror, left and right are reversed.

The cameraman discovered that if these scenes were filmed naturally, the swapping back and forth between left and right became disruptive to the scenes.  So every time he shot the couple reflected in the mirror, he had them swap places so their relative positions stayed the same both inside and outside the mirror.

Odd, it seemed so natural I never noticed.

Some months ago, I noticed this done in a scene. Can't remember what the movie or TV show was, but there was a scene in which a man was getting ready to go out and was standing in front of a mirror straightening his tie. The woman came over and put her hands on his shoulder as they were talking. The scene cut to the mirror and the woman had switched sides - that is, she was on the same side in the mirror. I just assumed they had screwed up. Now I wonder if they did it on purpose. They shouldn't have; it was so obvious it was distracting.

I saw a movie on TV recently, doesn't matter which, where a woman took a coffee cup out of the cupboard and set it on the counter, then turned to talk to her husband. When she finished talking she took a coffee cup out of the cupboard and set it on the counter.

I half expected to see two of them sitting there.

NoCoPilot wrote:

... when I ran across the 1988 movie I was surprised I didn't already have it.  

Oy! I did have it -- misfiled under Bunuel and not entered into my movie database.