Politics, sex and sexual politics
STEPHEN SMITH The Unhearahle Laghines W/ Bang. a film dir. Philip Kaufman. THIS 15A bewitching Film in every respect, one in which the seases of the viewer are slowly beguiled and then consummately seduced.
The concerns of the film are profound cnough: polities, sex, sexual politics, the politics of Loman desire. The manner in whach these themes are dealt with, in a beautifully ironic and sensitive lone, Baithfally reproduces the work on which the film is based, the prose ol Milan Kundera.
But first, an aside. Comrade Jell Sawtell is a film reviewer for: The Moming Slar. Comrade Jeff reviewed this film and found it politically reactionary". The film contains, apparently, "crude anti-communism' and to cap it all, 'cynical references to communism"
Comrade Jeff meditates on why this film has been let loose to corrupt tie unsuspecting film-going proletarial: Could it be anyhing to do with ideologically combatting the successtul offensive of glasnost/perestroika? muses Comrade Jeff
As you have probably gatherod by now, the film is a quite savage indictment DE stalinism. We have Conrade Jell, straight out of the stalist flm school of falsification, to thank for giving the game away.
The film deals with the final Bowering of the Prague Spring. its brutal crushing and the aftermath
The story is woven around the personal lives and the sexual dance of three centrad characters: Tomas, a Typical Kunderian male sexual libertine; Tereza, gauche, repressed. dependent; and Sabina, the antithesis of Tereza, fierocly but wryly self-possessed, as studied a practitioner of crotic friendships' as Tomas
The ultra-smooth Tomas is a successful brain surgeon. Tomas' contential state is the lightness of being', no permanent SOCIALIST OUTLOOK no B July/Sephember 1988 anachaients, no commitments, a life of trotic pleasure and scoual cumedy-
Subina, an artist prospering from the wave of Prague Spring morernism, is engaged in a suitably modernist relationship with Tomas, amongst othors
The balance is upset with the entrance ol Tereza. Her emotional needs, the "heaviness" of her being, prove unaccountably irresistible to Tomas, who — delving his own libertarian code — chooses to: marry ber:
Tomas, Juwever, is unwilling in end his series of erotic Irendships, and, as a consequence. Tereza is Forced ro live a pained and tortured existener, unable to accept Tomas rationalizations about the separation of love and sex.
The intervention of Russian tanks forces the three to flee to Geneva: Before long, however, Tereza is drawn back to the politically repressed country of her birth, stating that she belongs in 'the country of the weak
Tomas chooses to surrender his comfortable exile existence in order to he with ber.
After a serious' allair with a Genevan academic. Sabina migrates to America:
By the end of the film, Tomas and Tereza are farned through political victimisation to retreat: to a rustic fario existence in the Bohemian countryside, where they eventually find a measure of tranquility:
Due sequence from this part in particular remains in the memory. Wesee Tereza working svethe in hand in the ficids. whilsr in the distance we sec a smiling Tomas approach driving a tractot.
As the two get closer, we ser them gradually through their poses transforming into the bero and heroine of the stalinist socialist-realist mutif, a beautifully observed parody nt their existence.
The dramatic centrepiece of the film in terms of spectacle is the invasion of Prague. A Zelig-like mix of archive library: film, intercut with crowd socues il Tomas and Tereza taking part in the spontancous but ultimately doomed display of street resistance.
For me, this is onc arca int which this adaptation transcends the original work. Successful adaptarions ol major literary wurks are not very cummon, but there is no question that the film will not suffer by any comparisons made by critics.
The fim ends with a lyrical Testatement of the contral intent ol Kundera's metaphysics, the transience of buman existerice.
We see Tomas and Terezu.
REVIEWS
content ar last, driving along a country lane, heading inexorably towards a white expanse in the
In the previons sccue we have henn informed of their impending deaths by Sabina. To lie enchanting music of Cacch composer Janacck, we watch and witness the final absurdist Irony of the lives of Tomas and the scene played out withour the slightest hint of tragedy — with nur resigued kriowledge of the lighmess of