Plot
In 1968, a Czech doctor with an active sex life meets a woman who wants monogamy, and then the Soviet invasion further disrupts their lives.
Release Year: 1988
Rating: 7.3/10 (15,481 voted)
Director:
Philip Kaufman
Stars: Daniel Day-Lewis, Juliette Binoche, Lena Olin
Storyline 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.
Writers: Milan Kundera, Jean-Claude Carrière
Cast: Daniel Day-Lewis
-
Tomas
Juliette Binoche
-
Tereza
Lena Olin
-
Sabina
Derek de Lint
-
Franz
Erland Josephson
-
The Ambassador
Pavel Landovský
-
Pavel
Donald Moffat
-
Chief Surgeon
Daniel Olbrychski
-
Interior Ministry Official
Stellan Skarsgård
-
The Engineer
Tomasz Borkowy
-
Jiri
(as Tomek Bork)
Bruce Myers
-
Czech Editor
Pavel Slabý
-
Pavel's Nephew
Pascale Kalensky
-
Nurse Katja
Jacques Ciron
-
Swiss Restaurant Manager
Anne Lonnberg
-
Swiss Photographer
Opening Weekend: $202,189
(USA)
(5 February 1988)
(13 Screens)
Gross: $10,006,806
(USA)
Technical Specs
Runtime:
Did You Know?
Trivia: Daniel Day-Lewis at first turned down the role feeling the script made him too nice. The script was revised and added in things from the book that made the character less "perfect".
Goofs:
Anachronisms:
The car that Tomas uses in his first trip (Skoda 100/110) was not built until 1969.
Quotes:
[first lines]
First Title Card:
In Prague, in 1968, there lived a young doctor named Tomas... Tomas:
Take off your clothes.
[line recurs several times during film]
User Review
Unbearably Beautiful - one of the best films ever made
Rating: 10/10
One of the most romantic films ever made, it shows the problems of people
whose intimacies and personal conflicts are being interrupted by history
on
the move. I think this film surpasses the novel, which is utterly cynical
(although understandably). Even in the last moments of the novel, Teresa
is
concerned that Tomas is cheating on her. The film also does well by
dropping
much of Franz's character - he was kind of uninteresting compared to
Teresa,
Tomas, and Sabina. It also drops such deadweight characters as Teresa's
mother, Tomas' son, and Franz's wife. Also, a ton of different coworkers
are
combined into a few, so that their characters have time to develop. By
concentrating on the three central characters, this film blossoms past
what
the novel ever achieved (although the novel is arguably more historically
important). Philip Kaufman and Jean-Claude Carriere also add a couple of
beautiful scenes that weren't in the novel, including Tomas' and Teresa's
wedding, which is one of the most beautiful scenes in filmdom.
0