THE UNBEARABLE LIGHTNESS OF BEING (1988), dir. Philip Kaufman

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A brilliant doctor with a thirst for women; the sincere ingénue who becomes his wife; the doctor’s lover, who understands the thrill of being both pursuer and pursued: these three make up the love triangle in Philip Kaufman’s “The Unbearable Lightness of Being.” Often revered as one of most erotic movies ever made, there’s more to it than just the cool mechanics of sex. Like the Milan Kundera novel it’s based on, the film is set in Czechoslovakia during a time of great political upheaval, and seems to understand how sex is connected to a whole gamut of emotions, all of which can be affected by an event as dramatic as displacement.

Daniel Day-Lewis plays Tomas, who starts off the “lightest” of the central protagonists, concerned for little besides his next conquest. Everything changes, however, during a trip to the country to perform a routine operation, whereupon he encounters Tereza (Juliette Binoche) and immediately becomes smitten with her. The feeling is mutual, but they share a strange interaction at first: he wants sex, while she seems to be looking for friendship and romance. The gulf between them could not be better illustrated than when Tereza tells Tomas that she gets off work at six. “Oh, but I have a plane to catch back to Prague,” he replies, a sly, wolfish look on his face. Tereza, who seems to miss the point completely, only registers disappointment.

Yet their separation is short-lived, and soon enough, the young girl has followed the doctor back home, where the relationship is consummated (for her, it appears to be her first time). Afterward, even Tomas seems taken aback by how strongly Tereza clings to him, but refuses to give up his routine of casual encounters, which include sex with Sabina (Lena Olin), a free-spirited artist who understands his nature better than anyone. It’s never clear just how offended Sabina is by this new woman’s presence in Tomas’ life, whether she secretly had hoped their trysts would lead to something more substantial, but that doesn’t stop her from judging Tomas; at one point, she ponders his face in front of Tereza and asks aloud, “What makes him a scoundrel?”

For her part, Tereza seems to detect there is more to Tomas and Sabina’s relationship than meets the eye. Meanwhile, her relationship with the latter is friendly, but not necessarily friendship, although Sabina does help her develop into a skilled photographer. Always more politically-inclined than her beau, Tereza gets a job at a newspaper, and snaps pictures from the front line when the Soviets invade. When that endangers her life, she and Tomas flee to nearby Switzerland, whereupon the profound differences in their nature start becoming clear: she feels everything too deeply, while emotionally, he floats by on a cushion of air.

The main thrust of the movie involves how these characters grow and change as their lives endure one upheaval after another. The genius of Kaufman and screenwriter Jean-Claude Carriere’s adaptation, however, is in the way the protagonists’ relationships with one another, not to mention their overall attitudes about love and sex, are shown to be interconnected with their politics. Tereza, for example, embraces her home with Tomas and her homeland with equal passion, which leads to disillusionment on all fronts: in Switzerland, she discovers the world’s attention span regarding Czechoslovakia’s invasion has already been exhausted; none of the newspapers will buy her pictures, but an editor does suggest she start taking nude photographs for the fashion section.

With no other job prospects, Tereza looks up Sabina to use as a model, the latter having relocated to Switzerland as well. As she starts taking photographs of her, Tereza, examining the body of her husband’s lover, starts to break down. One gets the feeling she is looking at Sabina and thinking, “How can Tomas trade me for this other woman so freely?” which is not all that different from the question she faces in her work: “How can anyone trade in one passion for another?”

As for Sabina, she, along with acting as another face for the Czech Diaspora, serves to reflect both Tomas’ and Tereza’s qualities back at them (indeed, there is a recurring use of mirrors in shots featuring her). When together with the former, she expresses lust and carnality: at one point, she and Day-Lewis appear in a mirror as a beast with two backs. But like Tereza, her attitude towards love, sex, and life itself seem at least partially informed by her status as a refugee. Later, having no place to call “home” anymore, she thinks nothing of being equally rootless with her sex life, moving from man to man, city to city, especially when her latest beau becomes too serious.

Tomas, on the other hand, subscribes to a moral and political philosophy best summed up as “hands off.” He couldn’t care less about the state of his homeland’s government; he says as much when an article he wrote criticizing the country’s past leaders gets him blacklisted from practicing medicine. A government official tries to convince him to sign a retraction, but he won’t do it, for reasons the bureaucrat cannot understand. Yet the viewer does: although Tomas does not necessarily care who is in power, he wants the freedom to live as he pleases, which includes being able to toss off incendiary letters without reprisal. Likewise, he wants hedonism minus the chains of matrimony, sex whenever the opportunity presents itself, without having to explain or involve Tereza. At one point, she even begs him to bring her to the other women, to let her watch as he makes love to them, but he refuses. To pursue something with absolute freedom, after all, means pursuing it alone.

So what is the solution for the unhappy couple? According to the filmmakers (and we assume, Kundera himself), it is living life simpler, trading urban gray for pastoral green, big city anonymity for community, wealth for subsistence. When survival depends on the fecundity of the land and the sweat of the brow, emotions like jealousy become small and insignificant. Although one might argue such an ending to be tragic, an example of great talent being crushed by the Communist machine, the film itself never seems to argue that anything is lost, but rather, that a different kind of happiness is ultimately gained, one in which deep emotional bonds replace featherweight sex, where one’s being is neither an unbearable or light thing to anybody.

Overall rating: **** (out of ****)

THE BOTHERSOME MAN (2006), dir. Jens Lien

In reviews, this film has been compared to a feature-length episode of “The Twilight Zone,” but having seen “The Bothersome Man,” I realize it’s a favorable comparison. The best science-fiction reflects real world concerns through fantasy scenarios, and in this deliberately-paced, Icelandic meander, the numbness of modern society is allegorized through a strange city that may be the after-life, and either a heaven or hell depending on one’s taste.

The film opens with its main character, Andreas (Trond Fausa Aurvaag), leaping into the path of an oncoming train. When next we see him, he is arriving via bus at a station house in what appears to be the outskirts somewhere, at which point he gets a lift to the aforementioned city, which looks at any other metropolis. Here he has a job and apartment waiting for him.

The work is relatively-unchallenging, and it isn’t long before Andreas starts staring out of windows, noticing strange things about the city, such as the lack of smells, and the fact there are never children around. He also finds that food doesn’t taste like anything, and no matter how much alcohol he imbibes, it never has any effect. One day, during a dinner party with friends, he meets a beautiful woman named Anne (Petronella Barker); they make love after a date, but the act seems rote and mechanical.

“It doesn’t always have to be good, but…” he hears another man complain one day. The stranger goes on about how much he misses hot chocolate, and it isn’t long before Andreas begins to miss it, too.

Earlier, I had described this film as taking place in a possible heaven or hell, a fact reinforced by how Andreas cannot do lasting harm to his body. He slices off a finger in a workplace machine, only to find his hand all better just a short time later. Later, he does worse, in a sequence involving subway trains that’s the most eye-opening thing in the movie, both for its unflinching goriness as well as its droll, black humor.

But notice that I spelled heaven and hell with lower-case “h’s.” Jens Lien’s film is entirely non-religious, and from an allegorical standpoint, the common man’s miraculous healing ability may just be screenwriter Per Schreiner’s way of illustrating how the average lifespan has been prolonged. Meanwhile, the inability to do self-harm also means suicide is impossible, which could reflect modern anxieties that the current miseries – icy cordiality in lieu of genuine feelings, rampant consumerism, failure of traditional means of self-medication for escape – will never end, just go on and on.

There is, however, another choice for living, which is to not conform, to actively seek out the sensations felt missing from existence. In the course of the film, that appears to mean reaching for something more idyllic, something consisting of more traditional values. Of course, when most of society is happy with the way things are, this kind of act has consequences, and it’s a shame Andreas couldn’t have fought for those simpler pleasures a little more vigorously.

Had that happened, he might have seemed like more of a tragic hero, rather than just a poor mope. In turn, “The Bothersome Man” might have left viewers feeling galvanized and angry. As it is, it’s a near-masterpiece of sustained tension, drab colors, and emotional remoteness.

Overall rating: ***1/2 (out of ****)

MAIKO HAAAAN!!! (2007), dir. Nobuo Mizuta

(Courtesy of Pop Culture Shock!)

The best compliment I can pay “Maiko Haaaan!!!” is that it goes beyond its initial premise, in which an obsessed otaku (Sadao Abe) attempts to infiltrate the world of geisha, which is usually reserved for wealthy and important men.

Indeed, Kimihiko Onizuka, who works as an office drone but runs his own website for all things geisha-related, starts off not belonging to either category, but two events push him up the ladder of success, slapstick-style: being transferred to Kyoto, home of Japan’s geisha district; and being subsequently rebuffed by every geisha house in town. It seems that according to tradition, one can only enter such a place accompanied by a regular, and absolutely no newcomers are allowed.

Luckily, the president of the ramen manufacturer for whom Onizuka works is such a V.I.P., and tells him if he makes lots of money for the company, Onizuka can come along on his next visit. At this point, “Maiko Haaaan!!!” could have been about its main protagonist repeatedly trying and failing to accomplish this task, but director Nobuo Mizuta and screenwriter Kankuro Kudo have something considerably more interesting in mind.

Sure, the Hand of Fate puts up a few obstacles at first, but by the midway point, Onizuka accomplishes his long-held dream of setting foot inside a geisha house. The question then becomes: What to do with the rest of the movie? In a neat twist, Onizuka decides to push himself even further and become even more successful, at which point he can date, possibly even marry a geisha, thereby experiencing their world to its fullest depth. The endeavor also allows Onizuka a chance to show up an obnoxious professional baseball player, who had previously-ridiculed him on-line. Both have their eye on the same maiko – the term for apprentice geisha.

There is also a sub-plot involving Onizuka’s ex-girlfriend, who after they have an ugly falling out, moves to Kyoto and enrolls in a geisha school herself (whether this is to win him back or get revenge is never clear). Through her perspective, which is ostensibly less fetishistic than Onizuka’s would be, the viewer gets expository information about the art form, and learns the road to becoming a traditional Japanese entertainer is not an easy one.

Overall, “Maiko Haaaan!!!” has a tone that is more wacky than serious – even when the third act introduces a highly-melodramatic subplot – and the filmmakers cram the 120-minute running time with as many hit-or-miss jokes as possible. Nevertheless, appreciating this movie means learning to tolerate the main character, whose least-annoying attributes aren’t his bowl haircut or penchant for plaid suits; rather, it’s his whole hyperactive shtick, complete with manic facial contortions and childish meltdowns, which get really old really fast, whether or not they’re stereotypical otaku behaviors.

Can otaku and geisha learn to live together in harmony? Kudo wisely decides to not make Onizuka the lone freak amidst a gallery of straight men and women, and if anything, there might be a three-way tie for most screwed-up character in the film. This is consistent with the message that reality is never quite as good as fantasy, and obtaining the object of one’s obsessions doesn’t necessarily equal happiness.

Overall rating: **1/2 (out of ****)