When Roger Ebert commented on the film of 1988 directed by Philip Kaufman, there are two things standing out. One is that “There is a lot of nudity in the film but no pornographic documentary quality; the camera does not linger, or move for the best view, or relish the spectacle of nudity. The result is some of the most poignant, almost sad, sex scenes I have ever seen - sensuous, yes, but bittersweet.” The other is about Kundera’s characters, “while his characters were making love they were sometimes distracted from the essentially tragic nature of their existence.” Of course we get the detachment of Tomas and the beauty and innocence of Tereza, and the feeling of deep nostalgia.
The best quote from the book is as follows:
Anyone whose goal is “something higher” must expect someday to suffer vertigo. What is vertigo? Fear of falling? No, Vertigo is something other than fear of falling. It is the voice of the emptiness below us which tempts and lures us, it is the desire to fall, against which, terrified, we defend ourselves.
When the heart speaks, the mind finds it indecent to object.
Dogs are our link to paradise. They don’t know evil or jealousy or discontent. To sit with a dog on a hillside on a glorious afternoon is to be back in Eden, where doing nothing was not boring–it was peace.
We can never know what to want, because, living only one life, we can neither compare it with our previous lives nor perfect it in our lives to come.
Then some instincts we all shared become the institutions of our society, that achieves a perpetual life because everyone gives a share of his or her life.