No Smoking Review
Talking pictures are a very powerful medium. It is very rare that someone gets it just right and is able to communicate exactly what he wants to, and to communicate it effectively and entertain at the same time takes a special genius. It is extremely difficult. But, every once in a while someone is able to accomplish just that and shows the rest of us how it should be done. Anurag Kashyap has done exactly that with "No Smoking."
"No Smoking" explores the real with the fantastic, the bourgeois with the bizarre and manages to make everything so sublime that the viewer must realize where reality ends and fantasy begins. The dreaming is an important part of our lives and "No Smoking" explains the fantastic, the dreaming with wonderful symbolic elements and metaphors, which the viewer must understand.
"No smoking" is not about smoking, it about individuality and K, a person who holds it dear to him. His smoking is his way of rebel. His smoking is a symbol for his arrogance. When he surrenders to his wife's demands of quitting, he surrenders to the world, all along the film he falls and he loses his spin and becomes what everyone wants him to be. A mindless unthinking everyone.
Baba Bengali is the paladin of the spineless world we live in. When K decides to quit he has already fallen into the trap of the Baba/World, it changes him. Finally, his soul is trapped, he has quit smoking and he does not recognize the new himself. he looks at his own body in despair.
Throughout the film Anurag critiques the new India, call centers, therapy clinics, homophobia, the mindless friends and family always trying to change you. I mean he presents the item number at the end of the last scene, it's like he's pissing on the face of everyone who's making mindless crap and selling it to the popcorn munching idiots who watch it.
Not to mention that the photography is spot on, the film is a visual treat to watch, the dreamy sequences are so well done that I was having goosebumps while watching. He gets it spot on in the childhood bathroom smoking sequence, with the sepia and super 8 format. He gets the soul trapped scene just right with the cross-porcessing, The film is a crash-course in how to use cine film to the fullest. The editing is spot on, the mass smoking sequence cut to the mouse in a hole is brilliant. The comic strip talk, is not "experimental", it makes the film. It is "needed."
Lastly, to all those who are trashing the movie, Do I write a review about "Kabhi Saas Bhi Bahu Thi?", at least have the honesty and decency to not trash something you lack the education to understand. Go watch some David Lynch, David Fincher and Martin Scorsese. Go read some books outside your course curricula.
This movie is everything that Indian cinema needs, I just hope Anurag has not exhausted himself, I am hungry for more.
"No Smoking" explores the real with the fantastic, the bourgeois with the bizarre and manages to make everything so sublime that the viewer must realize where reality ends and fantasy begins. The dreaming is an important part of our lives and "No Smoking" explains the fantastic, the dreaming with wonderful symbolic elements and metaphors, which the viewer must understand.
"No smoking" is not about smoking, it about individuality and K, a person who holds it dear to him. His smoking is his way of rebel. His smoking is a symbol for his arrogance. When he surrenders to his wife's demands of quitting, he surrenders to the world, all along the film he falls and he loses his spin and becomes what everyone wants him to be. A mindless unthinking everyone.
Baba Bengali is the paladin of the spineless world we live in. When K decides to quit he has already fallen into the trap of the Baba/World, it changes him. Finally, his soul is trapped, he has quit smoking and he does not recognize the new himself. he looks at his own body in despair.
Throughout the film Anurag critiques the new India, call centers, therapy clinics, homophobia, the mindless friends and family always trying to change you. I mean he presents the item number at the end of the last scene, it's like he's pissing on the face of everyone who's making mindless crap and selling it to the popcorn munching idiots who watch it.
Not to mention that the photography is spot on, the film is a visual treat to watch, the dreamy sequences are so well done that I was having goosebumps while watching. He gets it spot on in the childhood bathroom smoking sequence, with the sepia and super 8 format. He gets the soul trapped scene just right with the cross-porcessing, The film is a crash-course in how to use cine film to the fullest. The editing is spot on, the mass smoking sequence cut to the mouse in a hole is brilliant. The comic strip talk, is not "experimental", it makes the film. It is "needed."
Lastly, to all those who are trashing the movie, Do I write a review about "Kabhi Saas Bhi Bahu Thi?", at least have the honesty and decency to not trash something you lack the education to understand. Go watch some David Lynch, David Fincher and Martin Scorsese. Go read some books outside your course curricula.
This movie is everything that Indian cinema needs, I just hope Anurag has not exhausted himself, I am hungry for more.