Dead WRONG!!!
Reality is that just like Black Friday, it's the only Oscar worthy film (and Lagaan can't hold a candle to it, niether can MunnaBhai. etc.) to come from India since Black Friday!!!.
I am not here to bash incompetent Indian film critics...they are incompetent...and the market would soon weed them out...what I am here for is to give an honest view and review.
But, before that, I think for the common film lover, a preface is in order, If you feel daunted by the length of what is written here (It's close to 1400 words, a little more than three A4 pages of print, less than half the size of the esssay you are required to write in a language exam), skip it and just go catch the movie!
So here goes (and this is the BIGGEST, best kept secret of films...atleast for the common filmgoer, what DOES a DIRECTOR do???)...
Semantics: [...quoting verbatim from the website...]
the study of meaning in language.
Example: Linguists interested in semantics know that human language can be very imprecise. The word "love" means different things to different people. Moreover, some sentences are ambiguous--that is, they have more than one meaning--because of their syntax: "The chicken is ready to eat."
In cinema, semantics IS THE REASON, why a director is needed.
A director is the one, whose responsibility is to bring coherence to the various semantic interpretations that the actors, the camera, the edit, the write etc. may have.
Here, is a small example: a simple "hey!" said by a male actor to another female actor could either mean a simple greeting or could mean an invitation to seduction! in case of Joey from friends it become your cue to start laughing.. :) and it's a simple "hey!", just one word! Think of all those layers that work in human communication! Hence the need for a director.
It is a director's job (and responsibility) to freeeze the semantic meaning and make sure that this abstract meaning is reflected (and communicated) in the art (and craft) of everyone involved in the film.
But, that's a job description...
The "Art" happens when the director has such majestic clarity of thought that he/she begins to play with semantics of the film!!!
From the restrained lunacy of 12 monkeys, to the playful invention (and sheer, lustful joy of storytelling) of Back to the Future, to the tongue in cheek (and elsewhere, literally) gross out curios of American pie, every good film has this one contribution from the director.
And it is this experience that makes a film all the more worth while.
Remember those really "deep" moments you felt when watching that really "great" film alone (I am sure, all of us have had at least one such experience)?
Yes, that was the 'art' of a masterful director.
and now for the review...
We understand metaphors, I think most of understand semantics too!
Imagine how cool and interesting it would be if an entire film is made out of them!
I mean, react to this: A horse faced girl being passed of as a hot diva (because some disoriented ape-the-west designers made her model meaninglessness) drenched in rain, wearing a blue gown says : "Oh! I am drenched in rain and wearing a blue gown!!!"
Exactly ! It's supposed to be cheap, funny, and not deep, "sensitive" cinema! (like it was touted to be in many of our "family" dramas and "great" cinema. K Jo, most of the latter YashRaj mush, dhoom2, shirish kunder's pathetica, black, sanjay leela bhansali's pretentia and many others...take your pick)
You are taken to be a cheapo (even at 'never-pro/demented-amateur' levels like in those bored classes at schools, colleges), if you do this. Whether, in literature, in poetry, in paintings, even in photography, and music (case in point: largely unanimous loath for Reshammia's croon) but in cinema, this is exactly what our learned critics and the producer's PR machine would want you to believe is good!
And Anurag Kashyap didn't do it, which is why No Smoking is good.
So, back to 'No Smoking'...
The film's about two things...
One, The arrogant demand of a man, for his freedom, from the moronic, twisted conventions of the 'social' around him, I battle this too, so do you, my reader, all of us do. This is a battle he looses (as we all may) and ends up loosing his soul (which was pure and wanted that freedom in the first place), in the process he is also rid of a ridiculous "bad" habit. Look at it from the addicted smoker's POV, is smoking really that bad???
Two, the devil's devious plot to score your soul through tricks and trades.
In the mean time it also makes a few statements on:
How a man in lust, and in love searches for the same woman in all his affairs (by showing Ayesha Takia in a double role, as his wife and also as his office seceretary, notice that the names are different and so are the getups and role plays...)
Horsey Item girls (Adnan Sami crooning Jab bhee cigarette... for Jesse Randhawa)
Hell (the hero's descent into the nether world, that looks like the claustrophobic nightmares of dharavi.)
and many more...
Do you see, how many interpretations Anurag Kashyap is playing with?
Add to that the film looks like a BOMB! It's real, at the same time surreal, and if you were to freeze a frame, I am sure you'll realize that the frame is beautiful, and at the same time so real! not at all like the pompous beauty you'd find in SLB movies...but real, textured, grainy, and sincere.
and with all this, you'd think, it's not interesting, but, you'd be worng!
It runs like a thriller! You sit on the edge as each new thing happens on screen.
Towards the end it (the film) takes the metaphors and 'semantics' to a high as your perspective turns around from that of the real being to that of his soul!
Extremely beautiful.
Extremely revolutionary.
Extremely inventive.
It's the next generation of cinema for India, and look what a shabby welcome we awarded it.
But, there is still hope.
Take a look at the flick and try to see the film, with truth.
But, I think the film was a little loose on two points, and no it's not THAT big a deal, all films have flaws, it is what makes them interesting.
One, as I mentioned, the Ayesha Takia thing.
and Two, JA coming out of the bathtub.
Lemme explain, in both of these cases, there it appeared to me, was a narrative 'bump' or a 'turn', dunno the correct jargon for it :).
In such cases, I believe there is an expectation (and usually the fulfillment of it) that:
- There would some explanation, which was there [in the film], but at a different point when the train of thoughts was on a different track.
- Or at least that some time would be given, for the 'digestion/accomodation' of this new turn/bump to the 'train of thoughts'.
What I am a little wary of is, if these explanations/timings did come across right?
I do not mean for me, I am writing about it here...but, for a rather 'regular' viewer (I am not, I watched it twice, alone, and then some more with my friends).
Anurag, I read this, said "It's an arrogant film."
And in saying that he sort of justifies it.
But, it's also HIS film, so I dunno...
Probably these things would slip (I know it'd happen with me, I can't even think as complex!), if you are thinking so much and working so hard on your film.
I mean, I saw Scorsese's Departed, and he does that narrative 'bump' thing every two minutes throughout the film so, I don't know (not unless I make a film of my own) if it's that big a deal, or if there are ways around it.
As I said, really not a big deal, end of the day I have just three words for the film...
No Smoking ROCKS!!!
Really long for a post, I am hoping it'd invite some healthy discussions :)
ciao.
P.S. there's a lot of bad english up there, cause I get exited about movies and then things sort of go haywire.. :)
