"No Smoking" (Language - Hindi) (2007) - Movie Review

“No Smoking” is the epitome of an ambitious kid’s project with the self proclaimed cinematic intellectualism and the result of a suppressed ego vomited out. It is a mess because it is from the depths of a creative mind aspiring to recreate the glory days of those immense film watching. The passing period of a film geek witnessing the greatness in this art and swallowing that concoction of brilliance, chaos and aesthetics from those artists of genius. It grows inside and writes pages and pages of scripting obvious homage and unintended plagiarism. Usually it evaporates when it is played back in the memories stating the relentless scale one imposes on himself/herself but for a person like Anurag Kashyap with a stupendous “Black Friday” in his achievement list, he has succumbed to that dangerous fantasy. We see a horrible film.

One cannot avoid the comparison between “Revolver” a same pile of fiasco from the stylish cult director Guy Ritchie because in the frames of John Abraham as K wandering in filthy slums and blue tinted glasses circling the ring of smoke with shades in darkness comes out Tarantino, Ritchie and Fincher. I empathize with Kashyap because the psychosis of those illusions is bungled in this reviewer’s mind too. I can believe those illusions are most of the occasions comes as a powerful script but the seeds of those beginning tale of film addiction realizing that he/she has found the keys to unlock the mystic creativity in complex, somber and disjointed classics remains forever. The trick is to assemble them and provide his/her taste of treatment. Kashyap in the midst of emulating the style forgets that.

We see vast snow plain with a bath tub in the middle of nowhere and soldiers of different country (most probably Russians) and K wakes up among those to a phone ring in a confined place. That is clue number one for dream sequence. Second the place is unfamiliar. Wooden walls and an open glass with a feeling of watching a big LCD screen is clue number two. Then Kashyap’s indulgence comes in the form of thoughts coming off as cartoon bubbles. That is clue number three. K with unresponsive soldiers through a hole from a door and bullet to be fired near him drives K to break the glass using a chair and desperately sprints to the bath tub. A soldier shoots and he falls to grab the cigarette pack lying. If some one cannot figure out that it is a dream, then his fingers can be cut off as the film characters go through for relapsing in quitting smoking.

This is K, a narcissistic and egoistic chain smoking alpha male. K has mouthful with cigarettes filling them up tirelessly. Now talking with a cigarette on their mouth might give a swindling picture of sleek and style but it is not. And adding to that one cannot enjoy the cigarette in that fashion. Trust me. K’s wife Anjali (Ayisha Takia) has issues with that and K treats her like dirt. Clearly more than smoking it is the attitude of K which is ruining their marriage. Circle of events, Anjali leaves K and K agrees to go to a mysterious “ashram” or “laboratory” or simply rehabilitation center. This is not regular soothing modern age music in ambience center we fathom of. In the deep dense slums with dirty walls adding the ambiguity of the reality resides a guruji (Paresh Rawal) explaining the game or rules of the process of quitting.

Arriving to that takes great strains to sit through and it is labyrinth of stupidity and unmerciful web of unknown rituals Kashyap takes us along. It is quite obvious from the expressionless face of Abraham that he has no idea what he is doing in this maze. Paresh Rawal is the dubious looking philosopher explaining the concept of soul and body. If that would have taken place in a spicy Bollywood film, it would have been appropriate because that is something I will avoid but Kashyap deceived in making me sit through this.

Attempting to explain the plot to any one and mainly yourself is an exercise I do not wish to perform. Most of the times a viewer seeing a confused film sometimes meaning nothing and everything are enjoyed for the journey, the endless possibilities of the interpretation. The journey in “No Smoking” is excruciating mundane masqueraded rubbish. All these harshness is the pain to endure it but I with full heart understand what Kashyap did because the dancing devils of fantasy resides in me too.