No Smoking pReview: Noir as Personal Filmmaking
Anurag Kashyap’s 4th feature ‘No Smoking’ opens with John Abraham’s K finding himself in an apartment in an unfamiliar environ of pristine blues & whites. There’s a Russian newsreader on TV, talking about a curfew that has marching soldiers ensuring upkeep. John looks out of the window – it is the same scene from TV, & he is in Siberia! This information he shares with the caller on the phone (Ayesha Takia) who John seems to know & asks for a cigarette while she reprimands him for his persistance with his craving for cigarettes. John puts-on a trench coat before stepping out for cigarettes, only he doesn’t know how to get out of this place. John breaks the French window & jumps out to land right into the hands of Russian soldiers whose army camp is based right here. John spots a bathtub in the far far distance lying all by itself, reminiscent of Dali, on the snow-clad landscape. He braves a pursuant soldier’s bullets to make a quick dash to a lone cigarette-pack found adjacent to the Daliesque bathtub. In slo-mo hereforth, John takes a bullet, manages to lurch for the cigarette pack, graces his lips with a cigarette from the pack while the soldier has managed to lock him down the barrel of his assault rifle in a face-off between 2 men – one armed with a gun readied to fire & the other armed only with his dangling cigarette ready to play receptacle. This face-off is unfairly pitted. John plays it equally unfair too – He asks for light for his cigarette. [Morrison-style 'Come On Baby Light My Fire'?]
Fade-Out on the bullet-shot. Or cigarette lighting if you will.
A lot seems to be happening in Siberia. It was here in 1849 that a 28yrs old Fyodor Dostoyevsky was put through a mock execution on a freezing morning that left an indelible impression on the young writer’s mind & drove a fellow convict mad. The Czar’s pardon was not read to him until the moment when the firing squad was already aiming their rifles at him. It makes me immensely happy that Anurag Kashyap invokes Dostoyevsky in ‘No Smoking’ two weeks before Sanjay Leela Bhansali would unleash his free-style gymnastics in introducing Dostoyevsky’s much-beloved classic ‘White Nights’ packaged as ‘Saawariya’ to that section of Indian audience that was unfortunate enough to have not had Dostoyevsky at their side in their formative years.
A lot seems to be happening in John’s life too. On the Fade-Out, with this sort of a prologue, you wonder.
What is it about the story of a man who would choose to light his cigarette with a bullet, a bullet that was meant to kill him anyways?
(or)
What kind of a portal it is that transports John from a bathtub in his bathroom in Worli to a snow-clad landscape in Siberia that makes the man dream his death many times over before he actually meets it, not knowing anymore if his death belonged to the terrain of the dreamt or the real world?
(or)
Would you want to know what sort of a life is it that makes a man (who happens to be a smoker) have recurring nightmares of not HAVING anymore WHAT he can’t do without with?
Your stance not-withstanding, Anurag Kashyap makes you inhabit this portal through the entire duration of ‘No Smoking’.
To get On with the proceedings,
If you happen to remember your secretary while sleeping with your wife, it is Fantasy (& some sort of Confession).
And if you remember your wife while working/flirting/sleeping with your secretary then it has to be Fixation (& guilt of course).
But what if. What only if, you ARE married to the secretary?
Then we choose, as John probably does, one of the two ways we have to ponder over the circumstance:
a. You HAVE a secretary AND a wife BOTH in the same person. That would make you an incurable optimist.
b. You neither Have her as a secretary (because she is wife now) nor do you Have her as wife (because it was fun while she used to be the secretary – repository of your Secret Life). You seem to have become a prisoner who’s mourning this twin loss.
There must be something in, i would imagine, Francois Truffaut’s taking for his second wife the actress Fanny Ardent who played his protagonist Jean-Louis Trintignant’s secretary in one of Truffaut’s beloved films ‘Confidentially Yours’ (1983). The film is an example of a lighter Noir that nevertheless boldly experiments with the genre where Fanny Ardent plays a secretary who saves the day for her boss she’s in love with, thereby ensuring their eventual eloping too.
In cinema, as elsewhere, personal narratives are known to allow sharing the creator’s life with its audience, letting them live through an experience that is of the creator’s. The French New Wave Cinema that heralded the single most influential movement in the evolution & re-invigoration of the art-form was nevertheless criticized for being overtly personal & hence amateurish (for the squeamish who equated personal with the forbidden). The New Wave Filmmakers (Godard, Truffaut, Rivette, Chabrol, Rohmer, Resnais, Malle) brilliantly set it up for themselves in their earlier tenure as film critics with ‘Cahiers Du Cinema’ by cleverly arguing for What Should Be Cinema & What Cinema Isn’t. After their first-runs as filmmakers who mostly dabbled with personal narratives they came upon huge stumbling blocks, of the newer critics who held sway now & the older producers who had lost out to them. The New Wavers came back by choosing for their next ventures a genre that allowed “renovation, either by extending its boundaries or intellectualizing it in some way”, and that “takes inspiration, aspirations, and a vision of the world which are naturally in accordance with the laws of the genre” – Film Noir. 40% of all films made between 1959 to 1979 in France were Film Noir, or what the French broadly referred to as Cinema Policier. Anurag Kashyap chooses the personal narrative, one that is of a reflective mode, & metaphorical in its rendition and skillfully merges into the realm of Noir. “A film’s total assimilation within a genre often means nothing more than its complete submission to it; to make a Noir thriller, the essential & only prerequisite is that it be conceived as such and that it be constituted exclusively of the elements of the genre” [Chabrol]. With ‘No Smoking’ we have Anurag Kashyap’s most personal film to-date. As personal as his blog at PassionForCinema stands testimony to.
A quick word about Steve! An upstart theatre director from my hometown of Bangalore while seeking to adapt to the stage ‘Sex, lies & Videotape’ referred to Steven Soderbergh as Steve when recounting his correspondence with the sometimes-indie filmmaker. Honestly, ever since, i have wanted to address somebody important (& dear) as Steve. Here i go.
I, happen to be the amongst the handful few in Bombay that has watched ‘Cat’s Eye’ (RGV would love me for this). And i, evidently so, happen to have also watched Anurag Kashyap’s ‘No Smoking’. Steve’s (Stephen King) short story from his ‘Night Shift’ collection ‘Quitters Inc.’ does provide the premise for Anurag Kashyap’s ‘No Smoking’. But the similarities not only end with the premise, watching ‘No Smoking’ reveals a squandered opportunity for Steve Inc. in their adaptation of the short story to a 30 minutes segment of a tri-segmented feature ‘Cat’s Eye’. ‘Cat’s Eye’ plays the smoking-mind-game straight. It definitely seems to have been designed with the intent of a compilation film, where possibilities & premises are good enough to pique curiosities. And then hope to be enriched in another auteur’s hands. The wealth seems to be with the prospector, no longer in the mine.
A self-reflective question that Anurag Kashyap weaves into the resolution of the film;
At what point have you adorned defeat, though might be unacknowledged? At the point in your rebellion where, the answer seemingly, as soon as you have played by the rules of what you refused to be subjugated-by in the first place.
Another question would have to be, if it is horrifying enough to have witnessed this fall or if you find the fight (in a losing battle) courageous? Go figure it out! And have a ball of a time while at it!
‘No Smoking’ is written & directed by Anurag Kashyap from a story by Raja Chaudhury & Anurag Kashyap.
Stars John Abraham, Ayesha Takia, Paresh Rawal, Ranvir Shorey & Gajraj.
Shot in splendid aquamarines by Rajeev atta (Rajeev Ravi) with imaginative Production Design by Wasiq Khan.
Music scored by Vishal Bharadwaj to lyrics by Gulzar.
Edited by Aarti Bajaj.
Sound Designed by Kunal Sharma
Second Unit Director Vikramaditya Motwane
Has cameos by almost every member of the crew & PFCiite Vasan ‘V for Victory, B for Ball’ Bala.
Director’s Special Thanks to Vikramaditya Motwane, Devashish Makhija & Ayesha Mohan.
Censor Board Certification by Vinayak Azad.
Amongst deftly jumping across genres ‘No Smoking’ succeeds to be an authentic detective thriller too, where the protagonist seeks to find-out the goings-on in the life that Happens to be his own. And it is in an investigation that’s commissioned by – surprise, surprise – himself. Aren’t we already treading noble traditions of Existentialism here? Indeed! Indeed!
‘No Smoking’ Premieres at the ongoing Rome International Film Festival on the 24th October 2007 alongside latest offerings from Raul Ruiz, Francis Ford Coppola, Robert Redford & Sidney Lumet. ‘No Smoking’ releases Worldwide on Friday the 26th October 2007.
Anurag Kashyap
Abhay Deol
Dibakar Banerjee
Hansal Mehta
Khalid Mohamed
Kundan Shah
Anish Kuruvilla
Jaideep Verma
Manish Gupta
Navdeep Singh
Bhavani Iyer
D. Santosh
Onir
Ashvin Kumar
Ramu Ramanathan
Sudhir Mishra
Pankaj Advani
Revathy
Saurabh Shukla
Shilpa Shukla
Sujoy Ghosh
Suparn Verma
Santosh Sivan
Shashank Ghosh
Shivajee
Pavan Kaul
Partho Sen-Gupta
Prroshant Naryannan
Sam Langoria
Satish Kasetty
Wow. what an imaginative, soulful dissection of No Smoking. I would reserve my comments after I watch the film. But your personal views on the film certainly increases my curiosity. Waiting eagerly for the release.
Wow. What better way to start a day!
You pretty much summed up what the images and sounds from No Smoking invoke, and also added a lot more fantastical realms to the imagery-Dostoevsky, Dali & existentialism. A film is a film is a film, but the whole interpretation game makes it an obsession worth spending a life on. It’s when a film rises above the things that can be written about in reviews, that it truly attains its own life, its structure and unique entity.
Loved the entire ’secretary-wife’ analogy & the line by Chabrol.
Sounds like Philip k Dick meets Michel Ghondry meets David Fincher….let’s hope the film is as good as the review ! Best of luck Anurag…
I just hope it scares m enough to make me quit! ;-)
Now, THIS, is the best piece of writing I have read on PFC in recent times,
it does not matter which film you are talking about really,
I absolutely enjoyed your critiquing of it.
Very mature, Very PFC.
K-3
looks intresting
Thani // Thanks a million for this pReview. As mentioned (you beat me to it K3), first class writing on a (hopefully) first class movie.
Killer pReview..awaiting the movie.
@ Omprakash Seresta
thanks Omprakash for the euphoric debut response. Stands the write-up in good stead for the good, bad & the not-so-good that might come-in.
@ Tushar
>-.
glad to have started your day well for you, a day that seems to have started pretty early
“It
@ qwerty
i love them all – Dick, Gondry, Fincher. And i love their meetings too. thanks for liking the review.
am tempted to volunteer some more meetings – Lynch, Truffaut, Goodis, Jong-hyeok, Joon-ho, Fosse, Kaufman, Tarantino, Bukowski apart from the aforementioned Dostoyevsky, Dali, Kafka & Kashyap hisself:)
@ The Narcisist
depends really on how susceptible to fear you actually are!!!
@ kavita
thanks very much kavita. Pls do come back for more reading here.
thanks krishna, wb & Souravbhuyan. i can’t wait enough for the film’s release, & the discussions around it.
aren’t we labeling films as noir a bit too enthusiastically? whatever little i have gathered of “No Smoking” doesn’t suggest it to be one, will reserve the decision till i see it. many people categorized “johnny gaddar” as noir which is stretching the definition of the genre way too much. while “manorama … ” is indeed one.
all good crime movies need not be noir and similarly all noir need not be good. and as long as personal film-making is concerned, 400 blows is considered by many as truffaut’s most personal film and its not a noir
Great article!! It is indeed very insightful and could only be written by a man with a great, deep knowledge of cinema. I have been goin thru the articles on PFC.. It is a pleasure to read such amazing articles. I have been eagerly awaiting the release of “No smoking” and this article is just making me more and more impatient..
thanks Saurabh. It was pleasure watching the film, & equally so writing this article.
@ #14 Apoorva
i never pushed ‘400 Blows’ as Noir. i wouldn’t. But we can’t deny the existence of films that have managed to be personal while being Noir too. There are certain gems that you don’t sully. ‘400 Blows’ belongs way up there in this category. By your same token every film i mention need not necessarily be Noir.
In a nutshell, what makes Noir would have to be Intent & Delivery.
Much appreciate your reservation till you watch ‘No Smoking’.
p.s. ‘Johnny Gaddar’ is N.o.i.R. If you’re talking about Classic Noir, that’s an altogether different discussion. Eg: ‘L.A. Confidential’ is Classic Noir. So is ‘Chinatown’.
@Thani
I am by no mean an expert of noir or for that matter any genre, but here are some arguments for not putting JG as noir:
Almost all the noirs have the protagonist fighting one betrayal after another. In JG there are betrayals but they are committed by the hero himself.
Most of the noirs have the protagonist either a suave detective who doesn’t get bothered about the perils awaiting him, or a simple person who is in the midst of hopelessness. Vikram in JG can’t be classified among any of these.
Almost all noirs have a mystery woman who is critical to the plot, Mini’s character in JG is too week for it.
Most of the noir has the city playing a special role, which is not to be seen here.
Noirs typically have dark lightings, long shadows, etc to create a bleak environment; JG was too brightly shot for this.
(For all the above points, manorama six feet under can be claimed as noir.)
I never accused you of pushing 400 blows as noir, I only mentioned it because you mentioned Confidentially Yours which to me is the least personal film by Truffaut.
P.S. Btw, both Chinatown and L.A. Confidential are not classic noir, but neo-noir. Classic noir are the ones shot in BnW in 40’s, 50’s and early 60’s
When choosing a Personal Narrative style the filmmaker doesn’t always have to pour-out his secret life to a paying public. He identifies metaphors. “Censorship is the mother of metaphor” – Borges. It is prudence in the choice & the purpose it serves in the narrative-scheme that accomplishes the task for the filmmaker.
About Neo-Noir my only argument is its straight-jacketed classification that IMDB has popularised. Any filmmaker who tried submitting his film-details to IMDB would attest to the fact.
At this point i’m curious. Do you like Noir or you don’t? You a Noir-lover or you tend to deny, in your mind, auteur-status to filmmakers who express themselves through Noir?
To be frank I haven’t that many noirs but some of them have been very very good; I do rank The Third Man, The Big Sleep, M, Sunset Blvd. etc among my favourites.
And no I am not referring to imdb while using the term neo-noir, I am referring mostly to the noir project by TSPDT http://www.theyshootpictures.com/noir.htm which I believe quite an honest attempt.
And I would also disagree with your view that around 40% of films made between 59 to 79 in France were noirs. Though new wave film makers were heavily inspired by noirs they themselves didn’t try their hand in the genre, Godard, Truffaut, Rohmer, Bresson etc never made a true noir; only big names I can think of are Rivette and Melville.
Apoorva, you & i seem to be going round in circles. You agree to about half of what i say & just when i decide to let us both be, you end up claiming things that i feel compelled to give my version of.
You bring in ‘true noir’, as though we meant no-noir when talking of Noir all this while. Now what’s ‘true noir’ supposed to be? And how am i supposed to suppose your idea/understanding of ‘true noir’? French New Wave filmmakers, with the exception of Rohmer, did make Film Noir films. i wouldn’t want this post to turn into a battle ground over Taxonomy – Noir, Classic Noir, Neo-Noir, Post-Noir, Detective Noir, Thriller Noir, Novelistic Noir, Painterly Noir etc.
i love Noir, sure. And i do appreciate the interest you’ve taken in cross-checking people & works i mention in the write-up.
This movie is releasing bang in the middle of my exams :(( And by the time my exams are done,It’s gonna be OSO and Saanwariya time :-<
@Apoorva
Do you consider Bride wore black (truffaut), shoot the piano player (truffaut), etc in noir ?
@thani
peace
@omprakash
yes
definitely going to watch this film…first day first show…
i would like 2 c this film
Hi Thani,
just wanted to check, if you were in bangalore a couple of years ago at the Indo-German Film Festival.
i remember watching your short film at Badami House.. are you the same Thanickachalam?
hi drupad. yes, happen to be the same one. haven’t met any namesake as yet :-)
Dear Mr. Thani,
A very very dense piece. Could not get your questions at all but would definitely watch the movie.
No Smoking will play at The Imaginasian theater in New York City for a week starting this Friday, Oct. 26.
Hopefully, I can make it there. Thani, I will read your pRe-view more carefully after I view the movie. ‘Til then, I would still like to save some surprises.
First day watch fix hai boss…
Guys read Anurag interview on rediff..
http://www.rediff.com/movies/2007/oct/24anurag.htm
useful info about the New York screening Evelyn. btw, surprises are intact in the film. haven’t really given them away.
anybody know more about tomorrow’s release in the US & UK??
the K seems to be alluding to Kafka’s “The Trial”…waiting for this movie….just a bit worried that this movie will also meet the same fate as Manorama….
K for Kafka, Yes.
wanna make Trial(s) as to what K might have been called in earlier drafts?
The protagonist in “The Trial” is also named Joseph K.
What was K called in earlier drafts of “No Smoking”?
K was always K
hey anurag,
the publicity campaign in today’s Mid-Day was innovative and excellent……
Anurag Saheb, what happened to my offer in return for free Samosas? :D
@ Anurag Kashyap
my guess too.. ‘always K’..:)
>:)MR KASHYAP!
MY CONGRATULATIONS FOR HAVING THE GUMPTION OF SHOWING THE REAL LOVE STORY IN THIS WORLD!
A MAN AND HIS CIGRETTES,FORA CHANGE WOMEN HAVE TAKEN THE BACK SEAT. MAY BE THE MEN ARE TOO TIRED OF ROMANCING WOMEN?! ITS A REFRESHING CHANGE BUDDY KEE IT UP!