TO WHOMSOEVER IT MAY CONCERN

Every once in a while a movie comes along that gets me all excited. That makes me think about it for the longest time…that makes me long to speak to someone who’d know exactly how or why it affected me so…

I finally bought the VCD and watched “No Smoking” at home. Given that I am a Kashyap fan, there was no way I wasn’t going to see it. Just that its time of release clashed with a lot happening personally, so I missed it then.

This isn’t about telling you I enjoyed the film. I’ve said it in the begining itself. And I like it enough to want to meet the director and tell him that I am most impressed and proud of him for giving us this. But, this post here, is about the audience we make as a country  and how close minded we are sometimes.

Just like anyone else, I love bollywood. I love the songs and dances, I love the good winning over evil in the end, the romance, the villians, the action, the drama everything. Yes, and I might also use the cheesiest of lines from B-Grade movies to make a point in real life. But that does not mean I am not open to a movie that’s different. That doesn’t bow down to a formula with a star, scantily clad women and foreign locales where the only violence is probably a slap.

Why are we still so intolerant towards a wider variety of cinema? The world doesn’t end with bollywood style of film making! May be the Indian sensibilities are not ready for a wider perspective yet…I don’t know. But that probably explains why half the country has not heard of , and doesn’t remember a film called “Lets talk”. It was in English, it is Indian, it starred Boman Irani ( his first film) and sank without a trace. We went in a group to see it, and apart from our gang of 5, there were only 4 others in the theatre who had come to watch it. On the first day.

Or why a movie like Lamhe is not easily digested, or Freaky Chakra for that matter…

About “No Smoking”, well, I saw the film, loved it, spoke to a few friends about it and would have been done. But then I read what people had to say about it. Professional reviews, blog posts, movie sites. And I cannot help but speak.

If you ask what its about, everyone who’s seen it will tell you, its about a guy and his struggle to quit smoking. No! It isn’t! Well, it could be if you want to see it that way, but it doesn’t have to be…And no, it isn’t an anti smoking campaign for God’s sake…

Khalid Mohammad’s reviews I never trust anyway, increasingly in the last couple of years, but when I see him review the Director as a person and not the movie, I feel sad. And sorely dissapointed. Reviewers went on and on about how Anurag kashyap is a self confessed arrogant director and has made an arrogant film. Even if he says so himself, my verdict is its not a self indulgent or an arrogant film. Far from it, in fact!

I can undersatnd it might not be “everybody’s kind” of  film. But then neither is “A clockwork orange” or “Mulholland Drive” or even “V for Vendetta”.  David Lynch or Ingmar Begman don’t appeal to all. That, is acceptable. But then, will people, before delivering a verdict, practice some restraint and accept that they didn’t get the film? And it should end at that. Becasue lets face it, ‘I didn’t get it’ does not equal to ‘its a bad film’.

I read in one of the reviews…that since a lot of people did not understand the movie, the director has failed as the sore objective of  a movie is to entertain.

Really? Do you always get abstract art? Does an artist always make a painting for the viewer’s benefit ? What can be more beautiful than watching a film or any piece of art that leaves room for interpretation? That lets you be part of the process of unravelling a mystery?

No Smoking brings together brilliant camera, great music, a set of fine actors and a clever concept that lets you think about your life. And no, not because you’re a smoker or a non smoker. About your own private hell…or heaven…or the journey each one takes, individually. You see, it could be about anything! You decide what it means to you! Allegorical and abstract yes, intellegent, yes, but absurd? No. Difficult to understand? I don’t know. To each their own.

I have no issues with discussing the film, dissing it, or even trying to make sense of it, anything! I even understand that it might not be your kind. But no, it isn’t about a guy and his smoking. And just because it doesn’t stick to the Karan Johar/Aditya Chopra formula, does not in anyway mean its a bad film.

Just that.

 

 

 

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