No Smoking - Movie review

No Smoking is a “self service” movie. You have to try and figure out the story and the message by yourself. The movie is not likely to work well at the box office since we are so used to being served (spoon-fed) in Bollywood, where everything in the movie has to be clear and easy to understand. Metaphors and symbolic references are quite rare and frowned upon in our film industry.

“I hope the movie finds its audience” says Anurag Kashyap (the director) because he knows that for an average Joe it’s going to be inconvenient (and in some cases, impossible) to come out of those explain-me-everything and I-am-here-only-to-be-entertained mind-sets.

This is a bold and quite “arrogant” movie that refuses to spoon-feed the audience. It’s like when someone throws you into the water and expects you to learn swimming without any help. You either swim, or drown. There’s no third way out.

The movie is full with many metaphors and surrealistic moments.

- The protagonist's name "K" is a reference to (Anurag) Kashyap – the director himself.
- The bathtub is a symbol of worldly comfort, and ciggaret of freedom. (You have to choose between these two. In the dream sequences K constantly leaps for his ciggaret/freedom and gets killed by the soldier. Towards the end, when he decides to go for the bathtub instead, his freedom is sacrificed and that kills his soul.)
- Initially you see K smoking in his bath-tub, which indicates that he has both: worldly pleasures and his freedom. He is having dreams (or, nightmares) in which he has to choose between these two.
- The two fingers that K uses to smoke his ciggarets, are also the same ones that Kashyap uses to write his movies.
- The dream sequence in Russia is a reference to Stalin’s dictatorial Communist government – violation of personal liberty.
- The secretary and wife both played by Ayesha Takia are two different and opposite characters. The wife is a self-determined & strong individual while the secretary is submissive (she follows orders unquestionably and takes out K’s shoes in one scene.)
- “Cigarret Shashtra” is a reference to social orthodoxy and conservatism.
- K arrogantly talking to himself in the mirror (“Hi, I am K”, “Nobody tells K what to do”) is reference to Martin Scorsese classic Taxi Driver (the immortal sequence “Are you talking to me?” by De Nero).
- There is a reference to Vishal Bhardwaj, Gulzar and also to Fidel Castro. I felt that the former was forced and shallow though. (“Bidi jalai le ke Vishal desh mein…”)
- Baba Bengali’s threat of hurting or killing K’s family members is probably symbolic reference to the fact that K’s smoking hurts his family (both emotionally and physically as in his brother’s case).
- In the last scene, K is shown quiet and composed for the first time in the movie. He has quit smoking. Baba Bengali has won. But K’s soul is gone. We see that his fingers are cut – which is probably a way of showing the fact that his soul is now cut off from himself.
- The cinematography, lighting, background score and song lyrics – the overall ambiance of the movie is “dark” which gels with the melancholy theme of the movie.

The movie actually takes off when K plunges into the water in the custody. His soul and his body take two different but coherent journeys after that moment. The soul experiences bizarre moments and try to find ways to continue smoking (i.e. stick to his individual freedom.) But finally in the battle of K’s soul and his mind, the mind wins when K chooses to opt for the bathtub (instead of ciggaret) and not get killed by the soldier.

There are obvious flaws in the movie too. I think Kashyap has tried too hard to not spoon-feed the audience. He ended up making a movie that lot (or worse, most) of the people will not “get” completely. I doubt if there’s anyone except Kashyap himself who can claim to have understood the whole movie. But may be that’s the idea. May be that’s way this movie was meant to be.

This is probably the first time in Bollywood when a director made a very “personal” self-referential movie. Through K’s character, Kashyap talks about his own frustration and anguish (with the industry). In order to understand the analogy, you would have to know some background of Kashyap. This movie is from a director who is still waiting to get green flag from the censor board to let his first to movies released (Paanch and Gulal). It’s a movie from the director who had to unwillingly make several cuts in his last movie (Black Friday) to get censor board’s approval. It’s a movie from the director who felt as if his liberty to make movies (in the way he wants to make them) is taken away from him (as if his fingers with which he writes his movie were cut!). And that’s the central theme of this movie. How a person has to sacrifice his own self(ish) desires in order to follow the societal norms. And how that comes at the cost of your own personal soul! (By this, Kashyap is not saying that smoking is good. He makes this very clear before the movie begins. “A thousand people stops smoking everyday. By dying. Smoking Kills.”)

This is a movie that bothers you, provokes you, makes you think, it’s like a jigsaw puzzle that you try to put together even after (and especially after) the movie is over.

I loved this movie for its libertarian theme, style, wonderful songs, witty dialogues, bold and unusual way of storytelling.

PS. Two great quotes from two great philosophers (Socrates and Plato) are shown before the beginning credits:

“To be is to do.”
“To do is to be.”

You are defined by your what to do. Your actions define you, not your looks.