#00 Kahaani: No Smoking
The movie opens with a glorious display of credits and moving logos of
production houses, with globes turning and lions roaring and all that stuff.
Marvel at their comprehensibility and depth of meaning- "Eros man! the
greek goddess of sex or some shit", because that would be the only
comprehensible part of the movie or that would be the last sane dialogue you
would utter for the rest of the two hours. You shall be drained at the interval
or if there is none (that is if you are viewing it continuously) I'm sorry for
you man!
You will be astounded, you shall be repelled, you shall scream open mouthed
when Ranveer Shorey's dead finger begins to grow when attatched to his hand,
you shall be disgusted and depressed by the films bleakness and dark humor
(that is if you are the squirmish type) but one thing can never happen- that is
you getting bored and sleeping off in the middle of the movie. No sir! That's
not possible. Because if you do, the jazz song of a woman dancing as a man is
sure to wake you up, as your friends wont stop nudging you.
The movie plot is simple. A narcissistic man called K (just K or
"Ka" in hindi) smokes a lot. He has ashtrays more than dinner plates
and has smokes even in the bathroom. His wife, disgusted by his habit, insists
him to join a prayogshala (laboratory) run by a crazy man with a weird sense of
humor played impeccably and flawlessly by Paresh Rawal. K descends into his
worst nightmare when his addiction takes over and every puff of smoke he
inhales leads to dire consequences.
The movie borrows heavily from Stephen King's Quitters.Inc and surreal
elements from Kafka's The Trial. That is the plot. No twists, no sensational
character arcs. Just plain old plot.
To this just add the Russian army, A Bathtub, Phantasmic entities running
amock in the Prayogshala, ladies in burkha's, decapitated fingers, sleazy jazz
songs, hilarious comic book balloons, non-sensical dialogues and Ranveer
Shorey's squint. Try to find out how these things figure in the plot. If you do
understand, you havent understood it at all. If you don't understand, watch the
movie again! In the end the movie eats itself, consumed by its own ambition and
surrealism.
The characters suddenly blankout,
descend into insanity or passiveness and indulge in non-sensical dialogues. But
the whole point of surrealism is to emphasize the meaning by taking away the
meaning. Which Kashyap fails to do, because once surrealism takes over, the
film spins out of control. And instead of controlling the movie's theme (I'm
guessing it has one) he further deepens the wound and adds some more masala.
This is evident in the second half when K squeezes his way into the mob and
ends up in a jail. WTF! The scenes refuse to unfold its meaning, giving the
viewers nothing but a growing resentment towards Kashyap's movies. The man
literally says- "I know the meaning, I wont tell you!" and basks in
the open-mouthed frustration of the viewers. The second part of the movie is
madness.
The movie does not hesitate in violence. Fingers are cut, fingers are
regrown, 'Finger's are shown and the audience finally end up plunging their
fingers into their ears as the strange songs are played out in front of them.
Another aspect heavily borrowed from Kafka's The Trial is the presence of
authoritarian figures who force the character to their whims. The end basically
isn't as shocking as it seems because people are so washed out and
de-fibrillated that they can hardly drive home without glancing nevously at
their fingers (making sure its intact) and honking at the dogs lest comic book
balloons appear on top of their ears with words like "Kaminey"
written on it (In hindi).
But the movie certainly represents a break from the conventional style of
Cinema. Even though Kashyap obscures the moral, changes Plato's dialogues into
Socrates' and finally into Sinatra's you just wont be bored.
Phew!
Dialogue of the day: Beedi Jalaai le' ke is Vishal desh mein, cigar Gulzar. (Yes, That actually is a dialogue from the movie)
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