phook de

so ive been watching a movie a day and december with eid holidays (hope everyone had a good eid!) and tommorow being christmas (merry christmas!). so more holidays, theres nothing much to do but watch movies. well anyway the movie today is no smoking directed by anurag kashyap. The main actors in the film are ohn abraham, ayesha takia, paresh rawal and ranvir shorey.

its basically about a man (john) who is a chain smoker and after his wife (ayesha) threatens to leave him he joins a sort of rehabilitation center. but its not really a rehabilitation center, its more an almagamation of a tantric/underground mafia/burkha clad call center operation/i dont know what. its run by this baba (paresh rawal) who will help john get rid of this smoking addiction whether he likes it or not.

the direction and treatment of the film is different. the actors are ok. i dont know why lot of pple say john is wooden, there are a lot of "wooden" like pple like john in this world. its very normal. all of us dont exactly cry at a drop of a hat or to put it bluntly show our emotions. so it ok if some actors do that. they are just behaving like other normal pple. ayesha takia is just ok her, i really liked her in dor and socha na tha. but she hasnt been doing too many good films lately. paresh rawal is good but one dimensional which i believe is the intent of the character.

so i have to say i didnt really understand this movie and i guess the movie is open to its own interpretation and from reading anurag's analysis (post watching) some of it is intelligent, but perhaps too intelligent for the average knowledged cinegoer. those who havent read many of kafkas works or read stephen king novels or even know much about history or know much about the references both musical and cinematic. from what i understand at least thats my interpretation that loss of freedom of speech, freedom of knowledge, freedom to do what you want to do is basically eroding your own soul and your own conscience. succumbing to society norms sometimes might not be the best thing for you. i got the gist of the movie i think but there were so many things i just didnt understand

what was the significance of the bathtub/closet/wherever the souls came from. what do these areas signify?

what was the whole thing with siberia?

what did the one rupee signify? in the end when paresh rawal urges him to give him one rupee, what would have happened if john had given it to him?

what was the deal with one of hte souls asking him whether he had a rupee to make a call? call to who?

what was the whole annie/anjali thing?

in the end the last scene where johns soul is burning, its reminds you of dante's inferno but would everyone burn in the same level of hell?

was the baba actually the devil? i say this because there were many a scenes, like the friend of Abraham who returns from Cuba and his thugs force John into smoking. Is this just a ploy then this "rehab" and invariably a means to capture ones soul?

i wish the director would have explained his point of view. but then again i get this feeling that he wouldnt like to explain his view and would prefer the viewer had his own opinion and not be dictated into accepting the logic given.

not exactly a light movie for a holiday, i would say watch it on dvd coz you can rewind and discuss or when someone is asking you why why and you really dont know why.