No Smoking (2007)
8/10
Very dark, but subtle....
6 January 2008
You read thru the comments here, either its in 8-9-10 range or its in 1-2-3 range. Its funny to see the movie invokes such drastic reactions in different people. That itself talks a lot about the cinematic power of this masterclass movie of "A", (Anurag Kashyap).

To some extent, its a director's indulgence. He didn't make the movie for you or me, he made it for himself. It's a movie made for film school. The movie can be a textbook for various film-making subjects. Technically brilliant! A very dark movie indeed, probably first movie of the film-noir kind to be made from Bollywood stable. Anurag Kashyap is a sort of rebel in the industry. I am glad he was able to express himself cinematically through this movie.

Honestly, its really hard to understand the movie. And I didn't quite follow it either. But somehow, I really enjoyed watching it.

Vishal Bharadwaj produced it - who else but another master of dark movies will understand this movie.

Vishaal's music is infectious in the movie. He surprises me with his never-ending creativity. Musically I associated him with Omkara, Maachis type music, mellow, neo-classical, haunting. But his experimentation with Jazz in this movie is truly outstanding. Apart from the songs, the movie SHOULD get recognition for its background score. Deep rooted in jazz, I had to rewind the movie several times to listen to some background jazz scores. What else Vishaal has in store for us??? Its interesting to get a piece of director A's mind through his blog, where he really expresses himself, go to passionforcinema.com to read his blog. If you are anywhere close to film-making, you will love reading his writings.

Anurag Kashyap is a different class of movie director. I am not sure if he can make much money trying to follow his passion, because it is very hard to get accepted with this kinda movies. However, I wish he make a few semi-commercial movies to give him the money to experiment with true gems like No Smoking. Last thing I want him to be branded as a crazy lunatic of the bollywood.

Bravo Mr Kashyap!!
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