No Smoking in the Waiting Area

There are some films where I think that Tony Ukpo is an ambitious filmmaker who is keen to explore ideas and try things even if they don't work because trying is often just as much part of it as succeeding. And then there are times where I think that is nonsense and actually it would be better if worked through things better before filming them and perhaps got a bit more technical knowhow as well. At the end of this film we have credit references to The Coen Brothers, Jim Jarmusch and several others and I did wonder if Ukpo thought we wouldn't get what he was trying to do so had to literally spell out his reference points.

The plot sees a Dudette who is unemployed and waiting for a delivery in her flat. When she goes to the bathroom one day she stumbles into a black and white waiting room for dead celebrities. In terms of what it does with this narrative, it does have some reasonably okay lines but generally it doesn't do much but want to be smarter than it is. I'm not sure if watching so many great filmmakers as those listed makes one think that it is easy, but 'No Smoking etc' never feels like anything other than a less effective copy of everything it is trying to do. It has moments but generally doesn't work.

Technically the 'look' of the film is off; with some washed out images and generally a look which suggests it was knocked together very quickly – which I guess it was. Yet again I am reminded that I really must stop watching Ukpo's films through headphones because the sound is poor here. The quality is variable, sound effects are too loud for the acts they accompany, voices are all in one side of the stereo and the music is dipped with each word spoken. The performances are okay but there is too much impression here to really let the actors do anything of their own within that frame.

I will continue to watch Ukpo's films because occasionally his drive to make things happen does produce something with good ideas which cover up for some of the weaknesses, however this short is nothing of its own and the only thing that Ukpo seems to bring to his own table here is the usual technical limitations.