Smoking/No Smoking

Puzzling mess from Alain Resnais.

Resnais's films are always joint works with their usually renowned screenwriters. The truth is that the quality of his films depends a lot on those collaborators.

I'm not quite sure what interest he may have found in Alan Ayckbourn's supposedly witty comedy, but the five-hour-plus result starts out as slightly unfunny stupidity, and after an hour turns into one of the most mind-numbing movies ever made , whose viewing is an unnecessary torture.

The premise of the staging is artificiality: decorated with painted curtains, two actors each representing several characters, forcing the play to be a succession of duets, and the use of makeup, costumes as exaggerated and irritating as the performances.

The reason for this mess cannot be just the stupid game of showing the diversity of developments that can be triggered by minor decisions, or the simple show-off of the actors in different roles. At first we suspect that there must be something more to it, apart from the apparent and irritating stupidity without any substance. But after an hour and a half it seems like that's it, a boring game that promises to continue for another four hours. Inconceivable.

Resnais left us a handful of fine films, always harnessing his eye for brilliant framing and his revolutionary concept of editing, to stage scripts by famous collaborators. But very often, when the starting texts were not particularly valuable, his films remain pedantic exercises in style. Over time he got involved in the most unlikely projects, none more disastrous than this Smoking/no smoking whose possible original interest on stage is totally lost when it goes to the big screen.

This is one of the most intelligent and elegant movies ever made. And, still, it's funny and somehow happy. Of course, if you don't like minimalism and a playful conception, you will not love it. But you have to see it. Growing old, Alain Resnais becomes younger and fresher. It's far younger than all the Tarantinos. He's more free. Free from the author's giant ego, free from the film-industry mechanics, free from the boredom of 90% of "high" french movies, free from the film-language, free from everything but its own structure. Great actors, great conception. The only limit is that it's too new and too theatrical for the normal viewer. It requires a watcher with the same kind of freedom. Sorry for my broken English. However, You have to see it, really.

It won 1993 Cesar award. Those are two films. Smoking and No smoking. All characters played by two comedians. Set is meant to look like pictures used to teach English to French school-children. Both films start the same except in one she decide to quit smoking while in the other she chain smokes. Then what if... and it goes off with a whole different ending for I don't know how many times. Every time you'd think this is the end and then it explores a different possibility. One advise: don't rent both films the same day. Each lasts forever.

In Yorkshire, Toby Teasdale is the alcoholic director of a school and married with two children with Celia Teasdale that is very unhappy. They have a maid, Sylvie Bell, and a guardian and handyman, Lionel Hepplewick, at school. Toby's best friend is Miles Coombes, who is married with three children with the easy Rowena Coombes. Along the years, simple attitudes might have changed their lives.

"Smoking / No Smoking" is an awarded French comedy with a story based on the concept of Krzysztof Kieslowski's "Przypadek" (a.k.a. "Blind Chance") with variations of the lives of characters after the question "What might have happened?" Sabine Azéma and Pierre Arditi have awesome performances in the roles of several characters. But the movie is too long and excessively boring and talkative. "Smoking" is better that "No Smoking", maybe because in the end I was so tired that I was not paying attention anymore on the screen. My vote is four.

Title (Brazil): "Smoking / No Smoking"

Alain Resnais ranks among the major French director but it is hard to point out a topic in such a large panel of different movies from 'Je t'aime-Je t'aime' to 'On connait la chanson'. It's not so obvious to recognize at first sight the Resnais touch. Maybe, the only possible approach of Resnais cinema is to distinguish in it a kind of deep exploration of relationship between humans. It's obvious in 'Mon oncle d'Amerique' but it seems that Resnais has devoted himself to reveal fundamental basis of relation/communication that can exist between two human beings, as humans being in space and time and their cultural background. And, with its no-narrative structure, Smoking/No smoking is a wonderful playground for analyzer Resnais, showing beyond laugh (Sabine Azema's nervous breakdown in Smoking is one of the funniest moment of cinema I've enjoyed) and tears, silence and words, all the nuances that stem from our human part, regardless of what is due to facts and events.