Smoke

"It's such a sad old feeling, the fields are soft and green, it's memories that I'm stealing, but you're innocent when you dream, when you dream, you're innocent when you dream" ---Tom Waits

Smoke is a very difficult film to describe because it does not unfold with a coherent narrative, but rather with slice-of-life vignettes about chance, communication, and inter-connectedness. Author Paul Auster and director Wayne Wang (The Joy Luck Club) worked on the story for years before it reached the screen and the collaboration produces a highly literate, novelistic cinema that is divided into separate chapters, each elaborating a different character. I have seen this small masterpiece many times, but I keep watching it because I love its celebration of the simple pleasures of life: friendships, good conversation, and, of course, smoking a good cigar. Smoke is not a complex or experimental film, just a beautiful and simple delineation of humanity.

Harvey Keitel plays Auggie Wren, the owner of a small cigar store in Brooklyn. An amateur photographer as well as a raconteur of tall tales, Auggie has taken one photograph a day from the street corner outside his store every day for the past 14 years. "People say you have to travel to see the world,'' Auggie says. "Sometimes I think that if you just stay in one place and keep your eyes open, you're going to see just about all that you can handle.'' When a friend comments that all the snapshots look alike, Auggie points out the differences: the light, the season, and the look on people's faces. It's all a matter of slowing down, Auggie says, being in present time, and observing what is in front of you.

One of the store's regular customers is writer Paul Benjamin (William Hurt) who hasn't published a novel since his wife died a few years ago in an incident of street violence. When a young Black man, Rashid Cole, (Harold Perrineau Jr.) saves Paul's life by pulling him away from on an oncoming car, Paul offers him a place to sleep. The lives of the two become intertwined in the young man's encounter with some robbers and in his search for his father, brilliantly played by Forrest Whitaker. When Auggie's former lover, Ruby (Stockard Channing), shows up, she tells Auggie he has a pregnant daughter (Ashley Judd) that now needs his help. These incidents come together in a powerful, fully realized conclusion.

Although Smoke has its moments of high drama, it is mostly a low-key, slice-of-life type of film that depicts events in life as happening for a purpose, not as random or chance occurrences. The characters are not "movie colorful", but ordinary down-to-earth people brought to realization by a flawless ensemble cast. The film reaches a sublime conclusion in a tender Christmas story narrated by Keitel and supported by Tom Waits' haunting song "Innocent When You Dream". Everyone ends up in a better place than when they started, including myself as viewer.

Auggie Wren (Harvey Keitel) owns a Brooklyn smoke shop where regulars hang out. He takes a photograph of his shop from the streets everyday at the same time. Paul Benjamin (William Hurt) is surprised to see his dead wife Ellen in one of the photos. She was pregnant when she was killed. Rashid (Harold Perrineau) saves Paul from on-coming traffic. In return, Paul lets Rashid stay with him and starts mentoring the young man. Rashid reconnects with his father Cyrus Cole (Forest Whitaker), who lost his arm and love in a car accident, without revealing their true relationship. Auggie's one-eyed ex Ruby McNutt (Stockard Channing) asks him for help with their pregnant daughter Felicity (Ashley Judd). Paul is assigned by the NY Times to write a Christmas story and Auggie gives him one.

I love the idea of Auggie's photographs. There is something compelling and poetic about it. These characters are interesting. Some of the stories are more compelling than others. The cast led by Hurt and Keitel are doing solid work. These lives each have their own stories but I'm not sure that every plot finishes. It's like Auggie's photographs. Every one is unique and has a story to tell but it is the congregate where the true beauty is revealed.

This is one of the most awe inspiring movies that i have seen *EVER*. At the time of watching I was getting very bored with the standard fare Hollywood was churning out and bought this movie on a hunch after having seen an interview with 'Wayne Wang' or Paul Auster (can't remember which now!)...it totally hit me and restored my faith in film making, especially in the plain and (deceptively) simple style. The best bits of the film have to be the tale at the end, and the photograph albums. What is it?...'Everyone needs a hobby.' This is an exceptional movie, take a break from your hectic life and let the Smoke waft over you! (I should write tag-lines!! ;-) )

I cannot begin to convey the intellectual and spiritual riches of this exquisite, almost transcendental film. I have rarely seen a motion picture with better acting or a more literate, insightful script.Harvey Keitel, John Hurt, Stockard Channing, Ashley Judd, Forrest Whittaker, and all the other players contribute some of their finest performances.The film itself ends with a "Christmas story' which conveys more of the religious-and humanist-meaning of that holiday than a thousand scmaltzy TV specials.Watch this movie, watch it carefully. Rarely has the beauty and sublimity concealed behind the facade of quotidian existence been better conveyed in a film.

Though the writing is very "stagey", the acting is fantastic all around. The more you allow yourself to get into this movie, the more you will enjoy it. The soundtrack insidiously lulls the viewer into a state where the everyday is made beautiful.

This movie is full of overlooked performances by some of today's best actors, including Forest Whitaker, Harold Perrineau Jr, (who most people know from the OZ HBO series), and Ashley Judd, whose takes one of the smallest roles in the movie but develops an extraordinary character.

Harvey Keitel and William Hurt have a dynamic in each scene that shows the true brilliance of each actor. Stockard Channing plays a character that could easily have been overacted with a style and realism that engage the viewer.

Certainly a movie you have to put yourself into, but you won't be disappointed if you do.