Cortina de Fumaça

Every once in a while, a film comes down the pike that is so refreshing, so rich, you'd swear it was inspired by some immortal spirit who condescended to take human form in order to share her perspective with us. Smoke is one such film.

Although there's nothing particularly special about each of several main characters, seemingly picked at random off of a New York street corner, they come off as noble, even heroic, in spite of the fact that their collective problems amount to nothing more than the usual garden variety. The main character, for example (Auggie Wren, played by Harvey Keitel) is a tobacconist around whose shop the main characters revolve. He has an unusual habit: every morning, at the same time of the day, he photographs the same street corner, and puts the pictures together in a series of albums. It's time-lapse photography on an enormous scale. He can't explain why he does it. He just needs to do it. And it's a really marvelous device for delivering the movie's main theme: everything that matters, all the meaning in the world that can be condensed from holy books and vows and catechisms and poems, is right there before us. We just need to have the eyes to see it. The things we tend to dismiss as prosaic, out of familiarity, emerge from the pages of his album as special, wonderful, enchanted.

There's a great line in the movie about how Sir Walter Raleigh measured the weight of smoke. He took a cigar, weighed it, smoked it, and weighed the ash. The difference between the cigar and the ash was the weight of the smoke. Although he new nothing of the chemistry of combustion, he did the best that he could, based upon what he knew. Likewise, Smoke is a movie about people with limited knowledge and perspective. Their assumptions are often wrong; but, they do the best that they can. A small, seemingly insignificant piece of information can, and does, change everything.

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.

The characters are genuine, funny, sensitive, tragic... just human. They are sympathetic with their small weaknesses and their daily problems. The movie gives a realistic description of the daily life of ordinary people in Brooklyn.

Brooklyn has the star role. In fact the movie seems like a declaration of love to this city, although when compared to Woody Allen's "Manhattan", the approach is completely different.

The message is in a way surprising (maybe because of my European bias): Even in this money driven, rough, fast living, time-is-money, urban and individualistic environment there is a lot of love, friendship and humanity. Humanity means also that we do things which eventually do not make very much sense, are not logical and which may be very emotional. Smoking belongs to such activities. It is an activity which needs a work break. It gives us an opportunity for a stop and for starting rethinking issues. Therefore the small cigar shop, which appears like an island within a stormy ocean, like the antipode to the bustle environment.

Sometimes some of the hurry enters the shop, but the clocks seem to tick differently there and at the end everything calms down. I like this movie.

If you were ever to imagine Harvey Keitel if he'd never acted, this is what he would be doing. The quintessential "cool", Harvey is at his most human in this role as a cigar shop owner in Brooklyn. Showing his tender side, he has hired a 'slow, mentally impaired' local from the neighborhood to sweep the pavement. His shop is a place where people with a revolving interest of Cigars, go to hang out and talk about life, love, and bullshit. It is the epicentral natural dialogue through which each character speaks that makes this movie so warm, humorous, and incredible. A great movie, 5 stars all around. -Al

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.