No Smoking On Jab We Met

How do you review a movie when it was watched sitting next to the director who made it? How do you review a movie when all explanations and the thoughts behind each scene was explained to you as the movie progressed? How do you review a movie which has not been released and you are watching it from the luxury of your home with you, the director - Anurag and around fifteen of PFCites having travelled to your place from different parts of the world? My immediate thought while watching the movie was “Do I have enough sugar to make the next round of chai?”

Sorry, but this reminds me. I have to call Nishi up and tell him, I will stay away from watching his movie until it is ready and released. And I won’t watch as much as possible any movies with the director, if the director’s present, his mouth should be taped shut and with the rest of the people that I know.

Now it can be told:

I watched No Smoking with many of the PFCites during April of 2007 at my place when everyone had converged on HQ (my place if you are wondering) for the IFFLA Film Fest (George, you now know what you missed )

I had by that time come to know more about Anurag and his real subject/genre pleasures that he loves to write. Clearly there is a communication gap between us. Paanch was a big warning sign that I should have stayed away from this guy who loves dark, black, unreal, surreal, pseudo, psycho and whatever else you have there that assist you to enter and be admitted in a mental hospital without any effort.

But no. Then I watched Black Friday. Of course was blown away.

And then that April spring morning watched No Smoking and mentioned I found it ok. I ain’t intelligent as him or many others. I ain’t into those grim dark inner psyche tunneled visions that make you ask yourself “How are you?” and in return you reply “Pretty good… how bout yourself?”

Nah. So the connection would not happen. And I think he gauged that upon my reaction. After the movie when everyone stepped out and had this pumped up enthusiasm and plunged into a discussion in the backyard at my place, I felt like - FUCK! Am I the only idiot in this group?

Here’s a guy who started PFC with his love for movies (limited as it may be) and here are the people discussing and loving the movie. I could not understand the situation of it all. What stupid prank was the Almighty playing on me? I wish I knew.

Yet, the intelligence and smartness in the story was undeniable. Still it is not my kind of a movie. How hard is it for the critics to say the same thing, instead of slamming it down the gutter just because they couldn’t comprehend it.

For me No Smoking stands where Paanch is… a B minus or a C plus… but now I know after actually seeing many of the PFCites loving No Smoking. They are gonna love Paanch, most of them.

On the other hand I loved Jab We Met. It has one of the brilliant opening sequences where the lead actor is kept quiet for over 5 minutes. I wish Shahid was more intense in his quiet moments. The surprise is Kareena, she comes so many times so dangerously close to going over the top, yet never actually does. Love the way how dialogues are thrown back in the second half of the movie in different situations. Especially how Imtiaaz ends the movie with Kareena crying and hugging Shahid repeating the same dialogues that she had uttered towards the middle of the movie in a completely different mood and situation.

Imtiaaz has a natural knack of making those sweet stories with a dash of reality. Yet like in his first one, Jab We Met… too, has this grip which keeps slipping away here and there making it just a few notches over a “timepass movie”. Perhaps the one after the Met will blow us away.

Hope So!

B Minus. A lazy afternoon with Jab We Met is a good prescription for unwinding.