Smoke

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Film Description

Novelist Paul Auster contributed his first original screenplay to this terrific collaboration with director Wang. The intricately-plotted story follows the lives of five characters, each with their own quirk, whose lives intersect in and around Brooklyn in 1990, in ways which leave all of them changed in some way for the better. A lovely, low-key celebration of simple pleasures.

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Review by Howard Schumann on 3rd March 2004

Smoke does not unfold with a coherent narrative, but rather with slice-of-life vignettes about chance, communication, and inter-connectedness. The collaboration between author Paul Auster and director Wayne Wang (The Joy Luck Club) offers a highly literate, novelistic cinema that is divided into separate chapters, each elaborating a different character. 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. 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, and appreciating people for their individuality.

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 search for his father, brilliantly played by Forrest Whitaker. Although Smoke has its moments of high drama, it is mostly a low-key visit with 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". I have seen this small masterpiece many times, and 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.

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Review by CJ on 2nd June 2000

Novelist Paul Auster contributes his first original screenplay in this terrific collaboration with director Wang. The intricately plotted and structured story follows the lives of five separate characters, each with their own problem or quirk, whose lives intersect in and around Brooklyn in 1990, in ways which leave all of them changed in some way for the better. Most memorable are Keitel as the colourful, sage-like tobacco store owner fretting over the loss of his Cuban cigars, and Whittaker as the owner of a run down garage taking refuge from a failed marriage and fatherhood. A gentle, affecting and intelligent film carried along by the warmth of its characters and the fine performances of the cast.

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