Originally posted by: preity*zinta
My head still hurts! I didn't understand ANYTHING! Anyone willing to explain the WHOLE movie to me? The only reason I kept watching the movie was cause of John .. It's a good thing the producer/director had him walking around shirtless half the time😛
Okay..so basically smoking is a metaphor used throughout the film. There are better explanations for the film then the one i have so i'll just post what imbd users have posted.
The Plot The Protagonist "K" is a narcissist, self obsessed chain smoker. But I believe most smokers are narcissist to an extend. So is K, the man who spends hours in the Wash Room, to enjoy the smoke look at his well toned body and enjoy his looks, his style, rebuilding his confidence, by self assuring that "nobody tells me what to do". He takes his life for granted, when he says, no body leaves me. The question of leaving, quitting in his life has to go with his past, where his mother and father split.
He is so obsessed with himself, that he is got less time to think about it. A self made cosmopolitan corporate boss, who makes things possible, with out leaving cigarette not even a moment. His name is K, because his name is K, and there is no surname, last name attributes, to add to the fact that he is self made man. His wife Anjali is a woman, who never complained, at last sticks her foot down, and asks him to quit smoking. He is referred to a clinic, Prayog Shala, which has a reputation. K decides to go to the clinic to bring back his estranged wife. He goes down the shabby "Kalkatta Karpets", a shady place where Prayog Shala is located. Bengali Baba, chief there asks him to enroll, or else die. He is got no option but to take it. The conditions put by Baba are simple. If K smokes his first Cigarette after this , his brother who is in hospital will be suffocated with cigarette smoke. Second cigarette, his fingers will be cut off. Next cigarette, his wife will die.
This film has nothing to do with quitting smoking. But everything to do with quitting any addiction in life. Smoking being one of the worst, yet popular addiction is difficult to kick, because of the availability of cigarettes was just chosen by him. This film is about habits, that has gotten in to us, in the subconscious, which makes us feel we need it. The inner struggle , whether for good or bad.
the dream K is having is of Siberia, it represents oppression, a communist rule, where there are no individual liberty. He is the one who believes he is independent and free, and he is made to quit his individual liberty, his dream state just signifies that, the state he is in, the desperation for smoke. He will get killed if he goes for the smoke.
* the Baba is a doctor, there is no Baba, he instead of the usual chemical treatment, treats K psychologically. After all smoking is more a psychological addiction * the dialog Baba says about Antaratma, is about subconscious. the struggling K we see is his subconscious, what Baba does is he is taming the subconscious, the key factor of individuality and liberty from the mind of a narcissist man, who says, no one teaches me what to do. For that fear in injected in to his mind.
* there are no actual loss of ears, eyes, family, what ever. Those are fears of losing loved ones, harming them, causing harm to oneself, by smoking, there are no accident, but its what he is going through * there are no Annie, only Anjali. Annie is the guilty feeling that he has in his mind, that if he smokes he will loose her, and also the temptation to smoke. (to cheat or not to cheat one's wife)
* he is forced many times to smoke, and smoking he is made to believe causes harm to his loved ones, that explains the murder of Anjali, suicide of his brother (he is made to believe that he is the cause of his brothers lung problem), etc.
* the dialog I reached here through bathtub, him though Almari, signifies the subconscious of other people going through the same, similar phase * the other K inside the that dirty room, trying to reach the original K, is none other than his subconscious trying to reach him, and make him smoke, the dirt signifies many things, the smoking dirt, the suffering he is going through * remember the announcement "those who have paid full fees can go for the bath". It means the course is complete, where the subconscious is cleaned up * finally he, the subconscious, is being burnt , and finally K is relieved and treated.
* the cut finger is none other than the fact that, he is missing the smoke in his had, the fingers which are cut are the ones which we use to smoke, so when he finally quit smoking, he is missing those, the only way he can get out of it is to get himself company and relief, which is why he has to enroll another person for the program.
Here is what Anurag had to say about his movie post the release …
"..it is a film about arrogance.. of two kinds..why I made it , the way I made it, the reasons I have never discussed it before.. it is my most personal movie.. I am K.. K's arrogance is the obvious arrogance, that everyone sees everyday.. he smokes..he breathes nicotine.. He says NOBODY tells me what to do.. I breathe cinema.. and forever everyone has been telling me not to make the kind of cinema I do.. NO SMOKING is a tale of an arrogant man and another who is much more arrogant, who lives in his world, where he controls everything and he thinks he is morally superior to any existing humans, he is the kind of man who thrives on minorities and underprivileged, he worships the dictatorial attitude and all he wants from you is to lose your soul and convert….it,s a tale about an arrogant man's descent into morality.. and the architecture of the moral world is so absurd that it sometimes beats reality.."
"GIVE ME THE LIBERTY TO KNOW, TO UTTER, TO ARGUE FREELY ACCORDING TO MY CONSCIENCE ABOVE ALL LIBERTIES... Since, I do not have the liberty, and I get banned every time I am directly stating my opinions, one has to wage a guerrilla war.. no smoking is my guerrilla war.. and in the end the man loses to the system and the only way he can survive is after having lost his soul (freedom).. everyone expects a good versus evil film, where good wins over evil, where the end sums it up, and all is well at the end.. well it doesn't happen here.. here K doesn't want to, but never comes to know how and when he gave in to the system, but accepts it and starts to do what his own people did to him..why? in order to survive.. why his treatment becomes an incomprehensible nightmare, because it does in real life, I am the living proof. This film is just the treatment the powerful (Baba Bangali) puts K (the man whose allusions are of greatness, seemingly invincible) through to bring him over to his side and manages.. there is nothing more.. "
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