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For a film reviewer, a movie memory is a life experience and many life moments have movies associated with them. Like the feeling I had when I walked out of seeing ‘Jurassic Park’ for the first time at the cinema. It was a mixture of so many emotions but I knew I had just seen something special…something that I would remember.
Films do that sometimes – they have a certain something that forces you to remember them. Last week’s entry, ‘The January Man’, was unusual but not particularly memorable. We move from that strange Harvey Keitel flick to another Keitel movie that is a real must-see. ‘Smoke’ is that rare breed of special movie that gets stowed away in your mind for posterity.
It’s what I like to call a writer’s movie – the words fly off the script with an elegance that is difficult to process. Like its title, the film is a transient tapestry of stories that link up to each other with a Brooklyn smoke shop as its haven. Written and co-directed by author Paul Auster, the strength of the film is in the dialogues – sheer poetry in motion carried by startling performances from the ensemble cast.
Augustus ‘Auggie’ Wren (Keitel) is the owner of the smoke shop. Paul Benjamin (William Hurt) is a writer who frequents the store. Harold Perrineau Jr., Forest Whitaker and Stockard Channing play characters whose lives intertwine with Auggie and Paul.
And everybody has a story to tell…oh, but the way they do…I have never seen actors grab hold of words so completely that the tales from one person’s mouth feel like unfolding bouts of reality that have an unyielding grip on your attention. Truth and fiction do not matter – like smoke it comes and goes but never stays still.
There is lot to love about this movie and a lot to think about – just the perfect ingredients that make up a classic. It is a film about stories, thoughts, fact, fiction, reaching out, dreaming and a lot of the gray in between. ‘Smoke’ works on so many levels that it’s like a discussion that has no end. Just see it and embrace the smokey conclusion that comes to you – it will be something that just stays with you.