Film Review: Smoking/No Smoking (Resnais, 1993)

Having loved Alain Resnais’s last film Wild Grass (2009), and enjoyed his adaptation of Alan Ayckbourn’s Private Fears In Public Places (2005) quite a bit, I was excited to have the rare chance to see Resnais’s first Ayckbourn adaptations, Smoking (1993) and No Smoking (1993), at the BFI last weekend. Resnais’s affinity for Ayckbourn’s work is well known, and Smoking and No Smoking were adapted by the director from Ayckbourn’s Intimate Exchanges cycle. These eight plays focus upon a bluff school-master Toby Teasdale, his frustrated wife Celia, and the various employees, friends, relations and acquaintances that surround the couple in their small Yorkshire town. Structured as a series of duologues, the plays are designed to be performed by just two actors covering all the roles, and Resnais casts two of his favourite performers - Pierre Arditti and Sabine Azéma - here. But the plays’ primary interest lies in their temporal conceit. Having set up an incident or series of incidents, the action then whizzes backwards and forwards in time to reveal the consequences of the characters taking a different course of action at a pivotal moment. (The title alludes to Celia’s decision to smoke or not to smoke a cigarette in the first few minutes of the film.)

It’s a neat idea, but one that, sadly, proves much more intriguing than most of what’s done with it in these somewhat disappointing films. Smoking certainly has its splendours: in particular, there’s a great sequence at a village fete which culminates in a spectacular meltdown scene for Celia that Azéma plays to perfection. And it’s true that there’s something exciting, and admirable, about Resnais’s brazenly theatrical approach throughout. The opening cartoon images which introduce the characters have a heart-lifting charm, while the patently artificial sets and the often heightened performance styles (not to mention the entirely French-speaking Yorkshire town that the action is set in) nicely deconstruct film’s alleged recourse to naturalism.

But ultimately the variations on the characters’ fates that the films offer become so multiple that they have next to no weight, and the conceit seems to present so many more promising dramatic (and comic) scenarios than the often banal and uninteresting scenes that Ayckbourn, Resnais and the screenwriters Agnès Jaoui and Jean-Pierre Bacri have developed. Maybe that’s the filmmakers' point: that there’s no divinity that shapes our ends, just a whole lot of randomness and chance. But, if so, it’s expression here makes for increasingly tedious viewing over the course of five hours, especially since the films lack the suggestiveness and mystery of Private Fears... or the crazy, what-the-hell daring of Wild Grass.

Arditti and Azéma are witty and resourceful actors and the skill with which they morph into the different characters is enjoyable to behold, up to a point. But even their best efforts and some effective individual set-pieces can’t prevent Smoking and No Smoking from feeling, finally, like a pair of theoretical exercises which lack the warmth, humour and bite to consistently engage or excite the viewer.

Review of 2010: Cinema - 10 Favourite Films

Cinema memories, 2010.

A Taliban on the run. A pregnant woman dancing in a nightclub, accompanied then alone. Child soldiers sleep, clutching soft toys. An American flag is raised in the Philippines. Pioneers let an Indian lead them. Dirty Dancing gets re-created. A dentist slumbers in her Spitfire. Two strangers play at being lovers (or the other way around). A gangster and his girl sway to Doris Day. A father watches his daughter ice-skate. A last supper is scored to Swan Lake. Juliette Binoche’s red lipstick. Romain Duris’s amazing hair. In Sanremo, a Russian woman pursues her son’s friend – soon to be her lover - through the city streets. In California, an Englishman receives a phone-call. A French child tells his mother a story, and becomes part of it.

Great year to be a movie-goer. And impossible to restrict this list to just 10 films...

1. Le Refuge (dir. François Ozon)

Le cinéma comme refuge. Too slight for some, Ozon’s intimate drama about a pregnant junkie connecting with her dead lover’s brother during one summer felt incredibly personal and resonant to me. It’s the cinematic equivalent of a perfectly wrought short story, and a film that gains from being placed in the wider context of the director’s body of work. Excellent performances from Isabelle Carré and Louis Ronan-Choisy as the odd couple working out their futures after loss (they’re both superb subjects for Ozon’s caressing camera), but what counts the most in Le Refuge is the attention to atmosphere, the focus on gazes and touches, and, especially, the director’s genius for capturing his characters in solitary, private moments. A beauty.

2. Meek’s Cutoff (dir. Kelly Reichardt)

O pioneers! The big surprise of this year’s London Film Festival, Kelly Reichardt’s awesome film, set in 1845, focuses on three families being led by an unreliable guide off of the Oregon Trail. Reichardt brings to this historical drama the same considered, slow-burn approach that distinguished her contemporary-set films; she brings a healthy reappraisal of gender and racial politics too. With its brilliant, spare script, stunning cinematography and perfectly-pitched performances from Michelle Williams, Bruce Greenwood, Paul Dano and Shirley Henderson, the visionary Meek deserves major attention on its theatrical release next year.

3. White Material (dir. Claire Denis)

One of Claire Denis’s most sustained and affecting films, with a brilliant performance from Isabelle Huppert as the coffee plantation owner refusing to leave her African estate as civil war breaks out around her. Seductive and disturbing, direct and elliptical, you don’t shake White Material off easily. And to quote Blondie: “My dream is on the screen.”

4. Of Gods And Men (dir. Xavier Beauvois)

An interesting companion piece to White Material in many ways, Xavier Beauvois’s drama about a group of Cistercian monks debating whether to leave their North African monastery in the wake of Islamic fundamentalist attacks is a masterful piece of work. And in the late sequence set to Swan Lake Beauvois provides one of the most emotionally overwhelming pieces of cinema that I’ve seen this year.

5. Wild Grass (dir. Alain Resnais)

There didn’t seem to be a lot of sustained joy and happiness radiating from the films released this year, or at least not the ones that meant the most to me. But I recall smiling pretty much all the way through Alain Resnais’s brazenly barmy Wild Grass, a great comedy about, ahem, loneliness, fantasy, ageing and obsession. Aged 88, the director demonstrates more movie-struck glee here than most filmmakers half his age. The viewer shares the delight. (Year's best poster, too.)

6. Essential Killing (dir. Jerzy Skolimowski)

The Fugitive for existentialists. Plopping his Taliban hero down in a snowy, rural Poland, where he’s hunted by both human and canine pursuers, Jerzy Skolimowski presents a marvellously idiosyncratic spin on the man-on-the-run movie here, distinguished by superb cinematography and a truly brilliant (wordless) performance from the great Vincent Gallo. The political dimensions of the story, though unavoidable, are ultimately downplayed; instead, Essential Killing takes on the primal intensity, clarity and mystery of an ancient folk ballad.

7. Making Plans For Léna (dir. Christophe Honoré)

I love the ability that certain French filmmakers have to present family dramas on a scale that’s at once intimate and epic. Honoré’s latest achieves just that. And Léna's confounding protagonists were my favourite movie characters of the year. If you’re listening Artificial Eye, please give this one a proper UK release.

8. Amigo (dir. John Sayles)

All the Sayles virtues - intelligence, perspective, humanity, insight, wit - are on display in the director’s compelling drama about the Philippines-American War. Again, if you're listening Artificial Eye...

9. London River (dir. Rachid Bouchareb)

The antidote to Four Lions. I wasn’t at all  prepared for the intense emotional impact of London River, Bouchareb’s film about two characters searching for their missing children in the wake of the 7/7 bombings, and its effect was no doubt accentuated by walking out of the cinema straight onto the London streets. Remarkable performances, and I admire the way that the film’s final moments complicate the healing and catharsis that’s achieved in the central relationship.

10. I Am Love (dir. Luca Guadagnino)

Before its unfortunate third-act stumble into hysteria, Guadagnino’s sumptuous melodrama - "Visconti on acid," in the words of its star - was a thing of absolute beauty, featuring a(nother) knock-out performance from Tilda Swinton as the adulterous matriarch. See it, and swoon.

In addition:

Heartbreaker (dir. Pascal Chaumeil)

Heartbreaker was quite delightful, a lively romantic comedy with edge. But a case could be made that the movie’s real subject is Romain Duris’s incredible (and envy-inducing) hair.

A Single Man (dir. Tom Ford)

You can quibble with the rather cosy, life-affirming message that Tom Ford’s adaptation imposes on Isherwood’s much more tart and cynical novella. But, despite awkward and unconvincing moments, overall A Single Man worked for me. Debate continues to rage about whether the movie’s sheer unabashed stylised gorgeousness is more suited to a commercial than a narrative film but I’d argue that Ford’s arsenal of stylistic tricks work effectively to convey the protagonist’s consciousness. Not so much style over substance, then, as style as substance. And even those unmoved by the visuals couldn’t deny the power of Colin Firth’s great performance.

Certified Copy (dir. Abbas Kiarostami)

A hymn to love or a hymn to Juliette Binoche? Well, both, perhaps. Less will-they-or-won’t-they? than are-they-or-aren’t-they?, Kiarostami’s memorable deconstruction of “the couple” is enigmatic and obvious, exasperating and beguiling, heavy-handed and understated, witty and poignant, all at once.

Lourdes (dir. Jessica Hausner)

Despite the fact that it’s one of the films that stayed with me the most throughout the year, somehow I never got around to writing about Lourdes, Hausner’s rich, wry film about a multiple sclerosis sufferer (Sylvie Testud) on a pilgrimage who experiences what may or may not be a miracle. The marvellous Michał Oleszczyk at Last Seat on the Right gives the best account of this film that I’ve read.

Father of my Children (dir. Mia Hansen-Løve)
"The beauty and cruelty of life," conveyed with equal perspicacity in Hansen-Løve's profoundly affecting film.

Somewhere (dir. Sofia Coppola)
Confirming Coppola as one of our foremost cinematic poets on the seductions - and the limitations - of ennui.

The Illusionist (dir. Sylvain Chomet)
Chomet’s delightful follow-up to the great Belleville Rendezvous: quieter, sadder, wiser.

The Limits of Control (dir. Jim Jarmusch)
Forget The American.


Two disappointments: Another Year and Happy Few.

Not seen and need to be seen: Black Swan, Dogtooth, Rabbit Hole, Carlos, The Kids Are All Right, and Enter The Void.


Agree? Disagree? Well, lemme know.