No Smoking

not on merit of craft alone, but on the very intention of its existence. On the surface, it is a surreal tale of a chain-smoker who enters a rehabilitation program and finds himself trapped in a labyrinth of authoritarian rules, psychological manipulation, and personal destruction. At its core, however, it is a metaphor for freedom — how systems of control slowly erode personal choice until nothing remains. The problem, though, lies in how the film is presented. Kashyap seems unable to detach himself from the narrative, resulting in a work that feels less like cinema and more like a personal statement. This creates a barrier for the audience: understanding the film often requires knowing the “why” of its making rather than simply experiencing the “what” on screen. Cinema, ideally, should stand on its own, yet No Smoking constantly demands knowledge of its context to be fully appreciated. Still, the ambition is undeniable. The film’s refusal to spoon-feed and its hauntingly open-ended conclusion make it memorable. No Smoking is decent as an experimental allegory, but its arrogance and complexity keep it from being timeless.