The Smoke (1991) Kour
The Smoke (1991)
DVDRip | AVI | 720x576 | DivX @ Kbps | 89 min | 1,41 Gb
Dual Audio: Czech and Russian dub - each AC3 2.0 @ 224 Kbps | Subs: English (srt)
Genre: Comedy, Musical
DVDRip | AVI | 720x576 | DivX @ Kbps | 89 min | 1,41 Gb
Dual Audio: Czech and Russian dub - each AC3 2.0 @ 224 Kbps | Subs: English (srt)
Genre: Comedy, Musical
Director: Tomás Vorel
Writers: Lumír Tucek (story), Lumír Tucek
Stars: Jan Slovák, Lucie Zednícková, Simon Caban
"Musical of totalitarian age" is sub-title of movie SMOKE, in which Thomas Vorel emanated from his second famous classroom film IING. (1985), he him self however confess of many changes. As a matter of fact only axis of the story stayed: young engineer arrives on his first place of work with intention to labour, which shows as a shocking excess in bizarre attitude of the last era of totalitarian convulsions. Mirek´s uncommonly normal bearings adduces movement of "local" history, and social evil (impersonated in incompetent bosses) is precipitated by rightly indignant awaken crowd. Picture has poetics typical of mentioned times: inosculating serious with unvalued, irony with admiration, reality with bizarrerie, matter with absurdity.
Viewed some 19 years after its original release, "Kour" (which means "Smoke") certainly comes off as a weird and wonderful piece of comedy. With a head of hair that makes him look like a cross between Eraserhead and a young Lyle Lovett, young Mirek, played by Jan Slovak, arrives for his new job at the socialist factory that makes an unidentified product. He is put in charge of a report to recommend methods for reducing the pollution that the factory liberally spews into the environment. It is immediately clear that the powers that be at the factory don't really want him to change anything, and the workers are much too distracted to care. This is a parable for the condition of the socialist state, and it plays out fairly predictably. Fortunately, the bitter humor that the film is invested with redeems it. To add to this, the movie is a sort of musical… though the music will not appeal to everyone. One of the things I found interesting was that the film suggests that almost no one in its story is a totally innocent victim of the system. Everyone has collaborated in some way or other as part of the status quo. The same smoke that belches from the factory towers and wafts through the town as smog, is also emitted from the copious number of cigarettes that our "hero" and just about everyone else smokes. It's as if the filmmaker was saying "we've all contributed, in our way, to the pollution that surrounds us, and we're all going to have to improve ourselves as well as the government, if we ever want it to get better."
(click to enlarge)
The Smoke (1991) Kour
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