Kouř

Ich habe irgendwo gelesen, dass wir keinen Film haben, der eine Bilanz der Normalisierung zieht. Was ist mit Smoke? Dieses einzigartige "Musical", das in der verdichteten Umgebung eines Industriekomplexes vielleicht alle wesentlichen Bestandteile des Totalitarismus wiedergibt! Es ist schade, dass dieser Film von Vorel so deplatziert war, denn in der Flut der wahnwitzigen Kapitalismus-Satiren war es ein in jeder Hinsicht gelungenes Projekt, das mit der Moral und der Ästhetik der Normalisierung mühelos umging und die Poetik des Theaters Sklep wirkungsvoll ins Filmleben übersetzte. Gleichzeitig entdeckte Vorel mit der für Meister des Sarkasmus so typischen Einsicht im enthusiastischen samtrevolutionären Code die damals fast vernachlässigten Töne des Fake-Theaters und baute sie während der Dreharbeiten in das Drehbuch ein. Unübersehbar ist die Hellsichtigkeit des Filmfinales, in dem sich das Alte mit dem Neuen in einem seltsam harmonischen Szenario vermischt und die Schweine plötzlich menschengesichtige Larven tragen. Die wiederbelebte Luft in der Fabrik riecht noch immer stark nach totalitärem Rauch. Eine unangenehm vorausschauende Vision der Zukunft. Tut mir leid, aber neben Smoke wirkt die Botschaft von Pupendo (angeblich) wie ein kitschiges Defilee von Humor für die ganze Familie. Ein Film, den man nicht vergessen sollte. Ein Film, an den man sich erinnern sollte! (27.01.2004)

Given the frequency of its appearance on TV, this film is a bit of forgotten normalization satire. It goes about its work cleverly via wacky slapstick in which all the screws are tightened to the max with such vigor that it gives you the chills. Perhaps too much. I’ll give it a full review after watching it again, which I am not opposed to given the number of killer catchphrases. (18.02.2010)

A rhythmical that became the testimony of a generation. Today, in retrospect, it is clear that one current was replaced only by sobering up, and just as the heroes of Smoke struggle with their demons, the hero of The Stone Bridge fell into a much more severe depression, and Vorel thus copied the less popular side of the development of Czech society at the turn of the 1980s and 1990s. He was not caressing, but rather just commenting on the condition in which he himself was living. (25.06.2015)

Let's roll up our sleeves when the wheels stop! The absurd logic of the industrial age, thanks to ossification in the form of an authoritarian regime that couldn't separate itself from the era in which it originated and developed, and therefore couldn't preserve the industrial machinery along with itself, only postpones the moment when everyone realizes that the wheels have truly stopped. At that moment, a new generation comes to spin the new star wheels: against the steel rigid trusses, chimney smoke and cigarettes, acids in pipes, and alcohol in the blood, a new generation comes: flexible, agile, both in the spine and in the legs, disco dancers who drink Coca Cola and think about ecology. On one hand, the logic of the past taken to the absurd, on the other hand, an uncertain future that doesn't promise much better tomorrows, and in between is another absurdity as a connector, dividing two shafts that will eventually click into each other and the world will continue in continuity, just on a different level. The future doesn't look so sharp in this way and mainly serves as a brilliant comedy analysis of times lived. Well, none of us are masters of our own work, to which a slightly different meaning is always attributed retroactively, and yet there is something instructive in that too: in the intoxicating victory of rock music over normalization disco, when in the 1990s it seemed that freedom had already won, the heroes of Smoke are actually still partly in the defeated era: cigarettes, alcohol, a fortress... The future belongs to others, because history still prefers the same values, even though it changes facades: so, history, I'm still driving with you and we know where the roads lead - to our flexible, perfectly adjusted, soy milk-drinking and now always sustainably developing (as long as they're still on board), conscious, disk jockeys of our upcoming era. (20.07.2020)

As someone who has been watching Smoke every week for years, I can't hide my excitement at the fresh remaster, which reveals not only various additional details in the already complicated mise-en-scene, but also new story plans. Smoke is nowadays almost exhausting to watch with how much is going on in each scene and on so many levels (and yet it's fucking hilarious the whole time). I hope after its well-deserved revamping that Smoke finally makes it out into the world, because applying this distinctive allegory with its unique genius loci to a foreign audience could be quite entertaining. (15.07.2020)