In two evenings, I watched perhaps the longest film I’ve ever seen, Alain René’s Smoking/No Smoking (1993), with a timeline of 4 hours and 58 minutes. In principle, it consists of two parts, so you can probably call it a two-part series, but with very long series, parts can even be viewed separately.
The film is based on the play
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In two evenings, I watched perhaps the longest film I’ve ever seen, Alain René’s Smoking/No Smoking (1993), with a timeline of 4 hours and 58 minutes. In principle, it consists of two parts, so you can probably call it a two-part series, but with very long series, parts can even be viewed separately. The film is based on the play by the English playwright Alan Aikborn “Inner Substitutions”, slightly shortened, Jean-Pierre Bakri and Agnès Jaoui took part in writing the script. As in the original play, all the characters (and they are in the film 9) are played by two actors - Pierre Arditi (a friend of the director) and Sabine Azema (wife of the director), whom he often shot in his films, the action takes place in England, in Yorkshire. In fact, this is not even a film, but a film-performance, shot in a small number of scenery. Both parts begin the same way - Celia Tisdale, engaged in spring cleaning with her maid Sylvie, goes to the terrace and in the first case smokes, in the second decides not to smoke. In the first part, most of the events are devoted to the married couple Celia and Toby Tisdale, in the second part of the event, mainly concern another married couple - these are Tisdale's friends Rowena and Miles Coombs. At first, we observe the development of events for almost an hour, but then suddenly we are offered another development - "Or" ... "She (one of the female characters) said", "Or" .... He (one of the men) said. Five Days Later, sometimes Five Weeks Later, then Five Years Later. And we see how just something said by one character or another often completely changes the course of events, we see several such variations, and the characters themselves and the endings of the stories change. It is quite interesting to observe all this, especially when it is filmed in such a comedic, often very grotesque way. Both actors play well, but I liked Pierre Arditi better. So I will not advise everyone to watch, but Arditi at one time for this role received Cesar, for whom Azema was nominated, René also received Cesar for best director and best film, Agnès Jaouy and Jean-Pierre Bacri for best screenplay, it was also received by director Jacques Solnier. The film has other awards.
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