The Smoking Room

Tupakkahuone / Finland 2006 / 58min. Finnish with English subtitles.
Director Jukka Karkkainen / Producer Joonas Berghall

Anyone who has smoko breaks knows the enjoyment is as much from company and conversation, as from the cigarette.

The smoking room is a special place, a haven for those in need, a place of encounter and reflection. A familiar person to talk to or just one’s own space and time, a chair and an ashtray are waiting inside. In the smoking room people can chat about anything, everything or nothing at all. Ironic maybe, but life seems clarified and clearer after taking time out in the smoking room. The smoking room is shared, familiar and safe.

At times the atmosphere is like cinéma vérité. Time goes more slowly outside the smoking room too. There are eerie pictures of completely deserted lobbies, corridors and halls. Perhaps everyone has gone for a smoke.

Director Jukka Kärkkäinen has created a hauntingly beautiful film that goes beyond its simple surface, turning the smoking room into a confessional where the bittersweet collage of life, like the smoke from a cigarette, slowly twists and turns on itself before dissipating into nothingness. The Smoking Room is one of the most stunning Finnish documentaries in years, being simultaneously timeless as well as sharply freezeframing a moment in time.

Find similar films by topic: Experimental, Social/Human Interest