The futility of quitting smoking (2024) – 4 stars

Director: Sylvia Robyn Gionti

Writer: Sylvia Robyn Gionti

Running time: 2mins

One of my favourite things to talk about in experimental film is how movies in the medium can give us spaces to pause and think. But that does not mean that an effective experimental film has to do that – filmmakers in the space can also dedicate their energies to pointedly subverting our expectations when it comes to art taking itself seriously. They can let us revel in silly fun – and sometimes there is no better riposte to establishment norms than that.

The futility of quitting smoking is a Pythonesque absurd comedy, interviewing a cigarette about its addiction to smoking. Shot flat, with a lone cigarette sitting on a table, motionless and silent in black and white, it’s a ridiculous premise – but one which works fantastically because of how ‘seriously’ the film presents its subject.

The script from director Sylvia Robyn Gionti is bursting with deadpan cynicism – tapping into a frustration many people will share about being forced to take hackneyed writing seriously – just because of the ‘serious’ context (an issue present in experimental cinema and beyond). For example, the cigarette begins to imitate the clichéd dialogue of an addict in a serious film when it professes to feel “used by nicotine”.

I understand the worst thing you can do to a joke is explain it, so I’ll leave the rest of Gionti’s writing alone. But this one is exemplary of what works about The futility of quitting smoking – both as a comedy and an experimental film. It’s taking aim at the po-faced crap ‘connoisseurs’ are trained to simply swallow unthinkingly as deep, however it is delivered. Being “used by nicotine” is the kind of psycho-babble written for the screen to be delivered by ‘ordinary’ characters – but it is not something anyone but the most pretentious person would ever really say. So, there is always an irritating, theatrical disconnect to our lived experiences when we encounter such speech. The itch we are never allowed to scratch is to point out how ridiculous this kind of writing is – but Gionti indulges us to great effect.

Beyond this, there are also some marvellous moments of physical comedy. Gionti’s attention to detail here is brilliant – right down to the farcical idea of a filmmaker pinning a lapel-mic to an inanimate object before it begins its testimony. But it’s a cigarette. Even if it had the brain capacity for speech, it lacks the apparatus – so despite wearing a microphone, it proceeds to wordlessly inform us of its plight via subtitles.

This underscores Gionti’s total refusal to take her own premise seriously – something which might be the greatest sin of all in some avant-garde circles. In the pursuit of critiquing and escaping mainstream narratives, there is a danger of simply enforcing a new tyranny, devoted to being tirelessly serious. The futility of quitting smoking dances around that, and reminds us, there’s no point rocking the boat if you can’t have some fun with it once in a while.

The futility of quitting smoking is a film in which a filmmaker is clearly having a lot of fun – making light of herself, her peers, and her audience in the process. It might not be a work that changes the world, but maybe it will help a few of us remember not to take ourselves so damned seriously, while we try to change it.