Summary about the Film Smoke

Auggie Wren is the owner of a tabac store in the New Yorker district Brooklyn. People with different fates meet each other at his store. One of them is Paul Benjamin a famous author who lost his wife during a hold-up in the neighbourhood of the tabac store a few years ago. Since then Paul Benjamin had never finished a book again.

During the film Paul Benjamin and Auggie Wren become friends and one evening Auggie showed Paul Benjamin his kind of Art. Auggie shows him 12 albums with over four thousand pictures which show the same place. Auggie explains that he takes these pictures every day at the sametime. First of all Paul thoughts were what boring kind of art that must be, but then he takes a closer look at the photos and he sees the changes on each photo. On one of the photos you can see busy people walking along the street with scarves and coats. On an other photo the streets are empty and the people who even walk wear tops and skirts. At that point Paul Benjamin recognizes the kind of Art Auggie does. There are much more stories around Auggie and Paul Auster at the film and they meet different people. There is for example Thomas Cole (”Rashid”) who saved Paul Benjamin's life. One day Paul Benjamin crosses the street and he doesn’t watch out. Suddenly a truck appeared and Thomas dragged him away from the street and therefore Thomas saved Paul's life. Because of that Paul offers Thomas to stay at his appartment for a few nights, but also explains that he isn’t a paedophile person and therefore hasn’t got that kind of interests. Another important character is Thomas Cole’s father who is a poor car engineer and lives far away from the City of New York. Thomas wants to get to know his father but he isn't brave enough to tell him the truth, so Thomas uses Paul Benjamin’s Name. This brings him into troubles, when the real Paul Benjamin appears there to have his car repaired. He introduces himself as Paul Benjamin which is, of course, irritating, for Mr. Cole. At the end of the film Auggie and Paul sit in a restaurant and Auggie tells Paul a Christmas story about which Paul doesn’t know whether it is a true story or not....

To conclude the film you can say that it is worth watching this film even some parts are a bit too long-winded. Moreover, the viewers who read the Christmas story before, could maybe recognize some of the characters at the film.