Smoke

smokeA Brooklyn cigar shop is the setting for this drama from director Wayne Wang that interweaves the stories of several characters that have fractured family relationships in common. Harvey Keitel is Auggie Wren, poetic owner of the Brooklyn Cigar Company, a store that he considers the center of the world — a place where all of humanity eventually parades through. One of his regular customers is Paul Benjamin (William Hurt), a writer and a broken shell of a man whose pregnant wife was shot and killed near the store. When Paul’s life is saved one day by a young black man named Rashid, the writer and his rescuer strike up a friendship and begin searching for Rashid’s long-lost father. At the store, Auggie is surprised by the appearance of Ruby, an ex-girlfriend who informs him that her pregnant, drug-addicted daughter Felicity may also be his — and is in dire need of help. Screenwriter Paul Auster based the script for Smoke on a 1990 short story he wrote for The New York Times.

If you are interested in the short story Auster wrote, why not watching the following video clip from youtube


 

While watching the film try to spot some emblematic cues (words pronounced by the actors), Auster is famous for them.

At the 1995 Berlin Film Festival, Smoke was awarded the Silver Bear, the International FIlm Critics Award, and the Audience Award for the Best Film.  The screenpaly also received an Independent Spirit Award in 1996. 

smoke film

Can you think of some of the qualities that make a film so special to win an International Award?  Bear them in mind while watching the film and see whether your  expectations were right.

Paul Auster had never written a short story when he was asked to do so by The New York Times.  He did not know whether he was capable of writing it and was about to give up when he opened a tin of his beloved Schimmelpennincks – the little cigars he liked to smoke – and started thinking about the man who sold them to him in Brooklyn.  That led to some thoughts about the kinds of encounter you have in New York with people you see every day but don’t really know.  And little by little, the story began to take shape inside him.  It really came out of that tin of cigars!

However it is not a typical Christmas story.  Everything gets turned upside down.  What’s stealing? What’s giving? What’s lying? What’s telling the truth? All these questions are reshuffled in rather odd and unorthodox ways.

I will post some more information about the film after you have watched it! Enjoy the viewing on Wednesday.  

If you want to watch the trailer of Smoke, just click on the link below.


 

Last but not least, I suggest you listen to Paul Auster reading "Auggie Wren Christmas Story"

 

 

 

47 Replies to “Smoke”

  1. well…what can I say…reading the other comments i’ve seen the same ideas as mine. i like very much the film because i love complex and problematic films, maybe because in myself i like to lose myself in my thought and ideas. “Smoke” is a complex film, more over to create because is a coherent “plait” of plots and characters. characters are not separated each other but they know each other and their lifes and stories are a only life, a only story like our world: our lifes, together, create our world, our reality our humanity. and this is the cause that i very like “Smoke”, because is the mirror of our world in a small point of view: life of Brooklyn. i think that this film is so special to win an International Award, because instead of modern film, reflects feelings of the Man, his thoughts, his fears, his problems and his essence. we are so accostumed to see perfect person, with special power and beautiful lifes in modern films that we are not able to understand the problems of our friends and lovers. Paul Auster is able to do this: bring us to the reality.

    Laura Sist

    ps i’m sorry for being later, but i have had some problems with pc.

    i’m sorry because maybe you think that i’m not interested in Paul Auster’s works. i’m doing my best and to do this post i spent a lot of time because for me it’s difficult to explain my thought and speak it in english. i very like it this activity, even if doesn’t look like,and i’m trying to improve myself.i ask you to be trusting, i hope to succeed to get your satisfaction and confidence. thank you…

  2. Smoke is a very beautyful drama. It shows the simplicity of life and the complicated characters that are in it’s play. I think that one thing that the film demonstrates, better than anything, is the importance of love and friendship. The ending is one of those types of endings that is really left up to the viewer to decide what the film is really all about.

    Plazzotta Federico

  3. Out of all films about Paul Auster’s novels we have watched, I like Smoke best. In fact I really appreciated the issues Auster copes with, especially the attention he pays on the society’s troubles. He analyses racial discrimination between Whites and Blacks putting together, in the same flat Rashid and the writer Paul Benjamin; he critics the drug’s abuse, which can lead you to destroy your body, your psyche, your whole life, but also the existence of all people who stay near you and love you. Actually Ruby and maybe also Auggie’s daughter, who was crack-addicted, has an abortion because she does not want to have a baby, but at the same time she does nothing to prevent it.

    The things which strike me more were the focus on the sense of life and on the value of family. The former was in particular investigated trough Auggie’s photos : everyday, in the same place(in front of his cigarettes shop), at the same hour, he makes the “same” photo. But really it is not the “same”: everyday something changes…the weather, the season, the people…everything changes. So Auggie, collecting them in lots of albums, wants to recorder the passing time…wants to seize his life, in a sort of “carpe diem” message. The latter is advocated by Auster trough the story of the mysterious Rashid, who is easily a boy in search of his father, who had left him alone more than 12 years before. In the end the boy, thanks also Paul and Auggie’s help, manages to reconcile with his natural father and to became part of his new family.

    Carolina Braghin

  4. Even though the film has not a linear plot and it doesn’t develop around a specific event or character, I liked it.

    Because of its many different little stories, that are mixed up, the film keeps you watching it. There are even some mysterious actions that create curiosity in the spectator. Foe example when I saw Rashid hidding the bag full of money on a shelf, I was wandering what it contained.

    I liked even the variety of kind of characters that appear in the film, different in social class, job, nationality…

    But probably the aspect I appreciated the most was the presence of “emblematic cues” and little stories, like the one of the weight of smoke. I like finding this cues in films, because they are usually very nice little pearls.

    I didn’t like the innocence with which the writer invites Rashid to sleep in his house: it’s quite unrealistic, I wouldn’t have trusted him in that way.

    Pietro Perin

  5. I have been surprised of knowing that ” smoke” has gained an international prize! it is a film apt to a small part of persons and it has been truly appreciated intenationally. Before seeing the film I did not have idea of which were the thematic ones, it seemed me only a film with thread conductor the smoke. I must say that it has been strange to me! Paul Auster has been indeed skillful to connect all those events thus connected. For him it has been a great effort, but it has been repaid with an important prize. Its ability is extraordinary and has given life to an intriguing and full film of thematic on which reflecting. There are various elements that connect the several vicissitudes, like the photos of Auggie, the need to write a Christmas story of Paul Benjamin, l’ encounter between Auggie and the grandmother of the delinquent.

    I really appreciate this film, that it has captured me in its weft and the thoroughness of the emotions that are able to transmit.

    thank you Paul

    Matteo Cervesato

  6. Out of the 4 films we watched by Paul Auster, “Smoke” is the one I liked the most, because of the particulary depth of some charachters (Rashid and Auggie). Unlike “Blue in the face”, where the all story is a sequence of sketches that don’t necesserily deal with the same particular subject, and the only thing they have in commun is that they were shot in Brooklyn, in “Smoke” we can spot 2 or 3 stories that develop and occur together to “weave the tapestry” of the plot, where the weaver is the Chance. The possibles qualities that make a film so special to win an International Award can be: an original plot, a film that deals with a subject never developed before or the outstanding performances/skills of the actors. In “Smoke” we don’t find any of this qualities, the film is complitely different from the commun american films,and I think this can be the reason why it won an International Award. It is an indipendent film and it wants to make a difference.

    What I liked about the Christmas story is the depth of feelings of the old blind woman and the true lovely relationship/friendship (I don’t know how to call it) between this 2 people that are actually stranger to each other and they know that. The fact that the story is at the end of the film and in black and white with a sad background music, it is really moving.

    Chiara Pinardi

  7. I have to be sincere. I didn’t like anyone of the movies. Perhaps because I think about a movie as something “thoughtless and simple” while Auster’s movies had difficult plots (except for “The inner life of Martin Frost”) that force you to pay attention every moment (is that why you ask us to see them?). However I already didn’t understand them very clearly. “Smoke” was the first movie we saw. I had great expectations that have been deleted. I watch Auster at “Che tempo che fa” and I expected an other kind of movie. The only scene that I liked was the one about the short story although it was quite a typical Christmas short story. The good Samaritan, the Christmas Day that begins in a bad way and concludes with a moral teaching.

    The set, the characters are simple: the shop, the people, their speeches. On the other hand, as Pietro pointed out, some passages, some actions are unrealistic. I really don’t catch the essence of this movie, I’m sorry.

    Elena Poles

  8. I must say I had difficulties in understanding this film straightaway but as soon as we discussed about it in class, I thought it wasn’t that bad.. The plot is really intriguing; I like the fact that different stories are interwoven and somehow connected one another and perhaps this is the reason why “Smoke” won an International Award. At the beginning of the film many of the figures were characterized by loneliness, especially Paul Benjamin and Rashid (Paul is a widower and rashid lost his father). These two characters in particular strike up a strong relationship and step by step this will make them feel better and solve their problems at the end of the film. A main theme of this film is the relationship father-son/daughter: Rashid considers himself a sort of father for Paul; Rashid looks for his long-lost father, finds him and after many difficulties become a family; Auggie tries to help the pregnant-drug-addicted-girl who perhaps is his daughter and who eventually loses her baby (who she didn’t want). I really liked the short story at the end of the film, especially the fact that this was a story published by Auster in “The New York Times”.. I like these weavings between his works! I liked the meaning of the story too: this is a sort of harmless revenge with a positive aspect (Auggie and the old blind woman spend a beautiful day together) and a negative one (Auggie gets “revenge” but acts as the woman’s nephew did).

    –Maiutto Jessica–

  9. Luca Gasparin

    I think that Paul Auster won an International Award because he was able to link more stories each other inside the same film and at the same time go on with the main story that involves each one of the others. Another reason could be the original way of producing the film: in fact the choice of centre the story around a tobacconist and of taking everyday the same picture of the tobacconist from the other side of the street are very different from the idea that we have of American films.

  10. For me the facts that make a film so intresting to win an International Award are the power to involve the people,the coincidences that frequently appears during the film,the admirable interpretation of the characters that enter in the personality of the character that they have to interpret,one life come across the lives of different characters.This crossing underline the idea of Paul Auster:”randomness stalks us every day of our lives”.All the things that happen have not a reason why they happened.

    An important element in the film “Smoke” is the friendship: all the people in the film are supported by the assistance of their friends.All the cheracters could bargain on the help of the friends.

    I like the Christmas story.I like the fact that the old woman needed a person that stay with her and that the man make believed that he was the grandchilde only to make the old woman happy.This story gives a positive massage.We can often lie if we don’t want to make someone suffer…The jung boy maybe was not so intrested in spend his time with his grandma.

  11. Eugenia

    There are lots of aspects that can make a film win an award. There is the plot, the choice of actors, the effects, music, and setting.

    In my opinion the best quality of this film is its naturalness. It is simple, without special effects and complicated stories.

    There are different little stories inside a big one.

    There is also the fundamental role of the tobacconist. It is a meeting point for people in Brooklyn, where they can speak to each other, they can narrate and tell their own story, and they can make new friends.

    Friendship is very important in this film. Every character has a friend near him and everyone can depend on someone.

    The Christmas story is very simple, but at the same time has a very deep meaning.

    It is fascinating how the man decide to stay with the old lady, how he understand that she need someone to talk and have some good time with.

    It is sweet to think that the lady understood that the man was not is grandchild but she let him enter in her house.

    I found this story very moving.

  12. At the beginning I wasn’t so catched by the film, it took me a little bit to appreciate it. But on the whole I liked it: the plot made of a lot of little stories that intertwine with one another gives the film an original touch. Of course it is different from common American films: these are fast, the scenes and the actors’ actions follow one another very quickly, you even don’t have time to think about a particular event, that another scene is coming! Instead Paul Auster’s films are quite slow, while you’re watching them you have time to reflect, about the different situations that occur. It is a genre that isn’t superficial at all; you can say it is quite flosofical (see: ‘the world is like an oyster’).

    I think this film won an international award because of its inner meaning, its intrinsic sense: all the stories are sad at the beginning (think of Paul Benjamin who lost is wife, or Rashid who does’t know where his father is, or the pregnant and drug-addicted girl, that perhaps is Auggie’s doughter) but thanks to the friendship that there is between Auggie and the others characters everything turns all right…This film highlightes the fact that love is a very powerful feeling, that is able to soothe the people’s pains; it shows that if people stick together they can overcome everything.

    Concerning the Christmas story, in my opinion it is something apart from the rest of the film, I don’t know, like a story in itself, that has appearently nothing to do with the previous part…this story shows how people are fragile and their need of someone with which share particular moments, such as Christmas.

    Jana Stefani

  13. Smoke is an unconventional movie that contains many peculiarities.first of all the setting,all the scene take place in the tobacco shop run by Auggie Wren,that becomes a sort of centre of the world (I concord with this expression taken from the review)where all the humanity parades through;the themes such as randomness,friendship the relationship between father and son,love and altruism that are also the main points of all the creation of this auhor,the involving plot ,it is fascinating how Auster managed to interweave many story which are linked together in a particular and original way,the choice of the characters that belong to different social classes,so that the movie shows many aspects of the country,the cast made up of actors who made the scenes spontaneous and real;i think that all this features make this film worthy of a prize.

    I loved the Christmas story,it is involving and moving,it is nice to see how they both pretend to know each other in order to spend a day together.i appreciated auggie’s behaviour,he noticed the old lady was lonely a needed affection and pretended to be her niece.moreover I liked the montage of the story,it was black and white and there was a nice song which confer the movie a precious touch.

    Montrasio Valentina

  14. It is quite interesting that a film like “SMOKE” won an international award. I think that the plot, the set and sounds are not so amazing and the characters are not professional. This is an unusual film that we are not used to watch. It doesn’ t mean that i didn’ t like the film, but we are accostom to the american films characterized by action and fantasy.

    I think that the most fashinated quality that makes “SMOKE” so special to win the award is the mixture of several characters that rend the plot complicated.

    I liked also the christmas story related by Auggie (the owner of the tabacconist) to Paul Benjamin (the writer).

    The old lady that is alone at her christmas day make me a sort of tenderness. I think that she knows that Auggie is not her grandson, but she do not mind it; for the first time she is happy.

    Sometimes we can hide truth to make a person happier.

    GIULIA MARZIO

  15. Smoke: personally it is the best film of Paul Auster and I think there are lots of elements that make this film awarded with an international film award! For example actors, the plot and all the themes that we little by little recognize in the story.

    The quality of this film that I like the most is its simplicity, there aren’t special effects or complex plot; there are simple stories that cross each other and the tobacconist’s shop became the main point where all stories melt each other!. There are strong messages In this film and the most powerful is the importance of friendship and love!

    The scene that catch my attention most was the one when Auggie shows Benjamin his photos of the same corner of Brooklyn, at the same time, 365 days a year; each photo looks like another at a first glance! But when in one photo Benjamin recognizes his dead wife he understands the meaning of all those photos: first of all he meets again his wife even if only through an image and than that every single photo as a meaning and contains a moment of life and makes it immortal!

    –Martina Nadal–

  16. Dear Ilaria (n.3) thanks for your insightful comments on the film and for drawing some kind of comparison with “Lulu on the Bridge”.

    Dear Federica (n.5) you are not certainly a film expert, but you are a viewer and you have all the rights to express your opinions on a film you watched. You thought of the qualities of a award-winning film, then you watched “smoke” with those features clear in your mind: this is a very mature and “responsible” way of watching and reviewing a film. Thanks for your comments. I would like the rest of the “bloggers” to read your record of an interesting cue: “the world is my oyster” that is strange because oyster is the translation of Auster. Oysters produce “pearls”: from the outside they do not seem so beautiful, but when you open them (and it is not easy, you need some kind of skill, don’t you?) you find a sparkling perfect gift of nature!

    Dear Barbara (n.6) you are right when you point out that “smoke” is used metaphorically speaking too. To be shrouded in smoke, in mist, this is a nice expression for you guys, to express something myserious, not black and white, not that easy to define.

    Dear Monica (n.7), thanks for the reference to the photos and their originality.

    Dear Giulia (n.8) good point about friendship as a way to overcoming difficult moments in life.

    Dear n. 9, (anonymous), great insight, interesting in-depth analysis. You did a good job!

    Dear Marco (n.10) I’d like to quote from you:”Smoke is a metaphor of the fugacity of life, of casualty which governs the world. Every day people walk about unconscious of the others, unaware that their life can be connected to the one of people they would not expect. An example is the photo Auggie shot of Paul Benjiamin’s wife”.

    Dear Elena (n.11) thanks for the reference to “Mr. Vertigo”, since I have not read it yet, I did not know there was this reference/link to “Smoke”. As you point out, the inter-racial issue developed by Auster through the character of the black boy and the writer is really touching and interesting.

    Dear Lorenzo (n.12) I don’t think that the film director or script writer wanted to promote “little thefts”. The fact that Auggie steals the camera (which had already been stolen by the old lady’s grandson) is somehow in opposition to “stealing”. The grandson steals to sell the stolen objects and make money out of them. Auggies steals, and then repents, but uses the camera to record life, to enjoy life, to reflect upon life and cherish it (that is not to take it for granted) and finally to share his insight with other people.

    Dear Giulia (n.13) happy to read you enjoyed the film. When expectations are low, there is always some surprise!

    Dear Alessandro (n.14) I’d like to quote from you “This is the message that the Auster and Wang wanted to give: smoke is a metaphor for the vaporous and unpredictable process that is life. […] even in this money-driven, fast living, urban and individualistic society there is a lot of love, friendship and humanity.” Thanks.

    Dear Pierluca (n.15) I like the expression “Chance is the captain of our life”!

    Dear Damiano and Chiara (n. 16-17) you use two adjectives that somehow embody the qualities present in “Smoke”, respectively “unsual” and “intriguing”.

  17. Dear Francesca (n.18) thanks for your quotation. Prohibitionism can shift quite easily, depending on the people who are in power. What is prohibited today, won’t be banned in the future or vice versa.

    Dear Giulia (n.20) you are right when you state that it is better to have a film which investigate the human condition rather than meaningless special effects.

    Dear Nicola (n.23) thanks for your post. You wrote some consideration I had not thought of myself, really interesting.

    Dear Laura (n.25) thanks for being so sweet and so honest. I know it is not easy for you to express your ideas and I know it is even more difficult to do it in a foreign language. I do TRUST you, and I have never had negative thoughts about you, never. I apologize if I gave you the impression I did. When I am at school I am always running from one class to the next one and my mind is always thinking about what I should do next. This implies that sometimes I may appear anxious or tense, even if I am not. I would like you then to trust yourself more. Your English is just fine, relax. There is nothing wrong with it. You can express your thoughts, so that is successful. We all make mistakes, I too, plenty when I am tired. The blog is not meant to be perfect, it can’t be perfect because it is run by human beings!!! Keep going, keep trying and you will get where you want!

    Dear Carolina (n.27) I am amazed! There is something by Auster that you like!! Now I feel better. Whenever I look at you in class I can see you do not like dealing with Auster’s works. Hopefully you will like the next novel better and you will appreciate it as it happened with the film “Smoke”.

    Dear Pietro (n.28) your criticism about the writer’s invitation of Rashid to his house is to the point if we look at it with the fears we have towards people we don’t know, especially when they are of a “visible minority”. Yet, the writer is a fatherly figure, he has lost everything in his life, he can’t write anylonger, he goes to the tobacconist’s round the corner to chat and experience a certain sense of warmth, of belonging. He is a shattered man, so he doesn’t fear anything. Then, without that invitation the main theme of friendship, trust, support and understanding would not have been in the film!

    Dear Elena (n.31) we all respond differntly to the same novel or film, so why should you apologize for not liking the films? You talked about having different expectations, but you did not mention them. You said that you like films that do not make you think, but here you are not clear. It seems you like superficial films, is that what you meant? Then you asked me why I decided to make you watch the films. Well, it’s simple. We are working on Paul Auster and these films are part of his artisitc production. The focus is not on Paul Auster the novelist only, but also on Paul Auster the poet and Paul Auster the film script writer/co-director (sometimes). Then, it is obvious that at school a teacher does not ask her students to watch “shallow” comedies. You can watch them by yourself at home, since they are so “light” that you do not need to interpret them. This blog and what I we do in class together are meant to challenge your mental faculties as well as mine!

    Dear Jana (n. 37) the theme of love you point out as paramount in the film is present in the Christmas story too.

    I WOULD LIKE TO POINT OUT THAT YOU ARE ALL DOING A GREAT JOB. IF I DO NOT RESPOND TO EACH OF YOU INDIVIDUALLY THAT DOES NOT MEAN AT ALL THAT I DID NOT APPRECIATE YOUR COMMENT. QUITE THE OPPOSITE. Since some posts are similar, it is obvious that I do not rewrite the same observations.

    Cheers.

  18. I really appreciated the film, it is very interesting how the stories are weaved together and how they interact, it is all led by casualty, by randomness, and this is typical of Paul Auster’s production. The film follows the story of three characters mainly: Auggie Wren, the cigar shop manager, Paul Benjamin, a writer who lost his wife, and Rashid, the boy who saved Paul Benjamin’s life. The film focuses in the first part on each one’s story, then these three stories mash up together and they give birth to other stories. It was interesting also the view this film gave of New York. It was not the image of the big crowded and luxurious New York, but a smaller view of the city, focused on the cigar shop, and on an unknown view of the more “rustic” places around New York.

    Riccardo Bagattin

  19. The Christmas story is very nice and moving. It was nice that both Auggie and the grandma knew that he wasn’t his nephew but they continued the comedy to make happy one another. At the beginning the sadness of the grandma is very evident but this changed through the evening together. Also the music, that covered every sound, was interesting. This made the conversation between the two incomprehensible, so the audience is obliged to fill the gaps!

    Riccardo Bagattin

  20. “Smoke” portrays with honesty and simplicity the everyday life of a New York’s district, Brooklyn, a place dear to the author that sees it as a microcosm representing the world. The movie is emblematic of how Brooklyn is the result of a racial and cultural mixture, an incredible melting pot perhaps unique in the world: every day in the streets people of the most different cultures and ethnicities give life to a colourful and irrepressible bustle. Brooklyn is like a small town, where every day countless stories and events develop with the most fluctuating results. There are comedies, tragedies, but also meetings and discussions, and unfortunately violence and crime. This is “Smoke”, after all. The shop of the tobacconist Auggie is the microcosm of the microcosm, the story within the story -leitmotif of many of Auster’s novels-. At Auggie’s shop you can meet every kind of people and character (the shop is the representation of Brooklyn) that come there to smoke a cigarette, and chat with friends. There is a writer that is in the middle of a crisis after the death of his wife, a black boy fled from home in search of his father, and thousand of other people who crowd the small shop. In this film there is the sign of Paul Auster; the continues references to him and his work are evident. In fact, Auster becomes part of the events in a very subtle way. The most representative example is the character of the writer Paul Benjamin: this name is the pseudonym of Auster (the novel “Squeeze Play”) when he, as a budding writer, signed his early novels. So it is clear that this kind of film is a film that, if seen without a background of its “soul” (the American writer), may seem only a nice film about life and people of Brooklyn, but for an expert reader becomes an irreplaceable compendium of the work of this writer. In fact, in this movie his fundamental topoi become a sort of mosaic’s tiles that the spectator can compose, forming the thought and the conception of life of Paul Auster; one of the most important themes is the role of randomness in everyday life, which can often lead to distortions, sometimes positive sometimes negative, in human life. We see that, by chance, the black boy finally meets his father for the first time, by chance the writer finds his inspiration as he is saved from being invested in the street, by chance Auggie will do a good deed, and doing this he will meet, by chance, for the first time the instrument intended to become the companion of his life: the camera. And always by chance all of that starts from a single location: a small, anonymous tobacconist in Brooklyn. The movie is basically a dedication, a declaration of affection for a city and a place that becomes the centre of life and of the world, a hymn to life and love (fatherhood is another leitmotif of the film) and, perhaps, a romanticized autobiography.

    There is no doubt that a movie that receives various awards and recognition must have something special, and “Smoke” is not an exception; it is special also in its definition. In fact, it cannot be listed in any kind of cinematographic genre. “Smoke” is like Brooklyn: a melting pot of genres, actors, stories, from the most ordinary, narrow-minded ones, to the most meaningful and interesting. Stories, events, words and images that want to do only one thing: to give a representation of how wonderful and extremely complex is Life. The music in the end (“Innocent When You Dream”, by Tom Waits), combined with the black and white, shows emblematically the irrationality of what happens to us, that may seem a dream. But are we really dreaming?

    Raggiotto Francesco

  21. Riccardo, just like you I loved the Christmas Story. I found it moving. It is utopistic, but I think that watching a good film or reading a good book should make you feel good about life and so even utopia is acceptable or better longed for!

    Francesco, you wrote an exceptional comment and I am sure people reading our blog will appreciate what you wrote. You did a good job indeed. 😉

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.