Edward Norton stars as the worker bee Narrator, an insomniac, white-collar, corporate type with an Ikea decorated condo and nothing offering him relief in life but attending support groups everyday of the week. I found the first 30 minutes of the film to be quite funny, watching him attending meetings for people with testicular cancer, brain parasites and half a dozen others, only to be enraged when a chain-smoking "tourist" named Marla (Helena Bonham Carter) encroaches on his territory.
After a freak fire in his apartment, the Narrator moves into a condemned house with the mysterious, hunky and very charismatic Tyler Durdan (Brad Pitt), a soap salesman whom the Narrator met on a plane. The two soon form a strong relationship built on Tyler's principals of relinquishing material possessions and living in the now, driving ever forward to rock bottom. This Zen outlook is met with the two men's new form of therapy -- beating one another into pulp. The concept catches on, soon forming Fight Club, a testosterone-propelled spinoff of cage fighting without the money, which Tyler then uses for his own ulterior ends.
By all accounts I should be in love with this film. Although I have disliked all of David Fincher's work that I've seen, it stars three very fine actors and is a violent exploration of the subconscious and man's innate, animal behavior. It explores philosophy which I myself believe in and it takes a no-holds-barred approach to delivering that vision to us.
Why then should I hate this movie so much? It was impossible for me to listen to the dialogue without imagining the face of screenwriter Jim Uhls and novelist Chuck Palahnuik sitting in front of their typewriter with big, ugly smiles on their faces. "Fight Club" reeks of self-satisfied fumes belched out by the writers and wafted into the faces of the audience. It is simply a nauseating attempt to be unique and dangerous and daring and poetic, and what makes me angrier is that for most viewers it succeeds at being just that.
The story chides us for being slaves to consumerism, but look at what it glorifies. A culture of chauvinism in which we --meaning men-- need to wake up to the fact that we have lost our so-called masculinity by wearing Calvin Klein boxer-briefs, and the only way to restore that is by destroying the nation's credit system and throwing us into anarchy?? I suppose it makes sense if you make the leap in assuming that if nobody has credit it might somehow relinquish us from the grasp of the corporations and by some magic we shall all then rediscover what it means to be a man. I guess...whatever.
As stupid as the film is and as ugly a depiction of the human race it gives, that is not even the greatest why I am anti-"Fight Club". What makes me so angry is that all of these components come together and pander to a very select audience who then feed off of the smugness that oozes out of the script and they themselves feel like elevated moviegoers. It targets the densest balls of male hormones, tells them they are great, ought to feel great and instructs them in saying anarchy will be last way to achieve that ultimate greatness. And these balls of raging juices will nod their giant heads and grin their stupid grins. Their blunder is mistaking lofty for clever. I have no doubt that there were groups of men who watched Fincher's story and formed their own clubs in the same way gangs of boys dressed like little Alex and his droogies after first watching "A Clockwork Orange". The difference of course was that Kubrick could make something worth watching. He painted the Mona Lisa, Fincher graffitied the side of a whorehouse.
The first rule of Fight Club: You do not talk about Fight Club. I wish nobody would ever speak of it again.
0.5/4
No comments:
Post a Comment