Fight Club (1999) ***
If you've seen the trailers for Fight Club, you will probably be expecting a different film than the one you will see. It is not spceifically all about fighting clubs, and the goings on there, but about a man's journey outside of himself, his "normal" life, everything he knows and takes for granted, and then back again, and his relationship with the man that will change his life, and the lives of many others as well.
The violence depicted in the film is brutal and realistic, and we thankfully only see the actual goings on at the "fight clubs" a few times during the course of the two hour plus movie. But when we do, we are not spared, and the camera almost never looks away when it should.
Edwrad Norton plays an insomniac. In order to find release and get some much needed sleep, and on the advice of his doctor, he starts attending a therapy group for testicular cancer, where he lets his guard down and ends up crying on Bob's (Meatloaf) large male hormone imbalance induced breasts. After that, Norton becomes addicted to the group therapy, and attends a different group every night, which is also how he meets Marla. Marla is also a "tourist". And Norton can't cry with another faker around, and so, he relapses into insomnia. So they eventually strike up a deal, on who goes to what groups on what day in a funny, if slightly morbid scene. A lot of the humor in Fight Club comes from such awkward or disturbing places.
Norton later meets Tyler Durdern on an airline flight, where they strike up a conversation, and Durden gives Norton his business card. When Norton comes home to his condo, he finds his his apartment has exploded, So he calls Durden to perhaps get some shelter. and after a brawl outside a bar, which leads to the creation of the fight club, ends up finding refuge at Tyler's run down house.
Tyler lives the complete opposite to Norton. His house is a dive, and the jobs he takes other than selling his soap, are basically a means for his mischief. Tyler has total disdain for the status quo, the lives of normal people who are sheep, herded around by what they do, what they want, and what they own. Durden's has an almost obsessive need to free everyone else's id from the shackles of corporate america's superego. Tyler and Marla eventually get involved which each other, which bothers Norton, although he can't understand why, since he doesn't seem to like Marla at all, or at least, pretends he doesn't. Setting up a conflict between Norton and Pitt's characters which builds to the point where Norton beats an attractive man to a bloody pulp for falling more into favour with Pitt, in a scene reminiscent of Raging Bull's "he ain't pretty no more" scene.
The amount of Fight Club members grows during the film, across the country, to an almost "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" level where The Fight Club becomes a recruitment center for Durden's mass mischief plans. As the bigger pictures becomes clearer towards the end of the film, even the details of "project mayhem" isn't the final cimactic revelation of the movie.
The performances in the film are excellent. Norton's everyman, and Pitt's not-so-everyman are wonderful, and in Pitt's case, probably his best work. If you've ever wondered what id and ego would sound like if they spoke to each other out loud, then you're in for a treat as that's how Pitt and Norton's characters get along with each other. Helena Bonham Carter's fiesty Marla is also a terrific performance. The lone woman in the film, (excluding Meatloaf's breasts) who is as tough on the inside as any of the men, or at least, pretends to be. She just needs attention to keep her from thinking about herself and from making half-hearted attempts on her own life. Marla's "fight club" is found in Tyler Durden's bed and in her stormy relationship slash friendship with Norton.
David Fincher's directing is an extremely stylized departure that he seems to have been working towards ever since Alien 3. Fincher's camera swoops down buildings, through bulletholes in windshields, and other places that can only be achieved through subtle useage of computer technology, not excluding the bizarre brief sex scene between Marla and Durden. I haven't seen a film this stylistically powerful since Pulp Fiction, only where that film snap crackled and popped, Figh Club's viceral experience is like an atomic blast. Fincher takes us places we've never been, and some places we probably shouldn't be going to.
I've heard Fight Club as being called a film about a lot of things, including "emasculated males in the age of feminism", which not being a woman or emasculated, I can't disagree with enough. Although in the film Durden does mention being part of a generation brought up by their mothers, but that is a direct reference to both Durden and Norton's characters fathers having left them at a young age, and the dynamic between Pitt's Id, Norton's Ego, and the partial superego of their absent fathers.
The purpose of the Fight Club is as much therapy as the testicular cancer survivors sharing their pain with the group. Only in Fight Club, they don't just share the pain, they dish it out as well. Their pain truly becomes another's pain. And in that pain, they find release. Everyone is equal, and there is no room for tourists. But "Fight Club" the movie isn't just about the fight clubs, or violence, it's about a lot more. There is much subtext to the story, and everyone's opinions have validity, even "feminist emasculation". Fight Club is one of the rare films that begs to be thought about afterwards, not just tossed out of mind with yesterday's empty action flick.
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