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Fight Club (1999)
When I first went to see Fight Club at a local cinema back in 1999, I was disappointed. I was eagerly looking forward to seeing if David Fincher – at that time one of the hottest new filmmakers around – could again impress me with creative narrative antics, as he had in his clever 1995 film Seven. Well, Fight Club certainly had the narrative antics, but I also felt it was a thematic mess: as if it were trying to say more than it could formulate; as if it were biting off so much that the chewing became a big hassle. Watching the film again some twelve years later, with the privileges of retrospect and more experience, I undoubtedly found myself enjoying it more. With its trendsetting, meandering narrative structure – freely using flashbacks and occasionally breaking the fourth wall – the novelty of Fincher's film form is, if anything, more striking today when compared to the many bleak imitations of recent years. And there is a truly inspired energy to Edward Norton and Brad Pitt, and to the interplay between them. It is as if they genuinely believed they were making an important piece of cinema – a modern screen classic. Still, I won't acknowledge Fight Club as a classic. Many of my original objections still hold up. Despite some very interesting and valid observations about the potential meaninglessness of modern urban life, about the uncertainties men of this generation have concerning their gender roles and identities, and about the inner urge people in this situation can have to rediscover intrinsic, primal values and ways of life (represented here by the fight club), what Fincher really wants to say and achieve with the final third of his film remains unclear to me. Back in 1999, I dubbed the film a grim violence-fest disguised as nihilistic Generation X escapism, and I'm sad to be able to validate that line after my second viewing. Now for a little plot recap: We're introduced to a nameless character played by Edward Norton, and to his increasing problems with insomnia. He has an ordinary job in an ordinary office, and lives in an ordinary apartment with ordinary Scandinavian furniture (from IKEA, of course). In short, he has problems getting through his extremely boring and pointless daily trot. He has no friends either, so he starts attending various self-support groups for relief. So far so good. But then he notices Marla Singer (Helena Bonham Carter), another "tourist" like himself in these groups. She ruins the effect for him, and he's back to square one – that is, until his apartment blows up and he falls in with the free-spirited Tyler Durden (Pitt). I believe Fight Club will retain its cult status for years to come, mostly because it stands as a beacon for a period of late-1990s filmmaking which boasted a wealth of new-thinking, perspective-altering films and filmmakers (alongside films such as Seven, The Usual Suspects, The Sixth Sense, Memento, etc.). Still, I also believe it was – and is – Brad Pitt's defining cool-guy persona, the re-popularisation and rejuvenation of fist-fighting, and the now legendary twist that did (and does) the business. Young, identity-searching, rebellious people will always appreciate stories advocating anti-establishment and anarchistic behaviour. And so will arguably many intelligent adults "caught" in this establishment – as long as there is a purpose to it. In Fight Club, the purpose ends with the characters' need to break free from the dulling routines of modern life. The film's need to escalate and create a large-scale climax doesn't match the scale of its moral and existential discussions. In the same way real-life terrorists do, Fight Club resorts to explosions to conclude and champion what it couldn't achieve through discussion: aimlessness due to prosperity, mental illness as a result of this aimlessness, and the individual's return to bare instincts because of it all. A short analysis of Fight Club: The insane man's deranged ideas lead his flock into the abyss before he heals himself and brings moral salvation only to himself. Although Fight Club trusts people to be able to break free and advocates individuality, it doesn't trust us to have the intelligence to think for ourselves and act on that individuality, and this extreme pessimism is why the film largely fails in my book. But I will admit: it looks darn good, and it offers quite a bit of fun along the way.
Re-reviewed: Copyright © 30.11.2011
Fredrik Gunerius Fevang |
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