Is Fight Club a masterpiece?
Have you become your job or your bank statement? Do you find yourself surfing through product catalogues, trying to find something that defines you as a person? Do you often feel like bashing up people without any provocation? If yes then may be its time you should watch Fight Club.
David Flincher’s 1999 film Fight Club will scare you and give you a pervert sense of relief. The film conceived as a psychological thriller is certainly much more than merely that. It has deceptively overt political and spiritual undertones.
At one level the movie could be seen as a critique of consumer culture, on the other a mockery of the notion of remedy.
Tyler Durden, an extension of the narrator’s suppressed self takes him on a wild journey of destruction. Here, destruction is equivalent to liberation. Durden puts this into words “the things you own end up owning you”. Hence the mantra is to give up everything you own and help others give up their material possessions.
Well don’t get carried away by spiritual undertones of it. Durden isn’t preaching renouncement here. He is asking people not only to destroy whatever they have but also whatever others have.
Our narrator Edward Norton falls into his fold only after his condo is destroyed in an explosion. After losing everything he had stacked for a comfortable living, he is bound to listen to his inner voice, that turns out to be Durden’s voice.
Durden and Edward enter into a strange relation, a series of (apparent) purposeless bloody fights that leave them bruised and panting. This gradually grows into their pastime and passion. Soon it takes shape of an underground movement of protest against suppressed masculine aggression.
A fight club where people fight and get hurt and hurt others to seek relief from their embattled daily lives.
Women are not permitted into the fight club. However the film is not only about men. Marla Singer who shares a sex/love life with Durden and/or Edward seems equally resentful of life of “order“ and seeks relief in support groups for terminally ill.
Fight Club is so original in its expression of disgust with our contemporary lives that it deserves to be called a masterpiece. However what disappoints me is its psychological thriller garb. Towards the end the film gets loud and clear and starts putting things together for an explanation.
Well, the ending makes the Fight Club probably more acceptable to audience, but it also robs it off its immense ever lasting potentials.
I would say that the ending makes this superb piece of cinema rather simplistic.
Frankly, I felt duped when told in so many words who Tyler Durden was? I sensed it but wanted to remain in doubt…
Well, as we know now that we all suffer from a possibility of turning into a Tyler Durden, I’m slightly worried about my little house, an explosion and my mind going bust.
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“I felt duped when told in so many words who Tyler Durden was? I sensed it but wanted to remain in doubt”
Thats how the book went, though.
I can understand what you’re saying, but I have to disagree. I can’t imagine how the film or book would have worked otherwise. Sometimes things are best left unsaid, but with film (or books) this can result in a vague painful brain twister that lacks a satisfying conclusion. Dunno about you but I get enough of that from David Lynch. (I still don’t get Mulholland Drive)
I agree tha Fight Club is an absolute masterpiece. I would disagree though that it is in psychological thriller garb.
The movie is like a dream and you don’t know if you are awake or asleep. Its that kind of feeling which is difficult to express but David does quite well at it and Ed Norton really carries off that feeling well.
It’s not a comment, a clarification rather…I’m nor moderating nor deleting comments.
Rob and Ved have deleted their comments on their own…perhaps because there’s no option to edit a comment once it’s been posted..it can only be deleted and reposted….
my suggestion…read your comments before publishing …so that you don’t need to delete it…
my assurance…i’m never going to delete a comment..unless It’s a spam…advertisement…or asked by a law enforcement agency or my host google to do so…
Hey Bikas,
You are right I deleted my comment because it appeared twice in eroor.