Loved and hated ... for the wrong reasons ...

Rating: 10/10 (14 July 2011)

Let me tell you something about the 'Fight Club' Paradox, it's the uncommon characteristic of a movie victim of its own contradictions. Basically, if you love it, you hate it. If you hate it, you have enough intelligence to get the genius of the film and love it, but if you love it  see? The movie is stuck in the middle of its own vicious circle.
And that's my personal dilemma, I was thrilled by the exhilarating prologue and its sardonic social commentary, then the constitution of the underground 'Fight Club' movement intrigued me, but when the concept became a movement that mobilized more masses, and indoctrinated them through an anti-social movement, and a physical self-improvement that flirted with eugenics, I didn't get it, is fascism the answer to liberalism?
Or maybe the movie challenged my intelligence and invited me to question my personal approach to both alienating tendencies, highlighting the danger of one through the consequences of the other, with one hell of a prophetic ending. Maybe  I'll try to put myself in the average viewer's shoes :
*** I'm David's witty commentary ***
"Your life's a joke, you thank whatever God you believe in every Friday for the opportunity to drown in alcohol all the crappiness that defines your life, you, average generation X office worker, trying to bang the generation Y student. The past is over, and there's no future, so the best you can do is seize the day, the night, and empty your bank account to fill your precious living room with some Swedish nonsensical-trema-named furniture. "I buy therefore I am" this is today's Cogito. Marx defined you through your productive value: either you belonged to the working masses, or the exploiting bourgeoisie. Now, the Dow Jones defines you as a member of the spending masses. You're defined by what you consume, what you own, and what you own ends up owing you. You're owned, man!"
*** I'm David's male fantasy ***
"You become yourself when you deviate from the model that society dictates to you. The best option is to always take the opposite way. Possession is alienation: stop buying. Self-improvement is masturbation: destroy yourself. Society teaches that fighting and hurting are bad, how can you know yourself if you've never been in a fight? Don't be afraid of blood, scars, pain, these natural scares will cement your spirit. Fear is the lesson about courage, overcome your fear so you can be a man. In a fight, we're all equal, no shirts, no ties, no blue or white collars, no hierarchy; we're all men, united in the same spirit, as a generation lost in no-space, raised by executive women and executed in the altar of liberalism. We must conquer our manhood again. Power, muscles, sweat, testosterone "
*** I'm David's realistic subconscious ***
"I want to identify with these guys, to feel the strength to reject and the ability to project myself as a member of this glorious and virile fraternity. But I tried to punch a guy once, I nearly broke my bones, and he nearly sent me to coma by one pinch in the face. Pain hurts to tears. I wanted to become different, I ended up disfigured. Pain hurts, blood is ugly, and sweat stinks. I was fired, I wasn't contributing to the economy anymore, I had my pride. But it couldn't buy me anything. It doesn't matter, whatever you own  yeah, I know but is everything really so bad? Yes it is, what do you want to be, a prototype? Like these perfect guys in the Gucci underwear advertisement, is that what men look alike? Well Tyler sure does. Yeah but it's a representation, he's just an idealization of what the narrator wants to be. Well, Norton isn't bad-looking either. Well, look at the 'Fight Club' members, they're all average Joes with fat bellies and  um "
*** I'm David's manipulative impulse ***
"You, poor little schmuck behind your laptop drooling over Brad Pitt's body and fantasizing over being him, you who haven't killed the father yet you dream of knocking out a man who's done nothing to you, as if your fists were made of steel. You can become a man, a member of the Fight Club. All you have to do is to fight, to endure the punches in your face, the blood, the pain, in the modern arena when you'll be either the bull or the toreador. In both cases, you'll win self-respect. Because taking hits is how you learn about resistance. You see, the point is not to help your neighbor, to fight poverty, to help people, but to denounce the dysfunctional aspect of this society, to fight it, to pee on the soup of the guy with the chick, the Rolex and the Ferrari, to shock the innocence with a subliminal phallic image during a fairy tale cartoon, to destroy all the multiple corporate buildings, to exterminate the liberal degeneration of the pointless civilization, to ..."
STOOOOOOOOOP!
I stop here, because you know where I'm getting at : other groups driven by the same fascist hatred managed to destroy their representation of the liberal world, two years later. Call it political fight, but you can't deny the economical roots of the conflict. Now, I come to my point, the movie works because of its unfortunate prophetic value, I'm sure the movie denounced more than supported, but history proved the premonition to be right. But the average viewer doesn't love the movie for these reasons, because if he would, he would hate it.
I love "Fight Club" because I hate it, call it schizophrenia, I call it the 'Fight Club' paradox. It deserves a 01, I gave it a 10. The rest is just intellectual and/or physical masturbation ... no wonder the tag-line ends with the word 'soap'.