The Freedom of Fight Club

Rating: 10/10 (2 September 2004)

Words cannot describe how much I love this movie. We will glance briefly over the fact that Brad Pitt has probably never been sexier and spends a good deal of time partially nude. Actually lets just contemplate that for a moment before moving on.
Mmmmmmmm.
Anyway. I find the movie as a whole intensely sexy. A perfect dark mixture of surrealism, freedom, violence and sex. I too have never been in a fight. The very concept terrifies and arouses me. I think to actually just go the f**k for it and not only take the pain but take it in an uncontrolled way and return it might do a lot of us a power of good. Grab life by the balls and kick it in the teeth. But it's so far from anything most of us are likely to do (especially women, of which I am one) that it probably would take an episode of real mental breakdown to be able to do it. Fight Club is a lot like bdsm, well really only sm. It's (the actual fight club part not the whole movie) about the emotional and social freedom inherent in inflicting and receiving pain. If you're hurt you can cry or scream, if you're angry or frustrated you can lash out. The ultimate stress release. The way pain strips you of all complexity until there is nothing else that exists but excruciating sensation.
To cry not because you're depressed and life sucks or something bad has happened, assuming you even cry then, but because it hurts. It hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts. There's something very pure about that.
The difference between bdsm and fight club is that, in general, bdsm is controlled and will not leave permanent marks or anything requiring hospital treatment. This is a positive and a negative. It lacks some of the freefalling savagery of fight club but in return it gains practicality. We cannot all walk around with our faces bashed in and in the end you will get seriously hurt. There are only so many times you can have your head bashed against the floor before you don't wake up. I don't particularly want my head bashed against the floor at all. I suspect I like the concept a lot more than the actuality of fight club. I am a big coward.
The movie as a whole is a trip in every way. It has things to say, it's beautiful and painful to look at, the characters are interesting, the end is fitting. One of the best movies I've seen.