Fight Club (1999)

When a mindless consumer (Edward Norton) begins finding it difficult to sleep, he begins going to therapy sessions for problems he doesn’t have. But when suddenly, his flat explodes whilst he’s away on business he finds himself with nowhere to go. In a fleeting moment of insanity, he calls a man he’d met on a plane earlier that day: Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt), and as they shun a life of consumerism, they find a new way of living: Fight Club.

As Fight Club opens to a CG journey from the microscopic cells on the Narrators head to the barrel of the gun in his mouth, it seems no wonder that the film failed tremendously at the box-office. It’s too unconventional too fast and as such is, too much to take so soon, which is why it’s nice for everything to conform slightly. However, for every time Fight Club adheres to the pre-determined rules, it breaks a few more.

Edward Norton’s narrator is suitably unemotional in his voice-over. Both the way that everything is spoken, and the actual dialogue itself is obscenely clever. It’s gripping, clever and really reflects everything that the average person doesn’t like to be reminded about themselves. The very fact that they are consumers. And in that alone, the narrator is: us.

The conventionalism within Fight Club soon wears off, but it happens in such a way that the audience doesn’t mind. For a short time, there doesn’t seem to be a plot. The Narrator struggles to find any comfort with merely being a white-collar everyman so he tries to remedy it. He goes to a number of support groups for the (usually terminally) ill where he finds that he can survive with a mixture of human interaction and consumerism, a balance. To relate back to the Narrators coffee table, you have to have the both the Yin & Yang sides of things.

As much as Fight club is fuelled by testosterone, it’d be ridiculous to assume there are no female leads. Firstly there’s Bob (Meatloaf). Bob sounds very predominantly like a man, so why is he put down as a female lead? “Bob has bitch tits” drawls the Narrator whilst weeping into bob’s disturbingly heavy chest. Admittedly, that’s overly harsh. I just didn’t want Helena Bonham Carter to feel alone as the only female lead. Marla Singer is in short, a bitch. She appears to find catharsis in the same support groups as the Narrator. Naturally, being awoken to the shallow nature of his little game, the Narrator looks to get rid of her as much as possible and decides to trade therapy groups. It seems sick because it is. It’s one of many times that Fight Club displays an ability to embrace controversy as if it were something to be proud of. And what with the execution of such controversial acts, everyone behind the making of Fight Club should be proud.

The film, in stark similarity to the narration, is very blunt. It’s a real world with most of the colours being dark and dank as opposed to a bright colour filled land of happiness and joy. People are cruel and selfish, none less so than Tyler Durden. Tyler is just that kind of guy who you love even though you know you shouldn’t. He is straight to the point and embraces his humanity, not totally dissimilar to the way in which the film embraces controversy (controversy, he is usually the instigator of).
Where the Narrator thinks about what he does, Tyler just rolls with it. He is that guy who is so off the cuff that he doesn’t even try to condone what he does. He will give reasons for it, but never once will he say that he’s doing the right thing. In that respect it seems to an extent that Tyler Durden is so fucking sly that he could run for president. In a similar respect, he is a character that everyone wants to be and because everyone wants to be him, he’s a character unrestricted by the burden of logic and sanity.
With Tyler comes a quirky sense of humour that despite bordering on absurdity never makes the final leap and so helps the viewers to relate to the characters. The dialogue is compelling, funny and at times completely and utterly disturbing.

There are times where Fight Club will delve into great detail to help the viewer come to a state of premature nirvana (in relation to the film) only for such a scene to be followed by another in which as little is revealed as possible. The entire film is very confusing at times and in between the random facts (“You can swallow a pint of blood before you get sick.”) and the unrelentless fighting, you get a slow but steady evolution. Not only with the plot and the characters, but with yourself. Remember: you are the Narrator, and as the Narrator evolves (mostly into Tyler) so do you.
The strange thing about evolving into Tyler however is that as you evolve into him, you’d expect to gain a greater knowledge of him. As soon as you think you know something about Tyler he is just as likely to throw it in your face as he is to replicate such an action.

Fight Club throughout has an insane science to it. There is a slight religious subtext but nothing to be taken too seriously. The characters are the focus of the story but you never quite get a full portrait of anyone. And overall, at the most light-hearted of moments is when everything seems the scariest. Fight Club is a mixed bag of emotion and a lucky dip of contradiction.

The cinematography is interesting. There are times when the camera actions and editing seem standard but naturally, in a film like Fight Club, that doesn’t last for very long. There’s something captivating about how everything plays out. It’s possibly in the way that it never quite misses an opportunity to display great dialogue or plot. On top of that the music throughout is 100%, sometimes in the most embarrassingly catchy way.

Brad Pitt is brilliant as the coolest guy alive (honestly, is he actually even acting?) just as Edward Norton is great as a hollow shell that follows the crowds.

There are a few key points throughout that really stay with you for a long time afterwards. Firstly is the breaking of the fourth wall. It’s done a good 3 or 4 times throughout the film and sometimes it makes you wonder if a character really is talking to you. It never gives a distinct answer but it’s all up to a specific individual really.
Second are a few scenes that turn everything on it’s head and give off the overall impression that ALL HELL HAS BROKEN LOOSE!
But that only happens a few times, so there’s really no need to fret.

It’s strange how many different views Fight Club brings up that you were probably never going to think about if you hadn’t seen it.Sacrifice is everything.Everything is nothing.Nothing is knowing yourself.To know yourself you need to sacrifice.
Sometimes it does seem that the film is so close to emo. The lack of conformity, the moving away from the crowds and the general truthfulness of it all.
Maybe that’s the point. Or maybe the point is to stop worrying about the point…

Conformity is bad from Tylers point of view.Tyler is bad from conformity’s point of view.But whatever your opinion, it’s pointless to deny that Tyler is an infection, a self replicating virus. Sooner than later, everyone is Tyler and it’s certainly worth checking Fight Club out just to experience this.

5/5