-- updated 27.2 2008 --
I just watched the movie Fight Club and realized that the movie is somewhere deep in my subconsciousness. Or the affect of seeing this particular film at a certain age, 16 at the time, is irreversible.
I won´t argue that the movie doesn´t use some shallow methods at times and represent a flawed view of the world. It is Ok for a movie to do that to a certain point. And I am not saying that is so "deep" or so "cool". There are many movies that include heavier substance than this movie.
But I remember the night I saw the film. For some reason I had nothing to do on a friday night. I asked my dad to drop me off to a movie theater located in Kotkansaari, about 9 km from where I live. When our car stopped in front of the theater, the door man was just opening the doors and watched me get off the car in my leather jacket and long scarf. When I walked inside to the empty lobby, the doorman (who also sold tickets) said " Was that your dad outside? Yes? Well, then I can let you in. This movie is not for people under 18". At the time I was irritated by the fact that he did not take me for a 18 year old. Not even with my leather jacket!
There was something like 4 people in the theater. The movie had been shown something like 2 weeks or so..When the movie began, and the scene with Norton against the tits of Bob was on the screen, I remember thinking "what the fuck is this..?" And after that I was in a state of muddled confusion right to the point when Tyler leaves and the ending starts to reveal. I wasn´t excited about the film, like "OMG fucking great movie!" It was more like a quiet enthusiasm and feeling that I just saw something I had not seen before.
This was the time when I started to really see movies, not just watch them. Time when I started to get interested in different kinds of films. Same time I tried to watch Le Mempris for about 7 times and never understood it. This was the time, when ( I´m ashamed to say) my consciousness was opening and possibly expanding, at least in terms of film and the world of cinema. So although I´ve never really considered this to be a film that is really important to me, it is one of them that really left a mark.
Weakest thing, possibly quite fatal thing in Fight Club is that biggest movie stars of our time with great muscles and looks talk about things like "self improvement is masturbation" and "not everyone will be movie stars and rock gods".. and so on. They represent the thing this movie is against. Or atleast tries to be. So this is the frustrating double-dealing point of this movie. But if we look past this, we can see a quite good package of visual storytelling and ideas about the world and the lifestyle going on in the late 90´s and feel the excitement and energy of the movie.
Interesting point is that when "the narrator" starts realizing that his life is not what he wants and tries to change it, he goes insane ( or meets Tyler). Like one must go insane to act like he feels like... The lead character never gets any help to his insanity, but works it all out himself. So this is a story how to over come schizophrenia. And how this one messed up guy becomes an icon for hundreds of people. Unwillingly. And how his mental illness just toys whit these people.
Scenes like where one guy tells tales about the "mysterious and great Tyler Durden" How he sleeps only 1 hour a night and was born in a mental institution, tell us something about the absurd grip of this story. And when one of the Tylers gang members says "when he said ´you are not your job!´ I was like; FUCK YEAH!". Viewer can easily understand that the makers are not so serious about this revolution..
I remember that somebody criticized the film about being fascistic. That might be, but that is also part of the attraction. At least for me. I´m not saying that I would like to live in a Tyler Durden- house. But in a way FightClub deals with freedom and finding alternatives to the way of living in our society. Oddly these kind of explorations often lead to situations that are easily interpreted as fascistic. If freedom is organized it ceases to be what it originally was.
And even if I don´t live like the guys in the films, I still have something in me that resonates with lines like these (even though they might be a bit corny) :
"Fuck off with your sofa units and strine green stripe patterns, I say never be complete, I say stop being perfect, I say let... lets evolve, let the chips fall where they may."
"Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don't need. We're the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our Great War's a spiritual war... our Great Depression is our lives. "
"You have to know the answer to this question! If you died right now, how would you feel about your life? "" Fuck damnation, man! Fuck redemption! We are God's unwanted children? So be it!"
" First you have to give up, first you have to *know*... not fear... *know*... that someday you're gonna die. "
I´m somewhat concerned about the fact that most movie reviews and opinions of movie goers have little to do with the movie, but much more with their own opinions about what they would have wanted to see.
( At this point, I´m quite sure that I´ve written about this here earlier. )
This is something I´ve noticed by analyzing my own behavior and people around me. For example, If I wait for a movie for a long time, read what it is about and what kind of characters it has and so on, the probability for me not liking it rises. If I go to movies, wishing to see say like a romantic comedy, I want to see the classic figures in these kind of movies, not seeing what the movie offers me instead. If I go to see a film with a "clean table", I give the movie much more changes to give me emotional or intellectual experience. Whether I like it or not, which I then can decide after the movie.
This applies to all things, not only movies. There is no simple way to get rid of ones prejudgments or not having them to affect the experience. And it cannot be measured or predicted what the outcome would be if the person wouldn´t have known anything about the film just watched. But I guess the important thing would be to see that this affects the judgment. And more importantly the way one experiences life.
One of the most heart braking things I know is a person who plans and thinks a lot about what kind of things are going to happen and what they are like and how perfect is this and that when we go to this place...and so on. In small things in life, like going to holidays/trips/restaurants...
Cause life is not like that. Nothing is ever like you plan it, and that is a good thing.
The amount of stress and tension decreases considerably when a person can let go of these pre assumptions and exact visions of things beyond ones power. I am not talking about cynicism, like everything will suck anyway so lets just be happy that this sucks less. I´m talking about accepting and adjusting to situations, whit minimal demands for surroundings from your narrowed vision of the situation.
Getting back to movies and reviewing them, the lack of prejudgment comes more difficult whit every movie one sees, but I think that for example it could be a good thing that movie critics should not be allowed to know anything about the film they are about to see. The press shows would be just anonymous screenings during the week and critics would go there to see films randomly. This would not be practical, but interesting.
The saddest thing is that usually high hopes of things end up causing the most severe criticism. Sometimes much more severe than appropriate. Like I just saw a bunch of new Finnish films and hated almost every one of them.
Million Dollar Baby is a film about a boxing coach who loves the people he trains and therefore is unable to give them "big fights", cause he is afraid that they get beaten up too badly. So sooner or later the Fighters leave him. Until he reluctantly starts to train a girl and gets her to the top, then loses her just the way he fears. Se gets injured in a fight.
In the Valley of Elah is a film about a father who is a patriot, whose 2 boys have gone to the army. While investigating the missing of his older son he finds out that everything he has believed about the army, U.S.A. and therefore his entire life, has been, or at least is now, totally wrong and twisted.
Both of these movies are written by Paul Haggis. I am not surprised if 6 out of 10 would write the plot synopsis differently. For Example that Million Dollar Baby is about a woman boxer who wins her dreams or something like that.
That happens also in the movie, but it does not matter.
Valley of Elah tells us that the father finds out who has killed his son and so on, or the conspiracy in the army, but that is not so important also.
In both of these movies the main focus is how the lead character, and old man, deals with what decisions he does and how he copes with them and the decisions done in the past. In the Valley of Elah broads the view to the decisions of a whole country and to the war.
Lead character being a well-built, old, decent man also gives an interesting perspective. That same man could have been the hero of the movies while he was younger, but now he is just and old hero. Realizing that he is alone and all he has believed, or what he has done, has been wrong or meaningless. Now he tries to cope and find peace in himself, while, in both movies, a young energetic woman has taken the place of the hero, or the achiever. And it could be argued that the arrangement could have been the opposite some time ago. It also tells us something about our time and the ways of old perspectives.
These films give a simple, but meaningful statements, using somewhat usual stories or characters, but twisting them or making them the opposite. Sometimes a basic story, is a good foundation to a good filmmaker to do a film that has a meaning. These films are not great works of art. But in the field of film making they are good examples of films that at least make sense and are really well done.
It just seems to be the case that too many of us, including the people who study film making or watch them a lot have lost the ability to really watch movies. Some might say, including me, that these films contain some clichés or too common plots or characters. But no one never takes under consideration that a filmmaker would do this to use it for a purpose. Or just that we should or grow a bit more humble and not demand something innovative every time we see a movie.
Do we also have to grow old and on our last days see the iniquity of our ways? I think so. Or am I wrong?
