Ah, fight club. Have you seen it?
One of the most iconic films of the 90s with an all star cast. I remember watching this in my teens and enjoying it, but not really understanding the portrayal of city life and the mental instability it can bring.
This film, if you look deep enough into it was a scathing critique of how almost numb people had become to society. How men had become shadows of themselves; lonely, uncared for, desperately seeking validation and something to feel. That's why fight club had become so popular. Weirdly, it even appeals to me today.
Funny that right? Bare knuckle fighting somewhere underground with a load of other men that you don't really know appeals to me. I bet no-one seen that coming. I think sometimes we shy away from our true nature, the need to feel alive and have somewhere to put all that aggression that we feel as men.
That's why I recommend anything that gets those joints working because we need it as we get older.
Anyhow, the best thing about this film was convincing the audience that Tyler Durden was real and so was the Narrator. Notice how no-one knew what the narrators real name was? One can question that Tyler, his alter ego was more real than the Narrator.
One of my favourite parts of this film was when the Narrator beat himself up in front of his boss, completely making it out as if his boss was a crazed psychopath, when it was actually the Narrator, and how it would be so hard to prove that he had done it to himself in the corporate world -- and that mental health is not so widely recognised.
This nicely brings me round to the obvious mental health problems that the Narrator so clearly has, and which you aren't made aware of until the very end; when the film whips the rug from under your feet and now you see everything clearly -- that he is one and both, everything seems clearer now, and you realise that you probably have to watch the film again to understand it fully.
When you thought everything was clear but it wasn't; that Tyler and the Narrator was one and the same, that the "nutjob" that Bob referred to was actually the same person -- and then you wonder to yourself how did he convince Bob to stay? Crazy
So many questions that were unanswered.
It also has slight references to "we, the people" in this film; it's great because it goes to show the power we would have if we were probably organised, working as one. We represent all the infrastructure. Without us the lights wouldn't work, and the products and sales would stop happening. If we truly embraced this things would change.
But as a film, and as we sit and watch it, it pays lip service to an already neutered population. I mean I'm in no way trying to promote an uprising here, but if there were to be one in the future it would look like most of the other uprisings in recent years where we attack small businesses and steal their products and don't go for the places that really matter.
This film is something that would never be allowed to be filmed today. It is a representation of repressed masculinity that so many men experience, including myself at one point, and it seems the status quo in 2023 is that being repressed is a good thing.
Ah, but we hope for a better future! Here's hoping!