I've written about this movie before and I will again.
An insomniac office worker goes to support groups to help him get sleep. Then he meets Tyler Durden, who changes his life when they start an underground fight club.
I read Fight Club when I was 14. It sounds bullshit, but it really has defined much of my life philosophy. There's something wonderfully nihilist and emptying in the novels of Chuck Palahniuk, and for a 14-year-old that was mind-blowing. And even if Chuck Palahniuk had a different message he tried to give the readers, there's wisdom in Fight Club even if you take most of the ideas without much interpretation. I'm not saying everything about the idea of Project Mayhem is glorious and should be done, but Fight Club could be one of the best examples if we think about nihilism in the modern literature or pop-culture.
It's funny how the first time I watched Fight Club I thought it was good. Then I read the book and I though the movie wasn't as good as I thought. Now I watched it again, and it is good. The ideas the book have are wonderfully put in the movie, and there isn't many big, important parts missing. Sure, not every line made it there, but nothing is twisted or warped because it's not exactly how the book is. Of course there's the ending, that's quite different, but the ending in the movie is quite open for interpretation, even though few things wouldn't make sense, if you think that the ending was like in the book, but not just as clearly. But the ending in the book is perfect, and probably it's that one thing that sticks with you if you read it. And at least in my mind I can somehow combine both endings in my head, and that right there is a perfect ending.
Of course Fight Club has a downside to it - reading / watching it for the first time is magical, when you realise what's going on. Of course the plot twist in Fight Club is one of the best known plot twist, so people might now it even if they haven't read the book or seen the film. So when you know it, watching or reading it isn't the same anymore. But it's not necessarily any worse, on the contrary. The second, the third, the fourth time you can see things the first time you didn't pay attention. Other characters reacting to the narrator doing something or saying something, because this time... you know, and you understand.
The cinematography in this movie is something brilliant. Partly the movie is like the house Tyler lives in: the quality, the effects... it feels like the movie could fall apart. The disc actually felt like it wasn't original, but a pirated copy, and the label was printed on a cheap printer. The comparison of hotel rooms and Tyler's apartment, everything in this movie just builds up the weird effect the movie has. Fight Club is very well made film, and everything seems precise and everything has a reason, even though that may seem sort of ironic.
Fight Club is a classic - or a cult classic - and everybody should see it at least twice. I'm not telling you to think about nihilism when you watch it, I'm just asking you to watch it and experience something so brilliant...
☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆
10 / 10
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