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Fight Club DVD

Dmitry Sharko's Review

The things you own end up owning you.

Men have built society which has no place for them, they are not needed here, technical progress, feminism and political correctness make them superfluous. Indeed there are processors now instead of brains, advertising instead of will, machines instead of muscles. Dick is successfully replaced by vibrator. And the world for a long time is not managed by people, it is managed by financial flows, governable by its virtual laws. Western society begins to consider that men's qualities - like will, resolution, boldness - are unethical and dangerous for it. It suggests to their men to become effeminate (in the worst sence of the word), become overgrown with fat, and to become flabby as a shit.

"Eat and smile" - with this motto technological civilization with its cult of comfort and unisex throttles maleness by soft pads of plushish sofa. That is why there is so crazy popularity of homosexuality and other "delights" of liberalism. So neurotic reaction of the movie heroes comes from here. Like in the song: "We'll destroy all the world of violence to the basis and then..." And then, probably, everything from the beginning. Men, understanding all their unnecessity and impending doom in this plastic world, begin to destroy it. They begin to shatter what they built for so long time and what they aspired to - comfort and possession of goods. To have many goods and to do nothing - this is understanding of freedom by society of consumption. And this substitute of freedom turns to loneliness and to ecological armageddon. "The matrix has you".

Fight Club is religion of stone jungles, urbanistic shamanism, rebellion of biology against management, of natural against artificial. This movie is about the only thing which has authentic value, this movie is about the Spirit. "To fuck" yourself, to pass through initiation by fear and pain, to walk along the border of life and death, to give yourself back the taste of the life, to become realy free - this is the alternative for those who do not want to become accumulators for production line.

Fight Club is the manifest of true freedom. Only that, what can not be taken away from you (Spirit), belongs to you. Only it has value, all other things are illusion. Only that, what you obtain in struggle, brings you energy, makes you alive and realy strong. "You should be strong, otherwise what for to be?"...

Amazon.com Editorial Review

All films take a certain suspension of disbelief. Fight Club takes perhaps more than others, but if you're willing to let yourself get caught up in the anarchy, this film, based on the novel by Chuck Palahniuk, is a modern-day morality play warning of the decay of society. Edward Norton is the unnamed protagonist, a man going through life on cruise control, feeling nothing. To fill his hours, he begins attending support groups and 12-step meetings. True, he isn't actually afflicted with the problems, but he finds solace in the groups. This is destroyed, however, when he meets Marla (Helena Bonham Carter), also faking her way through groups. Spiraling back into insomnia, Norton finds his life is changed once again, by a chance encounter with Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt), whose forthright style and no-nonsense way of taking what he wants appeal to our narrator. Tyler and the protagonist find a new way to feel release: they fight. They fight each other, and then as others are attracted to their ways, they fight the men who come to join their newly formed Fight Club. Marla begins a destructive affair with Tyler, and things fly out of control, as Fight Club grows into a nationwide fascist group that escapes the protagonist's control.

Fight Club, directed by David Fincher (Seven), is not for the faint of heart; the violence is no holds barred. But the film is captivating and beautifully shot, with some thought-provoking ideas. Pitt and Norton are an unbeatable duo, and the film has some surprisingly humorous moments. The film leaves you with a sense of profound discomfort and a desire to see it again, if for no other reason than to just to take it all in.