Well, a couple weeks ago I finally saw Fight Club. To be honest, I wasn't nearly as impressed as everyone else. Maybe it's just a case of overblown expectations, but I think there's more to it than that. Oh, don't get me wrong, it was a good movie, but it wasn't a great movie. I'm told it's very quotable, but...Well, I'll get to that in a second.

I think the reason that the movie didn't really get to me is a fundamental difference between my beliefs, the core of my being, and those of the movie. It's not just that the political aspects (support for anarchy, etc...) seems dumb to me. Honestly, I consider anarchy to be the resort of those who have not thought through what they're suggesting yet, or have some fundamental argument against some authority figure and support the concept of anarchy solely because they "don't want to be bossed around anymore," not because they actually understand what anarchy entails beyond never having to follow anyone's directions again. No, my argument with it was something deeper. Let me put it this way: K-PAX resonated with me for all the reasons Fight Club did not. Fight Club espouses an odd view, and almost all of its "quotable" moments fall into this view. Fight Club argues that no one is special -- "You're the same decaying organic matter as everything else." Fundamentally, this bothers me. If you feel like you live a purposeless existance, perhaps this would resonate with you, but not me. I might sometimes feel like I live an existance without hope, but I have never been missing the feeling of purpose. A man makes himself if need be. Sure, you might start out as "not special" so you find an opportunity to make yourself special. Telling everyone that they are not special is as bad as telling everyone that they are. Like respect, this is something you have to earn. And for being someone who occaisionally hears the voice of dissent in his head -- my Wolf is not terribly unlike Tyler Durden -- a lot of the movie seems like so much garbage to me. At its best, it's a good movie, with a strange plot and some interesting bits (along with some very funny ones). At it's worst, it's an annoying bit of claptrap with wacky overtones. Fortunately, Fight Club is far more often at its best than at it worst. Like I said -- it's a good movie. Whether it'll end up in my collection, well, that's something I'm not sure of yet.

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home