#014 Fight Club

People were surprised that I hadn't seen this film before. Having just seen it I can see why. Its friggin' awesome. I've now heard from two different people, that in order to get the full effect, you have to watch it again because once you know the ending, there are clues throughout. I actually said the same thing about "Shutter Island" (#239) so definitely agree that this could be the case, so I will watch it again, but perhaps not immediately.

I can safely say that I'm glad I watched this movie and its now up there with my own personal favourites. I really like all these Character-study type movies, especially, apparently, when it turns out that the guy's crazy. Also the fact that what you're seeing isn't actually whats happening seems to effect me at the core. The only films that ever truly terrify me are ones where someone personally isn't responsible for their own actions, and remembers events differently, but what actually happened is shown later on. If you've seen "Blair Witch 2", "Shrooms" or (to some extent) "Shutter Island" you'll understand the sort of thing I'm talking about. Perhaps its some deep fear of the unknown, or of my own sanity. Hmm...

It surprised me that throughout the whole film I hadn't noticed that the lead character had never said his name. We actually checked, and in the credits he's down as "Narrator". Actually now that I think about it, I hardly ever remember the names of people from movies. In fact right now I'm having trouble remembering the character's actual name. Tyler Something. But I would usually have thought about it, like: "what's that guy's name again?". It never occurred to me. It must just have been very cleverly disguised. I mean the film was so weird that there's so many questions all the time so I guess the lead character's name got pushed back behind other things, like "What kind of sick person gets their kicks by pretending to be ill and going to support groups?"

I kind had my suspicions early on but I worked it out probably toward the end. The guy I was watching it with was very good about not spoiling it for me, ignoring my questions.

I liked the mention of the "cigarette burns" (the cue marks that appear as a black circle with a yellow border on film reels) because I've actually seen them in films before and wondered what they were. I'm told they don't often exist any more, because most films these days use digital cameras.