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dimanche, mai 08, 2005

You are not a beautiful and unique snowflake.

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The French Poster for Fight Club

I have just finished doing what I had not found time to do for a very long time. I just finished watching Fight Club. I had stupidly shunned the movie believing (from the title) that it was yet another silly movie excuse to film people fighting. Little had I known that the film is about much more than that. My mind is still reeling from the movie so I will not be able to make much sense of it at this point [and in the back of my mind there is a little monitor warning me that I have already used the dreaded word "movie" twice instead of the more homely "film"].

So. What do I make of it? The political non-messages are endless. The egalitarianisation of the individual through the shunning of commerce, career and what we call life has an interesting twist. Is it the recycled story of communism/fascism? Maybe, but an intriguing way of looking at it nonetheless. Could the way we fill in the gap between our first and last breath be any more different? Any more useful?

Could we really become beautiful and uniques snowflakes? I'm knackered and cannot think much. One thing though, I think that Brad Pitt (in this case) and Nicole Kidman (she springs to mind from the Interpreter -goodish film) should have obligatory subtitles. Do people just get jobs in Hollywood because they are stunning? What ever happened to clarity of dialogue?

So. I am not a beautiful and unique snowflake and I will never have a major Hollywood part unless I learn to mumble incomprehensibly and... oh yes... unless a miracle happens and I become drop-dead-handsome.

Useful/less Quotes from the Flick
  • On a large enough time line, the survival rate for everyone will drop to zero.
  • This was freedom. Losing all hope was freedom.
  • One minute was enough, Tyler said, a person had to work hard for it, but a minute of perfection was worth the effort. A moment was the most you could ever expect from perfection.
  • You buy furniture. You tell yourself, this is the last sofa I will ever need in my life. Buy the sofa, then for a couple years you're satisfied that no matter what goes wrong, at least you've got your sofa issue handled. Then the right set of dishes. Then the perfect bed. The drapes. The rug. Then you're trapped in your lovely nest, and the things you used to own, now they own you.
  • May I never be complete. May I never be content. May I never be perfect. Deliver me, Tyler, from being perfect and complete.
  • I wanted to burn the Louvre. I'd do the Elgin Marbles with a sledgehammer and wipe my ass with the Mona Lisa. This is my world, now. This is my world, my world, and those ancient people are dead.
  • You are not a beautiful and unique snowflake. You are the same decaying organic matter as everyone else, and we are all part of the same compost pile.
  • I am the all-singing, all-dancing crap of this world.... I am the toxic waste by-product of God's creation.
  • You're not your job. You're not how much money you have in the bank. You're not the car you drive. You're not the contents of your wallet. You're not your fucking khakis. You're the all-singing, all-dancing crap of the world.
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a snowflake. not so beautiful but definitely unique.

4 commentaires:

Antoine Cassar a dit…

Could the way we fill in the gap between our first and last breath be any more different? Any more useful?

Another great post, Jacques. This is a question I ask myself almost every week, and which, kumbinazzjoni, has been bugging me all day! Wherever I am, be it Malta, Madrid, London, I see people whose lives circle in a movement going work-TV-sleep, work-TV-sleep, much like the wonderful French adagio metro-boulot-dodo. Then they get married and have kids, and then watch more TV.

Obviously I'm exaggerating a little, and my lifestyle is certainly not a model for anyone! The only answer I ever seem to find for this question is to try to be creative. Sometimes I move closer towards a belief in eugenesia, not in the genetic sense, but as in trying to better human life and its capabilities, through education, invention, social action, etc. Theoretically, each generation should be more 'illuminated' and 'happier' than the previous one. Yet it takes several years or even centuries to open the mind, and very little to close it again. Then I realise that history repeats itself, the theory crumbles and I become paranoid, and get back to whatever projects I may have both to escape from that inner fear and to try to convince myself that I'm doing other people a favour.

Boqq! Confusion becomes me. Everbody shouting Ma perch�??? with their hands closed together and nobody being able to say why (except a few spiritual leaders here and there... give me a symbol and I'll worship it, oh, and here's a little money for the collection). One day, those leaders come to realise that even power is just another waste of time.

Insomma, aktar paroli fil-vojt. Grazzi tal-kumment li hallejt fuq il-Wiki!

Is-sliem,

Antoine.

Sorry if this appears twice or three times, my computer is going crazy!

Fausto Majistral a dit…

Fight club is a great film(will we still call it "film" after it's gone digital just as some people still call it "talkies"?).

I've watched it quite a few times and there are quite a few things to discover from the excellent sound track by the Chemical Brothers (which matches the film completely) to the many allusions (my fav is the one to Monroe with the plane flying high above Norton).

But the thing that impresses me most is how this film is processed differently by men and women. I suppose in men it strikes a very sensitive chord: the lengths we go to to hide what is probably part of our biology.

noel tanti a dit…

er... the soundtrack is by The Dust Brothers... jacques, if you liked the movie/film/talkies/ic-cine so much i suggest you read the book by chuck palahniuk... the ending is different, and there is more emphasis on the relationship between the norton-bonham-carter characters... also by palahniuk i suggest choke and lullaby... his books might at first seem the regurgitation of the same idea over and over again, but in fact his themes become darker (most prob spurred by the killing of mr palahniuk senior)...

Fausto Majistral a dit…

You're right ... Dust Bros it was.