I’m saying this right now: Watching these movies is not a good way for ending a year. But watch them I did. Soylent Green was on Turner Classic Movies December 28th, and I fell asleep afterwards. I woke up just in time to catch Fight Club on G4.
And then I was in A Mood.
To Start, Soylent Green frightens me, because I can easily see it occuring. “Make Room, Make Room” on an already overpopulated planet. Or we’re getting to overpopulation or we are already sweltering underneath the strain. In my film class last year, we talked about this film, but never watched it. The majority of my class decided that it wasn’t immoral to eat dead bodies in such a situation, and I stand by that. When life is a battle to survive, we end up doing anything that is within our power to go on.
It would have been better to know, though. The ignorance of the future scared me, such as with the Furniture when they are dehumanized or this grabbing for Soylent Green, a product with no past, but a strong future in the arms of many. How we died, too, is a frightening experience, with its strong regimentation, although I get the feeling that if I ever approach death I would much rather die in a room like that than in some cold hospital bed.
Ah me… it frightened me, because the ghosts of the present haunted the shadows of this film.
FIGHT CLUB
Hello Edward Norton. What can I do for you today?
I think his character needs a hug, and a really well made dinner. Then sent to a great psychiatrist. I’m glad that the ending wasn’t predictable, with a fantastic shot of these two silhouettes against the destruction of office buildings.
There’s also, and I love it, the house where most of the action takes place. It’s such an old and grimy house, but inside it’s still a mansion. A dirty, disgusting mansion, but there are charms. It reflects the entire movie well, anyway. What creeped me out was this break away from the average that turned into a complete, faceless organiztion. There’s that cyclic event that we face in life, especially with the new Outliers of society, when they finally become the norm. It’s scary, to wake up and have no face.
(Ho hum, ignore that if it doesn’t make sense. I think I’ve just rambled my way, trying to explain what the theme is of Fight Club, when I can’t. Not right now, anyway).
Basically, I love and hate this movie on an even keel. It moves me to the emotions and thoughts that the film draws out, but then I have to live with them. These views on the waste of modern life and hateful office jobs.
Two really fabulous, well done movies, that tell and keep secrets and have the wonderful ability of motion.
