Fight(s) Club

I am not a particularly litigious person.
I don’t usually like that much to quarrel and discuss, but if there is one thing in life I am ready to fight for, it is cinema. Touch a movie I love (or I don't love), and you’ll see.
The reasons why we like or hate a certain film are often mysterious and unpredictable, but I am convinced that this is part of cinema’s charm.
Sometimes we love movies because we consider them perfect and sometimes we are crazy about films plenty of flaws but absolutely irresistible to us, no matter what the most important cinema critics write about them. So, dear readers, here’s my TOP 5 List of movies I have most fight for or against in my whole life: 
1 -  BREAKING THE WAVES by Lars Von Trier (1996) 

A milestone, in my life. The strongest cinema experience I ever had: I saw it 4 times in theatres and every single time it was like a tsunami (easily created by my tears!). I adore this film and I had the most outrageous fights over it. A lot of people (mostly men) don’t like it. After almost 20 years, I could clearly see that the film was striking some very personal chords and my obsession with Bess McNeill at that time says something about it, but I still consider it a masterpiece and I would be ready to fight again and again and again over it. Little Bess For Ever!
2 - FIGHT CLUB by David Fincher (1999) 

Everybody knows it. There is no human being in this world that gets on my nerves like David Fincher. And my hatred for him started with this movie. I could have opened a fight club with all the fights I had over it (most probably with the same men who didn’t like Breaking the Waves...). I didn’t get the “free the animal that is in you/can’t you see we are all losers ‘cause we buy Ikea furniture?” kinda things. Not to mention that ridiculous final scene (you gotta be kidding me, right?). Things didn’t get better between me and David with his further movies. I think he is the most misogynist film-maker of cinema history. What can I say? I prefer directors filming “The man who loved women” to the ones filming “Men who hate women”.
3 - TREE OF LIFE by Terrence Malick (2011)

The problem with this movie, is that it’s almost a sin to declare that you don’t love it. I had a tremendous fight with an unknown person on Facebook, once. This man wrote something like: Who doesn’t like Tree of Life it’s because he/she doesn’t have the cultural supports to understand it!!! I almost killed him. That’s the thing. There is a moral judgement involved here, somewhere, somehow. And I can’t stand it. Even if Tree of Life (or any other movie of cinema history) would be considered the most beautiful movie of all time (and IT IS NOT), I think I would have the right to say that I don’t like it without having somebody telling me that it’s because I’m ignorant. I’m curious to know where all those Malicks fans where at the time of To the wonder, the movie he has done after Tree of Life. It was so awful that nobody had the guts to talk about it. Or maybe it’s because nobody had the cultural supports to understand it??! 

4 - ONCE UPON A TIME IN AMERICA by Sergio Leone (1984)

I don’t give a damn about Sergio Leone and I dislike this movie. 
People almost faint when I declare this kind of things but what can I say? This is how I feel about this film-maker and about the movie which is considered his masterpiece. It was one of the most painful visions of my life and I was terrified by the violence in it. And no, I don’t think Robert De Niro is the most incredible actor of all time. I think he is a very good actor who played in many excellent movies but I also think he has done a lot of crappy films and that he wasn’t that good in them. 
Ok, end of my coming out!

5 -  AMOUR by Michael Haneke (2012)

Together with Fincher, Haneke is my second least favourite film-maker of all time.
He makes me feel sick any time I see one of his movies. This one was particularly painful to watch (not as much as The White Ribbon, I reckon, but I definitely had more discussions over Amour). What I can’s stand about this man, is his lack of empathy, his judgmental, cold and distant attitude. Enough of this. Jean-Louis Trintignant and Emmanuelle Riva are absolutely amazing in it and they are the only reasons why I watched this massacre until the end. I guess Haneke would do a better job making a movie called Hate. I’m sure he will be great at it!