Centered around the rivalry between two former college friends, Onur Tukel's Catfight is a devilishly entertaining black comedy that aims to deconstruct the intrinsic emptiness of revenge. Told in three distinct parts, which find these two characters oscillating between various rungs on the socio-economic ladder, Catfight details the utter stupidity of feuds, whether internalized or externalized, detailing how the longer they last, the more the reasons behind them in the first place begin to blur or at least become insignificant in the present, as these two characters profiled continuously reinforce their own disdain for one and other through their current emotional state, often coming more from a place of insecurity than from the actual past transgressions that brought about their feud in the first place. Early on, the film does a fantastic job of establishing the vast dichotomy between these two characters, structurally oscillating back-and-forth between the two of them, establishing their distinct worldviews. Veronica, a trophy wife and New York Socialite, couldn't be any more different on the surface than Ashley, the tortured, nihilistic artist, but as the film progresses, we begin to see how they are both in fact more similar than they care to admit, with their roles effectively switching when their social statuses change drastically in the aftermath of their first, violent, fisticuffs-fueled confrontation. Catfight sees each of these characters go from 'having everything' to 'having nothing' from both a personal and financial point-of-view, with perhaps the pitch black comedies greatest attribute being its ability to capture the ugliness of entitlement, detailing how both these characters become internally vial individuals when presented with status. The film dances around a rather broad, hit-you-over-the-head, stereotypical 'money corrupts" commentary, but luckily it goes deeper, detailing how power and prestige is what truly corrupts, with both of these individuals being portrayed as relatively heinous individuals when they reach their highest rung on the socio-economic ladder. You'd be hard-pressed to find a film that depicts feminine violence in the way which Catfight does, with the three all-out-brawls which serve as transition scenes structurally, being brutal and raw, filmed and choreographed in a way that tends to be only done when two male combatants are involved. In fact, their last all-out brawl encapsulates the over-arching themes of the film, finding both Veronica and Ashley once again in fisticuffs, detailing the perpetual nature of violence in these characters, detailing how it has solved nothing after all these years. A pitch black comedy and social satire, Onur Turkel's Catfight features memorable performances from both Sandra Oh and Anne Heche, being a film encapsulates the perpetual state of violence and vengeance, being a film that through comedy showcases the utter-stupidity and lack of change such violence brings.
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AuthorLove of all things cinema brought me here. Archives
June 2023
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