Choke

"I hurt myself today to see if I still feel. I focus on the pain, the only thing that's real."

-"Hurt" by Nine Inch Nails

We always want to find put why people treat themselves and/or treat others the way they do. Someone repulsive to us may also interest us as a case study of sorts. Is it because they do not feel good enough? Is it because there is no one around to punish them so they have to punish themselves? Was it because of some crippling childhood trauma? Or is it simply a rebellion against a world that is no longer civilized in their eyes? "Choke" is not a movie that seeks to answer all these questions for the benefit of mankind. It seeks to look for answers for the sake of one individual, Victor Mancini, who is a sex addict going to anonymous meetings, yet succeeds more in scoring with the women there then in improving himself. I don't mean to make the movie sound as serious as it is in the end a satire, and a gleefully politically incorrect one at that.

"Choke" was written and directed by Clark Gregg, and it is based on the viciously satirical novel by Chuck Palahniuk, the man who also wrote the book "Fight Club" which later became a movie and an unsung cinematic masterpiece of the late 1990's. Both books deal with characters stuck in a world they slave in with no real pleasure, and who are deeply sad and want to feel something real in their lives, anything. But as much as they want something that is real, they are also frightened by it. And then something comes along to change the way they see their life and others around them.