Fight Club

You know that moment when you see something that gives you a fresh perspective and a new take on things? I had that moment in the morning when I saw the David Fincher directed Fight Club. Now, the film has a lot of violence, fighting and bloodshed but it also has something serious to tell us about the lives we lead or at least think we lead. The movie has this unnamed narrator who befriends a soap salesman named Tyler Durden on a flight. They later start a fight club where people come to fight recreationally. I was fascinated by Tyler's take on life and things. What was remarkable was just how relevant his outlook is to the contemporary world we live in. A world where we have all become simply consumers. A target for companies to buy things we don't need to impress people we don't like. And yes, the line originates from this movie only. So why a fight club? The director says, "We're designed to be hunters and we're in a society of shopping. There's nothing to kill anymore, there's nothing to fight, nothing to overcome, nothing to explore. In that societal emasculation this everyman [the narrator] is created." And Brad Pitt adds, "Fight Club is a metaphor for the need to push through the walls we put around ourselves and just go for it, so for the first time we can experience the pain." Pain, of course, is a sort of character in this film. A way of experiencing life, really. Once you have experienced true pain, nothing really seems to be too tall an order. You feel like you can handle just about anything. And thus the pleasure taken by these men in the fights they have. It gives them a sort of high that is terribly missing in the godforsaken lives that they live. And so, on the first meeting of the fight club, Tyler Durden addresses its members saying the following lines, "Man, I see in fight club the strongest and smartest men who've ever lived. I see all this potential, and I see squandering. God damn it, an entire generation pumping gas, waiting tables; slaves with white collars. Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don't need. We're the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our Great War's a spiritual war... our Great Depression is our lives. We've all been raised on television to believe that one day we'd all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won't. And we're slowly learning that fact. And we're very, very pissed off." 

Of course, it's not just the fights they have but also the assignments they are given by their leader Durden that are... pretty unique. So one such assignment is to go out there and pick a fight with someone and then lose it...So you see fight club's members picking fights with random passers-by. The idea is to learn that most normal people will do just about anything to avoid a fight. But we have to be ready for it. Life is a fight, for god's sake. And the strong survive. And if you are afraid to fight, you are never going to win nor will you get things done. Controversial idea, of course. But interesting, no doubt. Human sacrifice is another assignment that Tyler takes up on himself and enters a grocery store run by a guy named Raymond K Hessel. A meek and desperate looking man. Tyler barges into his store with a gun, takes him out and asks, "What did you study in college?" "Biology", answers Hessel shouting in pain...and scared to death.Tyler continues asking, "What did you want to be when you were growing up...?"The man answers, "a vet...veterinarian..."And then says Tyler, "If within the next six weeks, you are not on your way to becoming a vet, I will kill you. I know where you live and I will find you." And then he leaves him to let him run away...He looks back at the narrator and says to him..."Tomorrow will be the most beautiful day of Raymond K. Hessel's life. His breakfast will taste better than any meal you and I have ever tasted."A little radical way of getting things back on track, I suppose. But sometimes, don't we all need to be just shaken up to get things moving...?? I think that once you have seen this film, you will see that it does exactly that...