Warning – To analyze such a movie one needs an effort much more gargantuan and an analysis much deeper than what follows, but I'll try to give it my best shot.
After a single viewing one might think that this one is no different than other films on "generation"-al social activism along the lines of forming a single social unit with a singular identity with a single most desire/rebellious streak to bring the society down in order to prove their worth/power to it, but on a critical second viewing we find the idea of the movie to be much more complex and extensive in a way that it puts it in a league of its own.
The following characters constitute the movie:
Generation Fight Club – A generation consisting of a multitude of underachieving, self-conflicting every-men who are torn between the urge to pursue their dreams, making them happy on a spiritual level, and an older generation's as well as the system's pressure to be doing what will make them happy materialistically -- this internal commotion resulting in creation of an alter ego with somewhat alternative, idealistic, opinionated and rebellious tendencies.
It was a time when men were in doubt, unsure of their personalities, their identities, their ideologies, their desires, their ambitions, their prohibitions and their inhibitions, be it because of them being defected in some way by some disease or infliction, the society deeming them to be no more men per se or because of the system being excessively material conscious rendering them oblivious to the concept of spiritual or incorporeal happiness.
They are under a lot of pressure to be MEN, no matter what the circumstances. Whatever the world throws on them, they are expected to get up, man up and fight along silently and survive doing what they hate, buying what they don't need, eating what they don't want to, living on pills to survive another day, needing instructions from somebody whom society deems wise to make their critical life altering decisions, a generation nobody wants to listen to.
For them losing all hope is freedom, to have furniture is to be secure and to have a wardrobe is to be respected.
This tells us that they are- a generation that is lifestyle obsessed and ignorant of any or all social issues, or, in Tyler's words "things they own, end up owning them".
The Corporate Entities – Powerful, dominating, manipulative and titanic giants; they take slovenly minds as slaves with their weapons of marketing, forcing them to buy happiness in the form of their useless products. They have successfully created an illusion that the choices in matters of buying stuff define their personality and enhance their individualistic character.
The Old people – A generation bound so tightly by the social constraints that they rather not question them or else face jeopardy in the form of an identity crisis or insecurity. They are either too lethargic or too ignorant to question the system that is having a negative impact on the children they raise, causing their questioning faculties to fail and turn the progeny into a replica of the parent.
The way of the world – We were created to be hunters or gatherers, but today's world that is hugely dominated by marketing has turned us into customers (silent spectators of the world). This means we don’t need to and are not supposed to fight- this is a sort of castration of humankind, and this emasculation creates Tyler Durden- the dissociated personality of Jack (the narrator), he wants to make things simpler, he wants the animal instinct of people to lead them in this world for survival, i.e. he wants people to live life like it was meant to be lived.
Jack and Tyler/The contrast – The contrasting nature of the personalities between Tyler Durden and Jack can be seen in the contrasting ideologies, way of life, philosophies and of course the decisions both make or don't make. Visually we can see the differences in the subtleties of their behaviors, like Jack choosing to walk on the pavement while Tyler gleefully muddles in water puddles side-lining the pavement, the way they both dispose off the beer bottles and interestingly the way they treat Marla. This goes on to show the major differences in their attitude towards life -- on one hand Jack chooses an orthodox one while on the other hand Tyler chooses a nihilistic one.
Marla – The object of desire and the catalyst of destruction. She is the one Jack wants, but in the initial stages of the movie is very annoyed with her because he sees himself in her -- his lies, his miserable life, his dependence on various invigorating agents to live day to day life. He cannot stand her because she represents Tyler's antithesis -- stealing food and clothes, wanting materialistic possessions. She is the cause of his self-destruction and the self-realization that follows. Now because Marla is causing him more and more pain each day and with each passing day he realizes that she is his reflection of all things wrong with him, he gets frustrated, and subsequently, wanting a clean slate on himself, blows up his apartment.
Tyler on the other hand appreciates her by saying that she, at least, is hitting rock bottom while citing the fact that she was in no way perfect and complete, and was making no efforts to hide that; while Jack, on the other hand, is aggravated with those tags being associated with him, and wants to get rid of them, hence his self-destruction.
David Fincher does a damn good job with this one, with all the little details and precision adding to the characters and story of this film that we have come to associate with him. The cinematography is very germane in showing the life associated with the generation men in focus, with all the gloomy night scenes and shadowy day scenes. A true class act as far as direction is concerned with Fincher opening new avenues of filmmaking with each passing scene.
A little trivia related to the direction – Before Jack first meets Tyler we see small frames of him in some scenes, especially where the visible effects of Jack's insomnia kick in; this is because as his insomnia elongates he becomes more unhappy with his imperfect (read pathetic) life, and with each such passing moment and with each of Tyler's blink-and-miss images in such moments, we come to know that Tyler is slowly moving from the periphery of Jack's consciousness to the centre of it and finally taking over him.
Well, they do say God is on the small details.
The soundtrack by the Dust Brothers is apt to the dark undertones of the movie.
There are some breath-taking visual effects in the movie such as the opening credits scene where the origination and movement of fear signal/s occurs inside the narrator's brain and the scene where we see the dynamics of the explosion of the narrator's condo.
This movie is unsurprisingly to be watched at least twice to make a decent head-tail story of it, a rather nerve-wrecking story at it.
Y10 Undergraduate, The LNMIIT
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