NEVER BE PERFECT!

“People really listen to you when they think you’re dead. Instead of waiting for their turn to speak.”

If you wake up in a different place at a different time, can you wake up a different person?

Although the answer to this question in real life is “no”, we can reconsider this question as a way of thinking and living. Because every person harbors the person they want to be. Over time, they either tame that person’s existence, or transform them into someone different, or submit to them, or ignore them. But if he keeps that person alive inside him, then he can give birth to himself!

The existence of our protagonist starts with exactly such a birth. He has a good job, clothes from famous brands, an organized wardrobe, business trips, everything for home decoration. In short, the most luxurious things that can be consumed are available. But there is always a state of incompleteness… Because there is no ‘human’ in any of these things. This is the message of the movie: “consumption overrides the human”.

Our protagonist realizes that the only place where he can put himself at the center is in solidarity group meetings, so he attends different meetings accompanied by the slogan “pour your heart out and relax”. He goes to each of these unrelated meetings under a different name and for a different illness. Sometimes “alcoholics anonymous”, sometimes “men with testicular cancer”, sometimes a group of incest survivors. However, he attends these meetings for one reason only: “To sleep.”

Because the state of incompleteness can cause deep insomnia.

Our protagonist, who goes to each of these therapies for about a year, sees that someone else like her is attending these meetings, Marla Singer. And our protagonist introduces Marla to the audience as follows: “If I had a tumor, I would name it Marla.”

Like our heroine, Marla attends these meetings under different names and with different excuses. However, the presence of another person like her makes her uneasy. After Marla joins the therapies, our hero’s insomnia starts again.

While his business life and business travels continue on the side, he meets a handsome and intelligent man named Tyler Durden on one of his travels. Tyler gives our heroine his number. When he gets off the plane, our hero loses his suitcase and comes home to find that his house is on fire. All his belongings and everything he owns are burned. Since he has no one, he calls this young man whose number he got on the plane. Tyler’s disorganized, public but real life takes our hero in, and since he has lost everything, he manages to live with Tyler Durden.

In this process, our hero confronts himself with Tyler’s words “The things you own will eventually own you”. Thus, he starts to resemble his real identity, his subconscious, Tyler’s world. When these two young men, who have never fought before, fight each other, they realize something. That you can’t win without hitting rock bottom.

So the “Fight Club” is formed. And the state of “being alive” is felt, which is not felt in any situation. Because the identity in the fight club and the identity in the world will not be the same.

Marla reaches our hero again after a long time. But when our protagonist goes home, he sees that Marla is with Tyler. This young woman, who now occupies herself in solidarity groups, has also occupied her home because of her relationship with Tyler. But Tyler and Marla are not seen together throughout the movie. Tyler is gone when Marla is talking to Tyler and Marla is gone when Tyler is talking to her. And Tyler warns our nameless hero at every turn, saying “Don’t tell her about me”.

Tyler is a soul who is not afraid of hitting rock bottom, who believes that you can be free after losing everything… And this soul is the basic ideology of the movie. In the fight club, Tyler says, “our battle is a spiritual battle. Our great crisis is our lives,” he is describing this ideology.

The fight club grows to such an extent that this unity, which has individual transformation, now carries its messages to the streets in an organized way. The police are on the lookout for these underground fight organizations that are causing riots in the cities. Tyler’s words to the investigator hold a mirror to the wheel of the system.

“The people you’re after are the people you depend on. We cook your food. We pick up your garbage. We connect your phones. We drive your ambulances. We protect you while you sleep. Don’t mess with us.”

The outbursts in the streets grow and grow to the point of frightening our hero. As one of the first founders of this union, he thinks that the group should be disbanded. However, in this process, his psychological war with himself begins beyond the system. Because Tyler Durden is actually our hero. Everything he wants to be, everything he wants to hit bottom, everything he wants to look like, everything he wants to do is present in Tyler Durden. For this reason, his own mind plays tricks on him. This man with whom he lives throughout all the scenes, with whom he has a fight club, is actually just a product of his mind. Our narrator was actually seeing the person in his mind, the Tyler Durden of his imagination, during his business trips due to his lack of sleep. He realized with Tyler everything he had in his head but did not dare to realize. He killed his own inner world. He wanted to show the truth to those who imprisoned him and others like him in his inner world. She realized she couldn’t get out without sinking. Over time, he realized how many people Tyler, who was harmless at first, actually harmed while pursuing his righteousness. But just as it is difficult to give birth to an idea, it is just as difficult to kill it.

While Tyler was justified in his messages about consumption, he also saw that every new group is similar. Because groups are made up of mobs or become mobs over time. Each group creates its own army. And it becomes an identity independent of its owner. And so the fight club becomes the cause of all sorts of things. In order to stop this trend, to get rid of Tyler in his mind and to be with Marla, our hero makes his last move. That’s when all the wheels fall off.

So, what is real in the movie?

The real thing is to be able to give birth to yourself.

The 1999 movie stars Brad Pitt as the fictional character of Tyler Durden and Edward Norton as our narrator. The role of Marla is played by Helena Bonham Carter.

Considered in 1999, it is a production that will never lose its relevance due to its dialogues that remain in mind even today: “Fight Club.”