Fight Club: A Lovable Mystery

I had never watched Fight Club before and was unsure of what to expect when I first watched it. I knew that there must be some sort of mystery due to the nature of this class, though I was unclear what that was, especially with what seemed like an action-based movie. However, it became clear what the mystery was pretty much immediately after the narrator begins to flashback. In these earlier scenes, Brad Pitt's charter can be caught for brief glimpses during key still shots (I literally paused to check that it was him). I was baffled: who was this man, and why was he in this man's life now when he doesn't appear until much later in the film? Figuring this out was my main objective for the film.

When we finally meet the man named Tyler Durden, he mentions that he knows how to make bombs from household items, and not a scene later does the narrator's house blow up. The immediate connection between the two makes it seem obvious that Tyler blew up the bomb, yet he was never privy to address of the man on the flight, so how was that even possible that he was able to set it up. At this point, though, I merely assumed that he had lifted his wallet and did the deed because he could. The next real evidence actually comes when Tyler shares the narrators ability to break the fourth wall. In movies, breaking the fourth wall shows the audiences that a character has power, and that he is in control of what you see. Because Tyler is granted this ability, an ability the narrator should only really should posses since he is the one telling the story, I wondered if he and the narrator had some unseen connection, or was he some sort of main character, too. It was hard to say.

My answer came in the form of Martha, who calls the narrator over when she overdoses. She calls him, and Tyler comes to the rescue after the narrator leaver her hanging. What's interesting is that after she starts coming over to have sex with Tyler, she says, "Who are you talking to?" after the narrator peeps in on them and Tyler comes to the door. "Who are you talking to?" It was such an odd, question. The house is literally miles out from anywhere. Tyler never has had guest, and it is assumed that this affair has been going on for some time now, meaning she must know his only roommate is the narrator. The question should answer itself. Instead, Tyler says don't worry about it, and literally slams the door on the question. Off hand, it looks like he's cutting off Martha from the narrator, but the way he does it also cuts off Martha's line of questioning. Combined with the f*** you from earlier, and it's clear something is a miss. And then it hit me. The hallucinations of this man from earlier. The ability to find his house without being told. At the very least, Tyler was a figment of his imagination, and it was he who was doing all of these things. The fight scene was the only thing contradictory to this, as I imagined it was very hard to fight yourself. Turns out, I was wrong, and as he confronts his boss, he shows he is quite capable of inflicting realistic self-harm. Fincher presents an interesting mystery because he gives us all the clues we need to figure out the twist.