My opinion about this movie: It's not my all-time favorite, but it's surely a very KULTish movie - IMO even more than "The Matrix".
(OK, Matrix has got the special there-is-a-real-world-behind-the-illusion-feeling, but FC has other advantages. OK, let's go to the story.
- FC tells about a quite usual looking man (played by Edward Norton Jr.) working as a kind of salesman for a big firm (you know, that kind of firm where nobody knows your name) and spending his life to fit up his flat with nice Ikea furniture. But then, some unusual things will happen to him...
When he's on a flight (it's part of his job, he's always got to fly from city to city, until he doesn't know anymore where he belongs), he will meet a young man who seems to be intelligent and not unsympathetic, but a bit strange. The name of the young man is Tyler Durden (played by Brad Pitt, BTW). He tells that he is selling soap.
Would be quite a good start for a KULT scenario, too.
- The Ikea-man (they never tell his name) has got a lousy life: He's got no girl-friend, he doesn't like his job and he feels empty. Then, he will go to these self-helping-groups (I don't know the correct English term) where people can talk and cry about their problems. (He doesn't have their problems, but he somehow likes it when the people talk about from what they suffer.)
Later, he will meet there a strange-slutty woman who goes to these groups because she has the same feelings as he has. He'll start a kind of fascinated love-hate-relation with her.
You see, he fits perfectly in the world of KULT...
- When the Ikea-man returns home, his flat has been destroyed by an explosion. The only friend he knows is the guy from the plane, Tyler Durden. So he will call him, and he may sleep in Tyler's home. Tyler lives in a run-down, abandoned house: There's water in the cellar, everything is falling apart - the house could be a portal to METROPOLIS, actually.
Not quite the same as the Ikea-man's flat with all the ikea furniture...
- Later, the Ikea-man and Tyler go to a bar, and after that, Tyler demands from the man: "Beat me, really hard!" That's the start: From now, they will fight together every week. And the Ikea-man feels: He likes being aggressive; he realizes that he will see the world different after that; and he forgets his other problems after he had a fight.
Later, Tyler will play a mean game with him: He puts a chemical on the hand of the Ikea-man that burns like hell, so he'll feel the pain. He survives, but a kind of scar is left on his hand.
I think it's clear for every KULTist: He has started to walk on the Dark Path to Awakening. Of course, even in this movie he's veeeery far from it.
- Other guys are interested; first, they only watch, but then they'll start to participate in the fights. Soon, they'll all move to the cellar of a bar. That's the real start of the FC. Tyler makes the rules:
"First rule: Don't tell anyone about the FC! Second rule: Don't tell anyone about the FC!" Another rule is: Nobody may tell his name in the FC.
Of course, the men will tell others about it, and the FC becomes bigger and bigger. Tyler will give the men "homework": For example, they shall start a fight with another man (who's not in the FC) and let themselves being beaten up. And they really obey him. It's clear: Tyler is their leader. During the next days, the Ikea-man will often meet other men with injuries - members of the FC. One time, the owner of the bar tries to throw 'em out of the cellar, but they beat him up, and he changes his mind.
And that's the start of this "secret society"...
- Something about the relation between the Ikea-man and Tyler: They're two completely different people. The Ikea-man is a perfectly average conformist, Tyler commits subversive acts against society: He works in luxus restaurants and pees on the food, he works in movie theaters and cuts pictures from XXX-flicks into good family movies.
And then Tyler has sex with the slutty woman (read above), and the Ikea-man is a bit envious.
Maybe you'll wonder why the Ikea-man doesn't simply leave Tyler alone... well, there's a reason, really...
- Now Tyler creates an "inner circle" of the FC: Everyone who wants to become a member must come to his house and wait there for three days. During this time, Tyler will always tell him: "You are too young/old/fat/whatever, we don't need you!" If the man doesn't leave for three days, he will become a member. Many of these members wear mohawks or shave their heads. Besides, many of them wear the chemical mark on their hand.
Well, that's how I can imagine the Hellers or any other secret club in KULT.
- During the daylight, the men of the inner circle will live in Tyler's house, work in the garden (remembers a bit to Shaolin monks or so) and don't do anything illegal. But in the night, because Tyler told them to do, the members will commit terrorist acts against society: They destroy buildings with Tyler's home-made bombs and do other violent things. One day, one of them is killed by the police. The Ikea-man tries to con the guys what they've done wrong; he fails.
About this time, the president of the police tries to defeat the FC, but even he fails; on the day he wants to speak to a big assembly, the men from the FC infiltrate the catering personnel and make him with brute force to leave them alone.
Another short story happening around this time: Two guys fight as usual, one of them is a handsome blond guy. The other guy fights better, but this time he will continue to beat on the face of the blond guy, and doesn't stop anymore after he sees that he has win. At the end, the face of the nice blond guy is mutilated. But he doesn't tell anyone about the FC.
Yet another example about how the darkness wins in the souls of the guys.
- At the end, Tyler disappears, but he made a big plan: He wants to demolition all the big office/government buildings in the city. His aim is the destruction of the civilization. The Ikea-man will seek for Tyler, he will fly through all the cities of North America, but he can't find him. But he will find out that Tyler has founded other fight clubs in other cities. Now he's the leader of a big underground army. And the "soap" he's dealing with is actually high-explosive.
- In the scene at the end, the Ikea-man will find out everything:
Where Tyler has disappeared, why he stayed together with Tyler (instead of telling him to f*** off or calling the police), and why he can't stop him even now. But this scene I really don't want to tell you
Okay, if you really don't want to see the movie, read after the second spoiler.
SPOILER
SPOILER
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SPOILER
- The key of the story is: The Ikea-man has a split personality, and Tyler is his second personality - Tyler is the person who does all the things the Ikea-man doesn't dare. (Like pissing the big guys of society, fight till it really hurts, having sex with the woman (sorry, forgot her name), become the leader of a private army, or destroying the civilization.) BTW: It was Tyler who made the flat of the Ikea-man go BOOM at the beginning.
Now when he understands that, he wants to stop the underground army. But Tyler (his other personality) was even smarter and told his men: "If I ever will tell you to stop, don't listen!" So he can't do anything. He will go to the police, but some of the policemen are from the FC, too. At the end, we will see him bound on a chair, and his other personality holds a gun in his mouth.
Sh*t, my English isn't good enough to tell all about this scene, but it's a perfect example for a fight between the light and the dark side of a man. So, watch it!
Ideas from Fight Club you can use in KULT:
- The character of the Ikea-man/Tyler as an example for a man with split personality. Maybe a serial killer who appears as a good clean citizen who doesn't even know about his second personality?- The house where Tyler lives as a portal to METROPOLIS. (I won't describe it here - watch the movie!)
- All the people from the Fight Club as Hellers, a right-wing militia in Western North America, or yet another secret society.
- Tyler's plan to destroy civilization: Maybe Sathariel is at work here?
- Tyler's fight against himself as the fight between the light and the dark side of any character with a very high/low Mental Balance.
