Wake Up Call

Having a gun pointed at the back of your head while being questioned about your life is an interesting situation.  This scene in fight club is one that sticks out to me the most.  It shows how extremities can be used for good, and makes one question if maybe we should all be daring enough to scare someone have to death to get them off of their lazy ass.  This includes ourselves.  The scene itself sums up one of the general messages of the movie, and that is we are all asleep in a sense, a slave to this materialistic world.  We get caught up in the idea of money and problems that ultimately distract us from the goals we want to reach and that would make us happy.  Similar to the clerk that Tyler takes out back of the mini mart and threatens to kill.  Without that wake up call, that character could have been stuck working that job for a long time before ultimately realizing he wasn't truly happy or reaching his goals.  We all need a taste of death in our lives.  We need it in order to realize we are still alive, and that we are vulnerable.  This is what keeps us pushing on and makes us enjoy life for what it is.  We cannot stay in a constant state of comfortableness, if we do we never grow.  We need that growth in order to not only reach our own goals but to evolve as human beings.  That is why, even though the entire situation got out of hang by the end of the movie, there is truth in what Tyler was preaching.  The only problem is that his ideas and actions lost balance.  "Project Mayhem"  went to the opposite end of the spectrum instead of staying well balanced like it was at the halfway point of the film.                  

Vengeance

Watching Lady Vengeance got me to reflect on the place of violence in human nature and the world.  I believe to pass it off as something to suppress or ignore is foolish.  Violence is very real and something just like all parts of being human we must master and learn to handle.  I believe that the actions of the families and Geum-ja were justifiable.  Not because of the wrongs done to the kids and families necessarily, but simply to eliminate the threat to future children in the community.  I do not think that Mr. Baek was curable.  This is something I tried to observe through out the movie to see if maybe he did not need to die, but he was very far gone and very twisted.  He showed no remorse for what he had done.  Some argue that we only have the right to give life but not to take it, and that is not a statement that makes sense to me.  It seems to ignore the idea of balance, something I think is very important to the betterment of human existence.  We clearly have the right to give, and at the same time to level that out, we have the right to take.  Of course this idea of taking life only should be applied to correct circumstances.  We cannot just go out and kill someone we do not like, that is not what I am saying at all.  Just like giving life should be contemplated on, so should taking it.  I am simply saying violence has its place.  One could almost look at it as we already play god in our own way, simply by being able to create life.  This does not mean I take violence and death lightly.  It is only something that should be brought to the table as a last resort, and only be dealt with the most technical and delicate calculation.  If technical is a good word when it comes to the matters of human emotion.  It comes down to specific situations and how they should be handled, nothing is fully black and white.  Everything has its place.