Zizek!

Slavoj Zizek is one of the stars of Theoryworld, and deservedly so. He mixes Lacan and Marx with a seasoning of pop culture to analyze how we construct meaning - and reminds us that our understanding is often far from rational.

It sounds like a heavy dose, but Astra Taylor has made it all into an extremely charming and intelligent movie. It has none of the piety and tedium of the documentary form - no godlike voiceovers, goofy archival footage, or narcotic pundits that make films like The Corporation so hard to sit through. It's mostly Slavoj Zizek talking (sometimes prompted by Taylor, often not), and he's such a compelling character that he holds your interest from the first frame to the last. Don't miss it!

I got introduced to Slavoj Zizek through his under-seen Lacan-style analysis of cinema called the Pervert's Guide to Cinema, and was immediately taken in by his very sharp mind, oddball sense of humor, and dead-on analysis of the nature of cinema and the Freudian psychology. This little documentary by first-time director Astra Taylor basically follows Zizek around, usually without much control visually (her main tactic is to get her in close-up, which isn't smart since he's always animated, if still controlled), but always obtaining what Zizek is all about. He gets a person's mind moving about so many subjects: the super-ego and it's ties to capitalism, the need to associate oneself with ideology and the dangers with that, how to use philosophical ideas meaningfully, and what belief plays a role in politics and psychological interpretations. Not limited to these topics are all on Zizek's mind, and all of his points reveal him as a man with unlimited intelligence, even as his mind goes so fast it becomes something of a task to keep up with him.

Little moments Taylor captures add idiosyncrasies one might not expect from someone as such a Marxist and Lacan-follower (however NOT a Dogmatic Lacan-follower as he says), including showing off his son's toys, and shopping for movies at Kim's Video in New York City, or how he tries to look for a restaurant. But for the most part, Zizek! at it's best- and it's best to look at for its substance, not its style- brings to mind the nature of philosophy for the individual, how politics ends up feeding into the public's consciousness by way of wanting more "enjoyment", or what enjoyment really means. It's almost TOO short, and one who becomes fascinated by Zizek's theories and very straightforward interpretations of subjects that should be more complicated by how he describes them sees that sometimes he gets cut off from what is such a long and amazing description or drawn-out thought. But if one is interested already in the man, it should provide some fun and food-for-thought seeing the man in down-to-earth form for the cameras, and newcomers may or may not take to the man's theories. Like Pervert's Guide, some things will fly over your head, but what sticks makes for some of the most insightful commentary in recent years.

Towards the end of Astra Taylor's 'Zizek!', the Slovenian philosopher is convinced by his son to put the Lion King on TV. As the child squeals with excitement, Zizek throws his head back, turns to the camera and laments 'oh now he's going to act all narcissistically amused'. Without delving into the inner-workings of Zizek's scholarship, for such a pursuit is so far beyond the means of this writer it would be a joke to even attempt it, the off-hand remark goes some way to encapsulating the enigma and eccentricity of the renowned Lacanian/Marxist author.

The film itself probably struggles between providing a platform for Zizek to opine on modern society, and in doing so alienating the 99% who won't truly understand what he has to say (*puts hand up*), and delving into the psyche of a truly remarkable mind. One does not have to be a philosophy major to marvel at the language Zizek uses and the speed at which he constructs arguments and rattles off examples that ground his work in our quotidian existence. At just 71 minutes, there is no harm in the being restricted to the latter, but there is a certain frustration in being taken to the verge of understanding an argument and then abruptly swept off to a different corner of Zizek's scholarship.

The filmmaker's synopsis describes Zizek! as: 'Never ceasing to observe the paradoxes that underpin our perception of reality, little goes untheorized over the course of the film, particularly Zizek's recurring themes -- ideology, belief, revolution, and love.' Beware the creative license taken there, for much goes untheorized, but expect to be provoked to think. Be switched on if you want to watch it.

This Zizek guy actually has some perceptive ideas on modern culture when he's critiquing our pathological need to diminish our enjoyment of soda, coffee, beer and other consumer products by accepting diminished aspects of the real thing such as diet, lite, decaffeinated and so on. He's way off base by venerating a mass murderer such as Stalin though and it's awfully telling that the director doesn't even challenge him on this but does express astonishment at the fact that some people when they see his proudly displayed portrait of Stalin in his home walk right out the door - I mean what sad, narrow-minded idiots these people must be for not appreciating the finer ironies of the slaughterer of millions! Despite this fault of Zizeks I kinda liked him, he is whip-smart, not afraid to mix it up with his critics and despite his extreme intellectualism is a lovable schlub. The real problem is the aforementioned director, Astra Taylor, and her slavish adoration of Zizek and her jokey, yet unfunny, interspersing of the film with stock footage accompanied with old-timey piano music to present some of his ideas. Not cool.

I had never heard of Slavoj Zizek before I saw this film. He is a Slovenian philosophy professor. He has written many books and obviously he wouldn't keep getting published unless people were buying them. He seems to be a Marxist of some sort, and has a photograph of the only dictator arguably worse than Hitler on the wall of his apartment, Joseph Stalin. He seems more concerned with nonpolitical philosophy though, generally speaking.

This film did nothing to make me interested in reading his books or in him. It is a random mishmash of clips of Zizek talking in various places in small soundbites about a wide variety of matters. Insofar as philosophy is concerned, and I consider myself a philosopher, there was nothing of any philosophical interest to me in this film. Much of what he says in this film seemed to me to be either trivial (obviously true) or incoherent.

Perhaps one might enjoy this film if one were at all familiar with his work, but I doubt it--why not just read more of his work rather than waste time watching this hodgepodge of soundbites? But if you aren't familiar with any of his work, like I was, there doesn't seem to be any reason to watch this.