Maidgethma Wonderfully offbeat film!

Solemplex To me, this movie is perfection.

SoTrumpBelieve Must See Movie...

Walter Sloane Mostly, the movie is committed to the value of a good time.

sublunari Before you ask, Slavoj Zizek does pronounce his name for you in this movie, thankfully. And now that you have asked, I'll tell you that this film was good and thought-provoking, but it could have been much better. This is why: whatever Zizek wants to achieve with his philosophy is simply beyond explaining through the medium of film unless you are actually intimate with his work, which you probably aren't, as Zizek remarks. You have to read his books; I found myself pausing and rewinding whenever too much text or expository was on screen. I think the film's strength is in the scenes spent simply walking around with him or watching him do things: he just never shuts up, but he always has something funny or intriguing to say, as long as it doesn't have to do with Freud or Marx or Lacan (who in my mind are guaranteed insomnia cures, if nothing less, as I'm sure they are for most).We briefly meet his son, who smiles for the camera after an initial stage of shyness, prompting a punchline from Zizek (whose name is just as much fun to type and see as it is to say aloud once you know how to do so): "he is narcissistically amused." The same could be said of the film's director, a woman whose haircut says she is a great fan of the Teutonic invaders of Alexander Nevsky, and whose smilingly cautious but really nakedly narcissistic insertion of herself into the film distracts the camera completely from its far more ostensible subject. There would have been infinitely more mystery, and therefore infinitely more appeal, if she had remained a disembodied voice, a young feminine auditory hallucination, a modern daemon for a modern Socrates, because much as I hate to admit it she sometimes asks decent questions, and really has put together a decent film on an interesting man, though it is by no means the definitive one. Let me spend a day walking streets and drinking coffee and slicing steak with Slavoj Zizek, and let me prod him away from his -ians and -isms, and you will have me shouting his impossibly Slovenian name with far more than one exclamation point.

MisterWhiplash 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.

marcel37-1 A good introduction into Zizek as a thinker and as a personality, but the film goes along with Zizek, posing no challenge to its subject. It seems pretty obvious that Zizek has been an object of fetish by the west, using cinema and pop culture as the sugar with which he gives people his medicine. From my expeirence on US capmuses, this makes a lot of American hipsters feel smart when they pick up one of his good books. Though not completely fluff piece - and who is Zizek to deny taking advantage of it - it would have been better if the filmmaker took the Zizek beast on with more than a humble adoration of his current cool factor.

Chris Canham Yeah, I know it seems like a pretty high rating, but I really enjoy movies that make you think, and if you're like me, you'll want to see this one 3 or more times to try to get the most of it. Slavoj is an interesting character on his own...he seems to not quite "appreciate" a fan base. But the theories and observations mentioned are definitely thought-provoking. They range from talk of advertising, to politics, to Love, to the super ego. His political peak (up to now) is also mentioned and talked about a little.Anyway, I saw about 20 movies at the 2005 Toronto Film festival, and in my opinion, this was the best of them.