Director: Astra Taylor
Year Released: 2005
Rating: 1.0
Slight documentary about Slovenian theorist Slavoj Žižek, who goes on and on and people nod in approval and everyone acts like they know what's going on, but the clips Taylor presents are all over the place and in the end the picture feels like it does the man a disservice. In Taylor's defense, the rapid-fire yammering of Žižek and the extreme difficulty of following his melding of Marx and Lacan (as opposed to, say, Deleuze and Guattari's melding of Marx and Freud) doesn't lend itself to the cinema, but this really slim movie doesn't try all that hard to go through it all - not as hard, say, as the directors of Derrida tried to explain that philosopher's theories. In response to Žižek's concern over not being taken seriously: like, dude, you're jittery and perspiring and cartoonish in person. Watching you gives me motion-sickness. In response to people who are turned off by the picture: the man works better at explaining himself on the page. In response to Žižek's declaration that The Fountainhead is the best American movie ever made: get the fuck outta here.
