Dir. Astra Taylor, US/Canada, 2005, 71 mins, some subtitles
Cast: Slavoj Zizek
Review by Philippa Bradnock
Early on in Zizek! a clipping from the The New Yorker is shown onscreen: ‘Zizek’s aim, in his work, is to combine a Marxist critique of capitalism with a psychoanalytically informed unmasking of the ways in which capitalism works upon the public imagination.’ In the corner appears a second opinion: ‘Slavoj Zizek is an academic rock star.’ (In These Times). This aptly summarises the tensions around this famous Professor of Philosophy of the University of Ljubljana, Slovenia.
The film follows Zizek on a speaking tour of the world, and watches as he expounds his views on ideology, philosophy, psychoanalysis, capitalism, politics, movies, toys, McDonald’s and anything else that catches his eye to audiences and direct to camera. Taylor’s documentary brings out both his prolific intellectual range and the qualities of eccentric pop culture comedian that make Zizek such a popular academic figure.
Zizek! mixes fidgetty hand held camera with onscreen text quotes and washed out Eastern European style animation to illustrate Zizek’s points. This approach is familiar from ‘The Pervert’s Guide to Cinema‘, shown on Channel 4, which shifted Zizek into the locations of the films he spoke about and interspersed them with clips. It is a fitting style for such a jittery and animated subject.
Zizek is an enormously charismatic speaker: carving the structure of an argument out of the air with his hands, impatiently pushing back his encroaching fringe of hair, nodding anxiously as he listens to the bumbled delivery of an audience member’s question. He is very persuasive; even before the opening credits he argues us convincingly to the conclusion that ‘love is evil’. But he is also always funny; in one scene he sits next to his shy young son: ‘He is perplexed’, Zizek announces to the camera. As the child starts smiling self consciously, Zizek turns back to us ‘Now he is narcissistically amused’. This documentary is dense and often difficult in the concepts that it seeks to explain, but Zizek’s overwhelming passion and interest in everything also make it thoroughly entertaining.
One can’t help feeling Zizek’s popularity is based partly on his character, despite his desires to avoid his fans adoring behaviour. Here, as in The Pervert’s Guide to Cinema, his ideas are fragmented and scattered, and the main clue to a coherent approach or set of interests comes from the New Yorker quote. One struggles to construct something like a consistent argument, before realising that that doesn’t seem to be the aim of the film. This would be a difficult job anyway, as Zizek has been accused of inconsistency even within single books and has published over 50. Instead, we just have to sit back, watch the flow and try to make sense of the parts we can.
Zizek! is exciting watching. There are no clear answers here, but the film is a very entertaining look at the thought of an important and respected academic, and an inspiration to discover more for ourselves.
