Zizek!

For philosophy majors, cultural theorists, and anyone interested in a Marxist/Lacanian perspective on pop culture, watching Zizek! will be like attending a basketball camp led by Michael Jordan. Slovenian philosopher Slovoj Zizek is, after all, “the Elvis of cultural theory,” and spending an hour-plus in his cinematic presence qualifies as idol worship for his global throng of followers. What a pity, then, that first-time documentarian Astra Taylor fails to convey that sense of stimulating enthusiasm to anyone who hasn't read The Sublime Object of Ideology or other books that have made the prolific Zizek an academic rock star. With an exclamation point suggesting the collegial equivalent of Beatlemania, Zizek! is a movie made by a groupie too enamored of her subject (for those who are curious about Zizek's ideas, Ben Wright's filmed lecture Slavoj Zizek: The Reality of the Virtual—as yet unavailable on DVD—is a more successful introduction to Zizek's hyperactive mind). What Taylor does capture, adequately enough, is Zizek as a reluctant celebrity, an unkempt bear of a man, prone to breathtaking verbosity, whose savant-like monologues are brilliantly and seductively articulate, even extending to a spontaneous Lacanian analysis of his young son's arrangement of action figures. Optional. [Note: DVD extras include a 36-minute Easter egg audio segment featuring Zizek, seven additional interviews and lecture excerpts (23 min.), seven deleted scenes (8 min.), a six-minute Zizek TV interview on Boston's Nitebeat cable news show, a “Guilty Pleasures” essay from Film Comment magazine, and trailers. Bottom line: an excellent extras package for an uneven documentary.] (J. Shannon)