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the audience applauded

As somebody who had not heard any of this before, it became a curious phenomenon to sit and watch a film and slowly have the realities begin to click into place.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

This movie feels like it was made purely to piss off people who want good shows

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.

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.

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!

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.