To the reviewers of this film who think that Zizek is a Stalinist because we see a poster of Stalin outside his office...please look up "irony" in a dictionary. Also read this interview: http://www.believermag.com/issues/200407/? read=interview_zizek It begins with this statement from the interviewer: "you have said that Stalinism is worse than Nazism, despite the grand spectacle of the Holocaust." Not a bad documentary, but not amazing either. Zizek is a strange man. He is seemingly a narcissist and misanthrope at the same time. Ultimately I suppose this is the result of reading so much Lacan and Freud that he constantly over analyses himself.

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.

Ah yes Slavoj Zizek a man who is a household name but only in his own household . Apparently he's the most famous Slovenian in the world which is surprising since I've never heard of him and I have heard of Milan Kucan . Perhaps the hype should have said " Most famous Slovenian to have appeared in a 73 minute documentary by Astra Taylor " ? From what I've learned from this documentary all you have to do in order to be credited as a philosopher is point out something no one has noticed before as in " Fascists don't clap while Stalinists clap themselves " Hey Zizek might actually have a point until you watch an edition of FAMILY FORTUNES . It might actually be that people who clap themselves are educationally subnormal rather than believers in one country socialist democide The second point about being a philosopher is being able to state the painfully obvious , as in " the more coke you drink the more thirsty you feel therefore the more coke you will drink the thirstier you will become " To be fair to Zizek he does point out out that there is decaffeinated coke but no one spends a great deal of time and money drinking decaf , we drink coke because caffeine is an addictive drink and thirst has nothing to do with it . If I point out that the apple of knowledge is a euphemism for drug addiction does that make me one of the world's greatest living philosophers ? There is some unintentional amusement to ZIZEK like for example he describes a child watching television as " narcissistic amusement " ( WTF !?)and he lies in bed waxing lyrically about the human condition . Yeah that's right he cannot go to bed without having his great thoughts recorded for posterity . In fact Mr Zizek comes across as one of those people who if he were discussing films shouts down everyone else's opinions because " The lighting makes San Francisco look like Los Angeles so that's not the Golden Gate bridge in the background " You can't disagree with his arguments because you're not sure what he's talking about And as a footnote Mr Zizek apparently makes a considerable living on touring seminars . It might be a good idea to watch ZIZEK before you pay money to attend one of his classes because I'm sure you'll here the same things said down the pub

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.