Slavoj Zizek - Reality of the Virtual : [5?/10] : UK 2004 : Ben WRIGHT : 71 mins aka Reality of the Virtual - Slavoj Zizek

• Filmed lecture by Slovene philosopher Slavoj Zizek. Not well known in the UK, reportedly has some following in the US.
• Lecture given in English. Heavily-accented. And he has a minor but noticeable speech defect.
• Why not subtitled? Film is, after all, aimed at the most rarefied of highbrow audiences. Reportedly played an extended run at London's ICA.
• Who is this Zizek? Could film be a deadpan spoof? Audience may question "reality" of Zizek himself.
• His choice of categories (cat-egories [The Third Man]) : real/imaginary/symbolic.
• Real: sweaty greyish hair drooping on brow. Blue shirt. Meaty hands. Where does he drink in Ljubljana???
• Sans notes he spiels on. Seated in front of bookcases. Room darkens as if through a single day. Several camera angles, none especially interesting or noteworthy.
• What works: specific, anecdotal, film-related (Sound of Music, Short Cuts, Tarkovsky).
• What doesn't work: woolly, incomprehensible comments on Alien.
• And when he goes off into more abstract areas, we're rapidly lost: "historicist nominalism" is mentioned without any explanation for those of us without PhDs. Airy references to Lacan, Doleuze (sp.?). "Radical materialism." Notes needed, or at the very least access to Google.
• Why film it? What does this add? Was this the most accessible of his lectures?!
• Black-fades intersperse his talk - more engaging than The Society of the Spectacle film, though that isn't saying much.
• A new, philosophical cinema? Hardly. Clips of old films can be used to illustrate any philosophical position - this (clipless) must count as a missed opportunity.

Neil Young

6th December, 2004
[seen 6th November : Film Forum, Leeds : public show : Leeds Film Festival] [walkout]

For more films from the Leeds Film Festival 2004 click here