There’s no denying the vigour that Slovenian cultural maverick Slavoj Zizek brings to this psychoanalytical dissection of cinema. He handles his ideas with enthusiasm, and clearly relishes being able to deliver lectures from sets that were either used in the movies he’s discussing or have been meticulously recreated.
Yet, for all the ingenuity of Sophie Fiennes’ direction, this entertaining diatribe on cinema’s hidden meanings never eradicates the nagging doubt that we’re witnessing an intellectual sleight-of-hand. The concepts considered are pretty basic and the films chosen to illustrate them often blindingly obvious — even your average media studies teacher could find the Freudian subtexts in Lynch or Hitchcock. So, while this is fun, it’s hardly sprocket science.