Marx Reloaded

I have seen other films, like Examined Life, which also stars Slavoj Zizek, and which claim to be about philosophy, but which are not remotely philosophical, thought-provoking or even very coherent. But this film's narrative was very intricate, and the film was superbly directed by someone who not only understands philosophy (Jason Barker is an established "theorist" and philosophy translator) but knows how to communicate with an audience. I'm not sure if I understood all the many ideas that were packed in to the relatively short 50 minutes. But it certainly made me want to read more Marx. And the thinkers on offer here all had something different to say. This surprised me, since the impression we get of Marxists is of a bunch of people dogmatically agreeing with each other. But in this film it seems like Marx can't solve the world's problems because no one can really agree what his ideas are. A very intelligent and informative film.

The first thing to say is that the version of the film that I saw was dubbed into German, which is not a good idea I think, especially in a documentary like this one where there are no actors (apart from in the cartoon sequences, of course!) and it's arguably better to hear what the people are saying in their own words. But then this is the only negative thing I have to say. Even the bizarre spectacle of watching Slavoj Zizek voiced by a German actor couldn't distract me from the energy and imagination of the direction. I think I'm right in saying that this is Jason Barker's first film, but it feels like a really accomplished work from a more experienced film-maker. He leads us through difficult concepts from Marx's philosophy without patronizing us, as a journalist might, but also without overdoing the philosophy and making things more complicated than they need to be. There are also a lot of comic moments, involving a great encounter between between Marx and Zizek that had me laughing out loud. Can't rate this film highly enough. Bravo.

After 30 minutes I thought about switching this off. In the end it was worth sticking with it. This is not a cinema movie, instead it's a reportage made for television. It's supposed to be "relevant". I struggled through the German dubbing (I fail to see why they couldn't have used subtitles) and at one point felt the film really lacked variety. The pace was unending, one idea rolled out and then another without enough time for reflection. The director had some good ideas, like the pastiche of Alice in Wonderland, and the color-coded visuals helped hold the narrative together. And thinking about it now, the way the narrative progressed helped me understand how the different parts of Marx's work fit together as a whole. Overall it's difficult to judge this as a film with any real defining style. It's probably more important as an idea to provoke debate about the capitalist world we live in.