Sarai and Navayana invite you to a double-bill screening of “The Pervert's Guide to Cinema” and “Žižek!”, a feature documentary, both starring Slavoj Žižek, on 24 December 2009.

Venue: Sarai-CSDS Seminar Room, 29 Rajpur Road, Civil Lines, Delhi

Time: 3 p.m. to 5.30 p.m (“Pervert’s Guide”). 6 p.m. to 7.15 p.m. (“Žižek!”).
 

“Cinema is the ultimate pervert art. It doesn't give you what you desire – it tells you how to desire.” — Slavoj Žižek
 

 

As a curtain-raiser to Navayana’s inaugural annual lecture series by Slavoj Žižek, Sarai and Navayana present two films on/with Žižek. “The Pervert's Guide to Cinema” (2006, 150 minutes) is a hilarious, high-energy monologue by Žižek, who subjects more than 40 mostly classic films, by directors ranging from Chaplin to Hitchcock to David Lynch, to a no-holes-barred psychoanalytic scrutiny. This globe-trotting three-part documentary, directed by Sophie Fiennes, cuts its cloth from the very world of the movies it discusses; by shooting at original locations and on replica sets, it creates the uncanny illusion that Žižek is speaking from within the films themselves. The Guardian review says, “'Unruly thinker and critic Slavoj Žižek gives us a highly entertaining and often brilliant tour of modern cinema... Tremendously exhilarating stuff.”

To know more about the film, visit the official website: http://www.thepervertsguide.com/index.php.

This film shall prepare you for the Navayana-Sarai annual lecture at Sarai on 4 January 2010 (5 p.m.), where Žižek speaks on “Ideology in the Post-ideological World: The Case of Hollywood”.

This will be followed by “Žižek!” (2005, 71 mins), a feature documentary that explores the eccentric personality and esoteric work of the “wild man of theory”. The feature, directed by Astra Taylor, trails the thinker as he crisscrosses the globe, racing from New York City lecture halls, through the streets of Buenos Aires, and even stopping at home in Ljubljana, Slovenia. All the while Žižek obsessively reveals the invisible workings of ideology through his unique blend of Lacanian psychoanalysis, Marxism, and critique of pop culture. A review in Variety says: “Subject is a bearded, sweating, antisocial, eminently quotable bear of a man who throws out ideas in a heavily accented lisp. Žižek 's work fuses Marxism and the thinking of French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan (1901–1981), who put a post-structuralist spin on Freud. Further twists are his encyclopedic knowledge of pop culture and extreme pronouncements: ‘My big worry,’ he frets, ‘is not to be ignored, but accepted.’”

To know more about this film, visit the official website: http://www.zizekthemovie.com/

Žižek's latest book, First as Tragedy, Then as Farce, will be for sale at the venue. As also other new Navayana titles: http://navayana.org/?p=767
 
For Žižek enthusiasts, the full schedule of his India tour is as follows:

24 Dec 2009. 3 p.m to 7.15 p.m. Screenings
"The Pervert’s Guide to Cinema", in 3 parts. 150 mins, to be followed by
“Žižek!”, 71 mins.
Sarai-CSDS. 29 Rajpur Road, Civil Lines, Delhi

2 Jan 2010. 7 p.m. Screening
"Žižek!" A feature documentary directed by Astra Taylor, 71 mins.
Stein Auditorium, India Habitat Centre, New Delhi

4 Jan 2010. 5 p.m. Lecture
“Ideology in the Post-ideological World: The Case of Hollywood”
Sarai-CSDS. 29 Rajpur Road, Civil Lines, Delhi

5 Jan 2010. 7 p.m. Lecture
“Tragedy and Farce”
Stein Auditorium, India Habitat Centre, New Delhi

7 Jan 2010. 11 a.m. Lecture
“Capitalism and Particular Life-Worlds: In Defense of Universalism”
ICSSR Auditorium, English & Foreign Languages University, Hyderabad

9 Jan 2010. 5 p.m. Lecture and Panel Discussion
“Whither Left?”
Town Hall, Kochi.

For updates on the Žižek India tour visit www.navayana.org