The follow up to The Pervert’s Guide to Cinema, this second collaboration between filmmaker Sophie Fiennes and “the Elvis of cultural theory” Slavoj Žižek is dense, dazzling, irreverent, provocative and brilliant. Žižek issues an inspiring call to arms while interpreting selected moving pictures. Clips from propaganda films for Stalin and Mao rub up against The Sound of Music; cult favourites from John Carpenter and John Frankenheimer are presented next to James Cameron’s Titanic; Full Metal Jacket, Taxi Driver and The Searchers are among other references.

They all are soundtracked by Žižek’s heavily accented voice of conviction, articulating persuasive, insightful notions about how we live today, and how things might change. Skillfully presented by Fiennes, Žižek’s sense of humour means that his didacticism is never dry, and The Pervert’s Guide to Ideology emerges as an entertaining and cinematic one-man show. (Notes by Michael Hayden.)