@@DarkAngelEU it's ideology at it's purest... Nah, jokes aside probably the example it gives about a parallel universe where there's no death, there's no sexuality... If you have heard Žižek long enough I'm sure you know what's the name of that from the standpoint of view of psycoanalisis. It's not a particular feature of Peppa pig, but it's an interesting feature of all cartoons.
@PtAltmVansanTarr In other words, a good filmmaker could have made a similar point using Berlin as a background in the thirties, or Red Square in the eighties (had such art been politically possible). Those ideologies were also trivial, though it might be imagined that many of their citizens and leaders presumed deep historical precedents to justify them (German exceptionalism, Russian peasant solidarity, for example).
They ran away from tradition. But the running away started with distrust of system. Distrust of government/Vietnam war, then down with system, down with tradition and increase of postmodernism.
Probably one of my favorite films ever. Being reminded of it a decade later, I’m struck by how well it predicted our situation. This idea that we have no future, that we’ve lost all hope, but that society keeps chugging along becoming even more and more authoritarian just to cling to what little of the status quo that they can.
@@rodolfoow Indeed. I can't predict the future, it's moving too fast, but a boot stamping on a human face forever feels more like a reality than it did 40 years ago.
@@yourstruly4817 and therein lies the message of the backgrounds of the film. A nihilistic faith in law and order in the British psyche (but also in a lot of societies in crisis. I note your excuse is very 1930s Germany) that breaks into fascistic (not necessarily fascist, but definitely fascist-ic) systemic violence that were always there, but get made explicit. Notice the complicity of the average background character, or the active participation of the police and army
Let me explain as his argument is very simple, in most movies the background (environment) is used to underline a heroes struggle and his development, in this movie though it is done in exactly the opposite way, the hero is distant and disconnected so that he is a better vessel that lets us concentrate on the state of the background, in this case the opressive and desperate situation of the rest of the people. There are several other points to explain but those would take additional messages.
please continue discussing the other points. Don't leave us hanging - we certainly have more time to accompany you down the rabbit hole and COVID-19 adds veracity to Zizek's and your analysis. I first heard Zizek on the movie's DVD bonus. His review sent chills up my spine. Same as the James Bond versus Jason Bourne analysis on the 2nd Bourne DVD. Loving it.
@@KennethKetchum if you or anyone wants to hear... every year the human-constructed narrative of "Western civilization" more resembles Children of Men. You can see it in the clips in the video. Walls to keep out refugees and cages to punish the ones who make it in, brutal police suppression. Even the cultists in the streets look a bit like Extinction Rebellion to me. The film of course is a fantasy -- it is built on narratives we began to tell ourselves recently of being under siege -- and yet just as the director brilliantly portrayed this fantasy in film, we have doomed ourselves to enact it in real life. Zizek is stepping in to disrupt this and remind us that the enactment of this fantasy only applies to the characters in the foreground. Through the impressive power of its own background, the film shows us that the characters in the foreground are fading. The blurry images who appear in the background of this film, the caged immigrants and the Antifa throwing stones, were already in the background of the entire "Western civilization" narrative. So for them this is not a collapse of what came before, it is only the beginning. This is where a far-right person would jump up and say, "now we must take the side of the police and defend our heritage and have a lot of babies." Zizek anticipates this when he points to the Michelangelo statue and says, "The true infertility is the lack of meaningful historical experience." Living to preserve a statue that has long ago lost its meaning, knowing that future generations will not appreciate it, is not truly living. It is something that a robot could do. Risking one's life to defend a system that nobody really wants is not living either. These modes of living are "infertile" and naturally dissuade us. Zizek ends the video saying, "The solution is the boat. It doesn't have roots, it's rootless, it floats around." This connects to the message he introduced before about the infertility of the narrative. Only by detaching ourselves from it, floating outside it as if in a boat, we open ourselves to the possibility of new meaning and life.
@@yrobtsvt I found it quite mindblowing how he points out this David is just as infertile as the population is. No one cares about this statue in this universe, so what is the point of keeping it around? We could ask the same thing about colonial statues in our universe, but apparently some historical hoarders are having an archive fever and simply don't know when it's time to let go. Putting these statues in a museum wouldn't really give them much service either, because as Zizek points out, no one really cares about keeping them around. Putting them in a museum would only point out their infertility, and eventually be destroyed for resources. This is one of the problems I experience as a European citizen. There is not much of a debate about what belongs to the past, what is blocking us from having a spiritually fertile future, and how this can be subverted. The colonial statues are one thing, and imo a very easy topic, but there is also a great question mark on how to deal with the "fusion" of Islam and Christian culture into a functioning society instead of this pseudo-Apartheid gloomy atmosphere we're seeing everywhere. We very much like to thrive on the idea that the Holocaust is behind us, but ever day people die in a desperate attempt to gain access to our continent. We preach that totalitarianism mustn't be forgotten, but simultaneously we forget the other lesson about universal human rights and how we promised ourselves that this kind of tragedy would never happen again. This spiritual infertility leads to many people not wanting to have children, because they don't want to raise children in such an infertile world, and in this sense the movie also really spoke to me personally. Learning from the past does not mean we have to conserve it, it implies we learn to move on and integrate the lesson into our future endeavors.
I would describe the film being like the movie equivalent of Half Life 2, especially in this sense. The main character is the camera in which we view the game/movie world.
Children of Men has, hands down, one of THE most poignant opening scenes in the history of cinema. It sets up the true atmosphere of a dystopia like no other film like I have ever seen.
@@thotslayer9914 this is coming to us in the near future. The bible even talks about these times of events coming, and worse! Repent and follow Jesus before it’s too late. You may even part of the group of Christians that will protected and live in abundance while world ascends into chaos! Even the vaccine was described!! Not a coincidence!
Here Zizek just reminds me how great this movie was. I remember being literally shell shocked watching it. One of those rare treats where you lose yourself and the sense of time, watching the film, as bleak as the backdrop is. Naturally Zizek sees so much more than I did, very interesting hearing him talk about it. I often find watching/listening to or reading Slavoj that I'm lighting up at something he's revealing, thinking I should have known that, of course! But just as often he loses me, which is fair enough considering how far into explaining really complex ideas he's happy to go into... and so on and so on :)
@@pranav_sh25 Zizek is not against modernity, hes a full on communist, hes against stuff like commodification and capitalism, but its been a while and so i cant really recall it lol soz
Debbie Hargreaves wrong. The film can be interpreted as much as a critique of the politics that Zizek personally favours as much as through the lens of them, and that is the strength of it. It projects a coherent world that merits analysis rather than being didactic in that sense.
@@debbiehargreaves3350 Wrong. Zizek has at many times opposed this loss of meaning. He only recommends that we go *through* this loss of meaning rather than mourn for a long lost past.
A brilliant work of art. And the moment the observer share with all the soldiers when the main characters exit the building with the first newborn baby and hope for the future makes me breathless.
I really feel as though there's a good connection between this movie and HL2. Although the central metaphor is different, fertility vs infertility in CoM, and the ability of humanity to rise to its situation and times in HL2, the same kind of dissonance between, as Zizek puts it, the 'foreground' and 'background' is very present, which comes across in the cinematography of both pieces; which use long and uninterrupted scenes with many glimpses into a larger world, which has lost its roots.
goosebumps just watching that scene again of the main character stumbling into the farm house finding her pregnant. literally, all of humanity wrapped up in one moment to be saved.
This movie is about what happens when people do not aspire to make the world a better place for future generations. We in the west are the first generation as a whole to know our children will have it worse than we did, so most people just do not have children. Our collapsing civilization is a testament to that, and to this visionary movie.
Love this. Brings to mind a passage from Orwell’s “The Road to Wigan Pier”. Orwell, I believe, is riding a train and observes this very poor woman, and takes some time to reflect on her misery. This way of framing things, where the content of interest arises from the background, I think is very effective. Zizek discussed children who protest, for example in relation to climate change, in another video. He mentioned how they just observe - value - act. They don’t contemplate every possible political, economical or sociological factor. I think this ties in here. We, from the main characters perspective, become - as children - merely observers. We see the people caged, we value that almost instantly. We see the suffering and poverty looming in the background. We feel, and know, that whatever caused this is not good.
There is morality and then there is necessity. It is "not good" to use deceased people as a primary source of food. The passengers of the Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 would argue against that. A compete view and understanding of a problem is of paramount importance before we begin to act in order to fix things.
I find it interesting that native English speakers-- who are typically monolingual-- are often the most critical of those people for whom English is a second language.
I hate that the boat is called Tomorrow. It was like a big slap in the face from the director. I get it, the boat represents their future, but you don't need to ram it down our throats.
I like what he says about the scene with the Davd statue. It's true, if you have an artifact separated from it's setting it invokes nothing. Walking through Rome conjures up images of the ancient world. Seeing a Legionnaire's helmet in a museum doesn't really invoke much, except to maybe appreciate the craftwork of it. But culturally, it has no resonance IMO
you are completely correct, i was just pointing out that Cuaron used a pretty unusual way of shooting the movie, in all honesty the whole movie is a cinematographic masterpiece if you ask me.
I suppose you do not listen what he has to say, only how he says it? The world is larger then only the English speaking part of it, be grateful he took the trouble of speaking English so a larger audience can get acquainted with his views.
An unfortunately all-too-realistic portrayal of where we may be headed. Bummer. Although the review was a garbled mess of overanalysis. The ideological despair of late capitalism and feeling disconnected from history leads to massive social upheaval? No, I don't think that's what was going on in the movie, dude.
Children of Men is one of those little seen and underrated great Hollywood movies of the last twenty or so years. This and Zodiac will be considered masterpieces once Cuaron and Fincher's careers end and we reassess their oeuvres. Then we'll all see how brilliant these two works really were.
@InvisibleDiary Hahahaha... Zizek is saying that cause he mentions the other movie from the same Director (Alfonso Cuarón). His other movie is called "Y tu mamá también". In a part of his dialogue and critique Zizek mentions a characteristic between both films. You have to listen my friend, LISTEN!!! Be intelligent don't be just a conditioned robot and pay attention!
Not paying attention to the insults, this is an interesting discussion. Art, I think, HAS to be inspirational before being intentional. But I'd argue that a "true" artist (or whatever) is someone who is attuned to his world, or some aspect of it, and who's inspiration, being deeply rooted in some reality, is therefore meaningful. Geertz argues that a hermeneutic study of art has to be done within the historial context of the artist.
Yes, well said, HL2 did it perfectly too, a real work of art. That was one of the first things that came to mind after watching the movie, the comparison to HL2
Žižek is projecting his own feelings onto the Jasper character, though - for Cuarón himself, Jasper represented something warm, human, rebellious, humorous - not something "vulgar, ridiculous, impotent", etc. That's why he had Michael Caine play him as though he were playing John Lennon. And ultimately, Jasper sacrifices himself for humanity by staying around to divert the fascists - that's not impotent or ridiculous at all...
I speak from 2023, just four years away from when this film is set. What is happening in the U.K., France, Belgium and Scotland is the perfect recipe for what this film depicts, aside from global infertility of course. Brexit and covid were the double whammy this nation needed to isolate itself like this. And with the stronger control of public opinion, it’s quite likely Britain is the last to collapse, not because of strength, but because of division. Unlike France and Belgium, and even Russia, the U.K. populace is unable to riot and stand together because we are all so divided amongst ourselves, there is no one unifying cause to fight for. So the emergence of rebel factions in the next couple of years, especially with the political landscape recently, is most likely in Britain. Followed by extreme governmental crackdowns whilst the world around us undergoes societal collapse. Honestly, I’m not a conspiracy theorist. The Earth is round, NASA is real, hell, no jet fuel doesn’t melt steel beams but it’s perfectly capable of reducing its integral structure at 2kC. But this here, is fucking real. Prophetic. The only inaccurate thing about it all is that it’s set in 2027, id argue we’ll be there a year or two before!
I always hated this movie, it represents an extreme reaction to the hyper real. Half the population in any given country wouldn't pull a hair for why YOU think capatilism ends here or communism is good or bad because this reason. In a fools ramblings, like in this movie or Zizek's conclusion there is a drop of truth though but the over all picture. Absolutely does not make any sense. He mentioned UK not needing a constitution as it relies on its tradition and culture to fill in the gaps.. true and don't we all? Democracy, constitutions, communism, capitalism. Thin, weak, embarrassing. Like picking a sports team, choose the colors and flag that resonates with you and march off into artillery fire. Without Jesus Christ the living God, there is only folly and darkness. Open an old Bible, research for yourself the ways in which the prophets lived and experienced life and just try it. Our creator intends for us to live very differently to how we currently do, this problem > reaction > problem paradigm is cooked up in a mind separated from the divine. There is only one way and the path is narrow and fraught with horrors beyond our comprehension. So it was and so it ever will be.
@JohnOhn Im sorry I don't get it. Your post doesn't make the most sense if you remove the "()" and the part in between them about GB being Disneyworld. Why is a country that has higher living standards than those countries you call historically abandoned more trivial then countries that deal with more poverty? In my exp, humans are able to function better and problem solve at at a higher level when they aren't concerned about the bottom line.
@PtAltmVansanTarr His point is that by using the capitalist country most rooted in its 'political traditions', GB (which nonetheless is often compared to Disneyworld - a trivial corporate fairy land), while showing those traditions to be defunct in the crisis of the film, James and Cuaron, bring the metaphor into greater relief about the rest of the world which may already find itself in that historically abandoned condition. narrativeartsblog.wordpress
@murfkaka I don't see what you are trying to get at here. I don't see anything like that in this analysis. In fact I would think that Zizek would mean the exact opossit considiring he is a leftist
Is there not a BBC interview where he is asked something along the lines of "What is the future?". He repeats that line and tells the audience not to let it happen?
I often wonder how powerful this film is for non-British people. I find this film very powerful but assumed some of that came from my intimate familiarity with this background.
As an American, it is very shocking. Especially during the scenes in "Refugee Camp". I sat for a good while after the movie to process what I had just saw.
I'm pretty sure that Cuarón really would aprove the major of Zizek's comments, I heard him said that that is not a film about some hipotetical catastrofic future, it's about the present.
But the artist is not a political entity, his vision is rooted in day to day experiences. Art is eternal, the product can be preserved through the ages, but the meaning is very transient.
@nixsogutstudios I do get it. He's right about how it's a very deep film and a true work of art. He just has an awesome accent! :D Thanks for the offer though :)
I don't think the Ark of the Arts is devoid of spirituality, quite the opposite. Assuming the project isn't just confined to the single gallery we see in the movie (and Battersea power station leaves a lot to be desired as any kind of Ark), then the AotA represents a leap of faith in the face of death. Maybe the artifacts are launched into space, or buried deep underground, but the idea of preserving our history and culture, for any possible future archaelogists to discover, either extraterrestrials or some other form of intelligent life following in our footsteps on Earth is anything but uninspired.
@PtAltmVansanTarr Bear in mind that 'all philosophical mistakes are category errors'. Zizek's a psychoanalyst so he's interested in categories at the level of the mind. 'Democracy' may be externally more comfortable, but I think he would still ask about the hidden costs. Particularly its foundation on exploitation; Africa, Asia and South America were (and are by big Corp), completely colonized, their resources stolen by our democracies. SA in that sense is a permanent part of our unconscious.
@PtAltmVansanTarr Not sure where you'd find people unconcerned about the bottom line - an ideal socialism, perhaps; 'from each according to his ability, to each according to his need', though we've never seen such a state. But re the film's aesthetics, GB has THE APPEARANCE of greater historical identity and therefore makes a better EXAMPLE for the filmmakers when that identity is proved trivial in the face of crisis. All the same, I think Zizek would say all ideologies are trivial/superficial.
places liek switzerland and Germany in europe have the best education systems America and Britain (my mothers town) are acceptable. in Britain we have alot of contrast. you either have private religious schools or public schools, public schools have a lot of behavioural problems. and other countries the children are just happy to be able to attend school. it shows that when we have it on a plate we really do take it for granted.
@briangaylord No shit that it was chosen by some hack at Universal. The ineptitude of the editing, which highlights some of the least subtle cinematography of the film and undermines Zizek's analysis, was one of my main points. And you'd be a fool to defer to an oncologist on matters that do not require any medical training without adequate explanation, as analogous here.
@degree7 I think his point is that in late capitalism, we are hanging onto our roots, but they are becoming more and more meaningless, and this is represented by the statue of David. The antagonism or deadlock this society is battling is its inability to create its own new history, roots, meaning, etc, and instead it cynically poses as "cultured", nodding and appreciating pointless statues which have no connection to reality.
@ElTresDeMayo1808 I personally wouldn't say Inception was all that bad but Children of Men is a work of art. I wouldn't call Inception a work of art. An entertaining film? Sure, but it's not going to make people see the world in a new light like Children of Men did for me.
![Cody Johnson - I'm Gonna Love You (with Carrie Underwood) [Official Music Video]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/yy9PuYMU29g/mqdefault.jpg)
I could listen to Zizek discuss Peppa Pig and still be fascinated.
im disappointed that he doesn't actually review peppa pig
@@HnKYuda What's there to say about Peppa Pig, other than that it probably kills brain cells?
@@DarkAngelEU it's ideology at it's purest... Nah, jokes aside probably the example it gives about a parallel universe where there's no death, there's no sexuality... If you have heard Žižek long enough I'm sure you know what's the name of that from the standpoint of view of psycoanalisis. It's not a particular feature of Peppa pig, but it's an interesting feature of all cartoons.
Why not? He talks about kung fu panda
they either all gave you thumbs down for saying 'maybe we need no government' or they didn't catch the Churchill quote.
@PtAltmVansanTarr In other words, a good filmmaker could have made a similar point using Berlin as a background in the thirties, or Red Square in the eighties (had such art been politically possible). Those ideologies were also trivial, though it might be imagined that many of their citizens and leaders presumed deep historical precedents to justify them (German exceptionalism, Russian peasant solidarity, for example).
Zizek's analysis is simply brilliant.
What is the other film he's referencing? I can't make out the name.
Y Tu Mamá También. same director
"condition of renewal is to cut your roots"
I still don't get the boat . You mean they're leaving it all behind ?
"the decadence started there" - zizek, on boomers
on hippies*
@Cal Devans The Cadre nope
@Cal Devans The Cadre You need to learn how subcultures don't represent an entire generation. So, no.
@Cal Devans The Cadre I think you mean yuppies, and not hippies.
They ran away from tradition. But the running away started with distrust of system. Distrust of government/Vietnam war, then down with system, down with tradition and increase of postmodernism.
I love zizek's thoughts on this feelum. My favorite feelum thus far.
And so on and so on...
it's almost like "feelies" from brave new world...
lol
'feelum' could easily be a lacanian neologism
I legit thought he was saying Phillum as in biology using it as an analogy for a plot device seen in several movies. I was obviously overthinking it
Probably one of my favorite films ever. Being reminded of it a decade later, I’m struck by how well it predicted our situation. This idea that we have no future, that we’ve lost all hope, but that society keeps chugging along becoming even more and more authoritarian just to cling to what little of the status quo that they can.
The more desperate is power the more authoritarian it gets
@@rodolfoow Indeed. I can't predict the future, it's moving too fast, but a boot stamping on a human face forever feels more like a reality than it did 40 years ago.
@@marktyler3381 with this corona lockdown what now becomes
If it's necessary to turn into a fascist to maintain law and order, well then I'm a fascist. Everything's better than anarchy.
@@yourstruly4817 and therein lies the message of the backgrounds of the film. A nihilistic faith in law and order in the British psyche (but also in a lot of societies in crisis. I note your excuse is very 1930s Germany) that breaks into fascistic (not necessarily fascist, but definitely fascist-ic) systemic violence that were always there, but get made explicit. Notice the complicity of the average background character, or the active participation of the police and army
Let me explain as his argument is very simple, in most movies the background (environment) is used to underline a heroes struggle and his development, in this movie though it is done in exactly the opposite way, the hero is distant and disconnected so that he is a better vessel that lets us concentrate on the state of the background, in this case the opressive and desperate situation of the rest of the people.
There are several other points to explain but those would take additional messages.
please continue discussing the other points. Don't leave us hanging - we certainly have more time to accompany you down the rabbit hole and COVID-19 adds veracity to Zizek's and your analysis. I first heard Zizek on the movie's DVD bonus. His review sent chills up my spine. Same as the James Bond versus Jason Bourne analysis on the 2nd Bourne DVD. Loving it.
@@KennethKetchum if you or anyone wants to hear... every year the human-constructed narrative of "Western civilization" more resembles Children of Men. You can see it in the clips in the video. Walls to keep out refugees and cages to punish the ones who make it in, brutal police suppression. Even the cultists in the streets look a bit like Extinction Rebellion to me. The film of course is a fantasy -- it is built on narratives we began to tell ourselves recently of being under siege -- and yet just as the director brilliantly portrayed this fantasy in film, we have doomed ourselves to enact it in real life. Zizek is stepping in to disrupt this and remind us that the enactment of this fantasy only applies to the characters in the foreground.
Through the impressive power of its own background, the film shows us that the characters in the foreground are fading. The blurry images who appear in the background of this film, the caged immigrants and the Antifa throwing stones, were already in the background of the entire "Western civilization" narrative. So for them this is not a collapse of what came before, it is only the beginning.
This is where a far-right person would jump up and say, "now we must take the side of the police and defend our heritage and have a lot of babies." Zizek anticipates this when he points to the Michelangelo statue and says, "The true infertility is the lack of meaningful historical experience." Living to preserve a statue that has long ago lost its meaning, knowing that future generations will not appreciate it, is not truly living. It is something that a robot could do. Risking one's life to defend a system that nobody really wants is not living either. These modes of living are "infertile" and naturally dissuade us.
Zizek ends the video saying, "The solution is the boat. It doesn't have roots, it's rootless, it floats around." This connects to the message he introduced before about the infertility of the narrative. Only by detaching ourselves from it, floating outside it as if in a boat, we open ourselves to the possibility of new meaning and life.
@@yrobtsvt I found it quite mindblowing how he points out this David is just as infertile as the population is. No one cares about this statue in this universe, so what is the point of keeping it around? We could ask the same thing about colonial statues in our universe, but apparently some historical hoarders are having an archive fever and simply don't know when it's time to let go. Putting these statues in a museum wouldn't really give them much service either, because as Zizek points out, no one really cares about keeping them around. Putting them in a museum would only point out their infertility, and eventually be destroyed for resources.
This is one of the problems I experience as a European citizen. There is not much of a debate about what belongs to the past, what is blocking us from having a spiritually fertile future, and how this can be subverted. The colonial statues are one thing, and imo a very easy topic, but there is also a great question mark on how to deal with the "fusion" of Islam and Christian culture into a functioning society instead of this pseudo-Apartheid gloomy atmosphere we're seeing everywhere. We very much like to thrive on the idea that the Holocaust is behind us, but ever day people die in a desperate attempt to gain access to our continent. We preach that totalitarianism mustn't be forgotten, but simultaneously we forget the other lesson about universal human rights and how we promised ourselves that this kind of tragedy would never happen again. This spiritual infertility leads to many people not wanting to have children, because they don't want to raise children in such an infertile world, and in this sense the movie also really spoke to me personally. Learning from the past does not mean we have to conserve it, it implies we learn to move on and integrate the lesson into our future endeavors.
Thanks for clearing that up...X
I would describe the film being like the movie equivalent of Half Life 2, especially in this sense. The main character is the camera in which we view the game/movie world.
Children of Men has, hands down, one of THE most poignant opening scenes in the history of cinema. It sets up the true atmosphere of a dystopia like no other film like I have ever seen.
@@thotslayer9914 this is coming to us in the near future. The bible even talks about these times of events coming, and worse! Repent and follow Jesus before it’s too late. You may even part of the group of Christians that will protected and live in abundance while world ascends into chaos! Even the vaccine was described!! Not a coincidence!
My favorite movie of the decade, possibly.
"You cannot say it's really a movie about two young boys re-discovering their sexuality."
Nope, that movie's called "Top Gun."
03:20 he conflates a constitution with substance and meaning
😂😂😂😂😂
Zizek's Spanish accent is much better than his English accent!! I was surprised when he pronounced "Y tu mamá también" (Spanish is my first language)
estuvo casado con una argentina...
haha yeah, it's true!
Lengua eslava es más cercana a leguas romance que a lenguas germánicas, su acento en inglés es parecido al acento en español
THANK YOU! I had no chance hearing what the heck he was saying!
Hermoso acento neutro, como Peruano que soy me conmueve.
Did nerdwriter just pick it up from zizek :(
UH OH DUDE
@@ronnybaby1092 can you give me some context? :)
Few minutes ago, I watched the analysis of nerdwriter. And truly, now I'm afraid that you are right.
Here Zizek just reminds me how great this movie was. I remember being literally shell shocked watching it. One of those rare treats where you lose yourself and the sense of time, watching the film, as bleak as the backdrop is. Naturally Zizek sees so much more than I did, very interesting hearing him talk about it.
I often find watching/listening to or reading Slavoj that I'm lighting up at something he's revealing, thinking I should have known that, of course! But just as often he loses me, which is fair enough considering how far into explaining really complex ideas he's happy to go into... and so on and so on :)
I was shell shocked too; I desperately want to rewatch it, but all I can remember was how.... disturbing it was.
Clay Mann I wish there was more movies like Children of Men.
“We feel free because we lack the very language to articulate our unfreedom.” ― Slavoj Žižek
Pull my finger
"Spiritual infertility." Amazing line and valid point on the failures of modernity.
if you think thats a point against modernity you misunderstand zizek, the point, and modernity
@@debbiehargreaves3350 could you elaborate on what's supposed to be the true understanding?
@@pranav_sh25 Zizek is not against modernity, hes a full on communist, hes against stuff like commodification and capitalism, but its been a while and so i cant really recall it lol soz
Debbie Hargreaves wrong. The film can be interpreted as much as a critique of the politics that Zizek personally favours as much as through the lens of them, and that is the strength of it. It projects a coherent world that merits analysis rather than being didactic in that sense.
@@debbiehargreaves3350 Wrong. Zizek has at many times opposed this loss of meaning. He only recommends that we go *through* this loss of meaning rather than mourn for a long lost past.
A brilliant work of art.
And the moment the observer share with all the soldiers when the main characters exit the building with the first newborn baby and hope for the future makes me breathless.
Arctic 303 and then seconds later the shooting resumes and ultimately the refugee ghetto is napalmed.
I really feel as though there's a good connection between this movie and HL2. Although the central metaphor is different, fertility vs infertility in CoM, and the ability of humanity to rise to its situation and times in HL2, the same kind of dissonance between, as Zizek puts it, the 'foreground' and 'background' is very present, which comes across in the cinematography of both pieces; which use long and uninterrupted scenes with many glimpses into a larger world, which has lost its roots.
That is a reference I did not expect to find here)
he barely sniffs in this
I feel robbed
he sniffed he sniffed
goosebumps just watching that scene again of the main character stumbling into the farm house finding her pregnant. literally, all of humanity wrapped up in one moment to be saved.
Humanity shouldn't be saved in the first place.
You're only almost wrong - all of it except for you should.
Would be really interesting to hear a conversation about this film between Alfonso Cuarón and Slavoj Žižek.
This movie is about what happens when people do not aspire to make the world a better place for future generations.
We in the west are the first generation as a whole to know our children will have it worse than we did, so most people just do not have children.
Our collapsing civilization is a testament to that, and to this visionary movie.
Love this. Brings to mind a passage from Orwell’s “The Road to Wigan Pier”. Orwell, I believe, is riding a train and observes this very poor woman, and takes some time to reflect on her misery. This way of framing things, where the content of interest arises from the background, I think is very effective. Zizek discussed children who protest, for example in relation to climate change, in another video. He mentioned how they just observe - value - act. They don’t contemplate every possible political, economical or sociological factor. I think this ties in here. We, from the main characters perspective, become - as children - merely observers. We see the people caged, we value that almost instantly. We see the suffering and poverty looming in the background. We feel, and know, that whatever caused this is not good.
There is morality and then there is necessity. It is "not good" to use deceased people as a primary source of food. The passengers of the Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 would argue against that. A compete view and understanding of a problem is of paramount importance before we begin to act in order to fix things.
Interesting point that the title "children of men" can also refer to the state to which human beings are reduced when placed in a dystopian reality
"The condition of the renewal means you cut your roots."
...and reinvent oneself
I'm glad this is also a DVD special on the film so everyone who has it can see it too
I find it interesting that native English speakers-- who are typically monolingual-- are often the most critical of those people for whom English is a second language.
This is my first exposure to Zizek. I've been meaning to check out his works for quite some time now, and this has definitely whetted my appetite.
I hate that the boat is called Tomorrow. It was like a big slap in the face from the director. I get it, the boat represents their future, but you don't need to ram it down our throats.
The one error in the film... but every great film has one
That was some hardcore praises, damn !
I liked the film too
I like what he says about the scene with the Davd statue. It's true, if you have an artifact separated from it's setting it invokes nothing. Walking through Rome conjures up images of the ancient world. Seeing a Legionnaire's helmet in a museum doesn't really invoke much, except to maybe appreciate the craftwork of it. But culturally, it has no resonance IMO
This world doesnt look so far away
SaZooCaballero
It takes place in the year 2027. But replace the government with Amazon, UBER or Google and it’s not too far off.
Frank Garrett
Corporations need the state to survive.
@@frankgarrett9500 No replacement necessary.
@@Leon-le9cn Corporations will replace the nation state in the 21st Century
you are completely correct, i was just pointing out that Cuaron used a pretty unusual way of shooting the movie, in all honesty the whole movie is a cinematographic masterpiece if you ask me.
Children of Men has been one of my favorite films for a long time. Thanks to Zizek I start to understand why.
He's right about the hippies.
How does Žižek pronounce Spanish so well and English so badly 😂😂
I suppose you do not listen what he has to say, only how he says it? The world is larger then only the English speaking part of it, be grateful he took the trouble of speaking English so a larger audience can get acquainted with his views.
wHo hErE iN 2019????
Me. Jordan Peterson fan trying to understand what anyone sees in Zizek. But hey. Im giving it a go so chill out people who are gonna hammer me! Hahaha
@@JakeThaSnake83 be careful around communists as they get very angry at right wingers, I'm saying this as a commie myself
I'm still here! I remember watching this 11 years ago, can't believe it's been this long. Time sure flies when you're middle aged.
"...this old, obscene, impotent, retired hippie person" lmao
1:10 love it "last one to die, please turn off the light" XDDDDDDD
Children of men is a punch in the gut.
An unfortunately all-too-realistic portrayal of where we may be headed. Bummer. Although the review was a garbled mess of overanalysis. The ideological despair of late capitalism and feeling disconnected from history leads to massive social upheaval? No, I don't think that's what was going on in the movie, dude.
Can we appreciate how perfectly he pronounced "Y tu mamá también"?
Children of Men is one of those little seen and underrated great Hollywood movies of the last twenty or so years. This and Zodiac will be considered masterpieces once Cuaron and Fincher's careers end and we reassess their oeuvres. Then we'll all see how brilliant these two works really were.
This is a British movie that has nothing in common with Hollywood.
The AI for creating the english subtitles is just not ready for Zizek yet ^^ .
Nothing about this movie remains in the background.
@InvisibleDiary Hahahaha... Zizek is saying that cause he mentions the other movie from the same Director (Alfonso Cuarón). His other movie is called "Y tu mamá también". In a part of his dialogue and critique Zizek mentions a characteristic between both films. You have to listen my friend, LISTEN!!! Be intelligent don't be just a conditioned robot and pay attention!
I’d like to hear his thoughts on There Will Be Blood 😂
pure ideology
P U R E I D E O L O G Y
P U R E T I D E P O D O G Y
this movie will become a reality much sooner than you'd think..
Your well on track to being right buddy
estamos cozidos
@robieski No he ain't joking and yes late-capitalism is dangerous :.P.
Not paying attention to the insults, this is an interesting discussion. Art, I think, HAS to be inspirational before being intentional. But I'd argue that a "true" artist (or whatever) is someone who is attuned to his world, or some aspect of it, and who's inspiration, being deeply rooted in some reality, is therefore meaningful. Geertz argues that a hermeneutic study of art has to be done within the historial context of the artist.
I really agree with your point
Guess i will read that Novel now :D
Apparently this is one of the few cases where the novel is worse than the movie
Yes, well said, HL2 did it perfectly too, a real work of art. That was one of the first things that came to mind after watching the movie, the comparison to HL2
There's a lot of cool details in this film. One of those movies you can watch over and over again. The music is excellent too!
I think the video lacks shots of Y tu Mama Tambien in order to be more understandable for those who havent seen it.
Go watch it boi ;) and then come back to this video
@@diek_yt already watched
Žižek is projecting his own feelings onto the Jasper character, though - for Cuarón himself, Jasper represented something warm, human, rebellious, humorous - not something "vulgar, ridiculous, impotent", etc. That's why he had Michael Caine play him as though he were playing John Lennon. And ultimately, Jasper sacrifices himself for humanity by staying around to divert the fascists - that's not impotent or ridiculous at all...
I speak from 2023, just four years away from when this film is set.
What is happening in the U.K., France, Belgium and Scotland is the perfect recipe for what this film depicts, aside from global infertility of course.
Brexit and covid were the double whammy this nation needed to isolate itself like this. And with the stronger control of public opinion, it’s quite likely Britain is the last to collapse, not because of strength, but because of division.
Unlike France and Belgium, and even Russia, the U.K. populace is unable to riot and stand together because we are all so divided amongst ourselves, there is no one unifying cause to fight for.
So the emergence of rebel factions in the next couple of years, especially with the political landscape recently, is most likely in Britain. Followed by extreme governmental crackdowns whilst the world around us undergoes societal collapse.
Honestly, I’m not a conspiracy theorist. The Earth is round, NASA is real, hell, no jet fuel doesn’t melt steel beams but it’s perfectly capable of reducing its integral structure at 2kC.
But this here, is fucking real. Prophetic. The only inaccurate thing about it all is that it’s set in 2027, id argue we’ll be there a year or two before!
I always hated this movie, it represents an extreme reaction to the hyper real. Half the population in any given country wouldn't pull a hair for why YOU think capatilism ends here or communism is good or bad because this reason.
In a fools ramblings, like in this movie or Zizek's conclusion there is a drop of truth though but the over all picture. Absolutely does not make any sense. He mentioned UK not needing a constitution as it relies on its tradition and culture to fill in the gaps.. true and don't we all? Democracy, constitutions, communism, capitalism. Thin, weak, embarrassing. Like picking a sports team, choose the colors and flag that resonates with you and march off into artillery fire.
Without Jesus Christ the living God, there is only folly and darkness. Open an old Bible, research for yourself the ways in which the prophets lived and experienced life and just try it. Our creator intends for us to live very differently to how we currently do, this problem > reaction > problem paradigm is cooked up in a mind separated from the divine. There is only one way and the path is narrow and fraught with horrors beyond our comprehension. So it was and so it ever will be.
Can anyone go into more detail as to what he meant to say with Jaspers character, being a form of decadence?
Cuaron: a genius!
@JohnOhn Im sorry I don't get it. Your post doesn't make the most sense if you remove the "()" and the part in between them about GB being Disneyworld. Why is a country that has higher living standards than those countries you call historically abandoned more trivial then countries that deal with more poverty? In my exp, humans are able to function better and problem solve at at a higher level when they aren't concerned about the bottom line.
@PtAltmVansanTarr His point is that by using the capitalist country most rooted in its 'political traditions', GB (which nonetheless is often compared to Disneyworld - a trivial corporate fairy land), while showing those traditions to be defunct in the crisis of the film, James and Cuaron, bring the metaphor into greater relief about the rest of the world which may already find itself in that historically abandoned condition. narrativeartsblog.wordpress
This is today, 2024, even though one could see the path the world was taking years ago, it's still hard to believe...
cant really understand zizek's accent~~
@murfkaka I don't see what you are trying to get at here. I don't see anything like that in this analysis. In fact I would think that Zizek would mean the exact opossit considiring he is a leftist
@murfkaka Dude, take a bow, that was brilliant.
Is there not a BBC interview where he is asked something along the lines of "What is the future?". He repeats that line and tells the audience not to let it happen?
RUclips, I promise you now I will never buy a chromebook because of all your fucking ads for it
I... really enjoy this... and so on, and so on, know?
Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others that have been tried. Maybe we need no government :)
I only made a comment on Julianne Moore's awful performance, so I don't know how you read anything related to Pink Floyd out of that.
Anyways, why is this listed as a comedy? I'm only halfway through, but this seems like a serious critique.
I repeat things without any explanation only an air of cynicism and consider my self intelligent. Ok?
The actress who played the pregnant girl was the weakest of the cast. The movie was fantastic.
Damn video de-interlacing.
Can someone clarify for me the name of what Zizek is comparing this too?
"Y Tu Mama Tambien" i think. It's another Cuaron film.
@@Tortug4Maritima ty
Damn this video is old as hell.
I often wonder how powerful this film is for non-British people. I find this film very powerful but assumed some of that came from my intimate familiarity with this background.
As an American, it is very shocking. Especially during the scenes in "Refugee Camp". I sat for a good while after the movie to process what I had just saw.
I absolutley thought this movie was fantastic. Me and my friends went to see it on cinemas, after a long day in college.
I'm so unimpressed by Zizek
@briangaylord You don't think that is a stupid generalisation?
I'm pretty sure that Cuarón really would aprove the major of Zizek's comments, I heard him said that that is not a film about some hipotetical catastrofic future, it's about the present.
Very good commentary. I hope that this is also on the DVD.
This is superb commentary by Zizek.
Spot on, the background and foreground contrast was the most memorable idea for me.
yea
Exactly what I thought too. Perfectly articulated.
But the artist is not a political entity, his vision is rooted in day to day experiences. Art is eternal, the product can be preserved through the ages, but the meaning is very transient.
uhh y to mama tambien huh.. im not seeing it
Couldn't agree more.
I have no idea what you're talking about.
@nixsogutstudios I do get it. He's right about how it's a very deep film and a true work of art. He just has an awesome accent! :D Thanks for the offer though :)
I don't think the Ark of the Arts is devoid of spirituality, quite the opposite. Assuming the project isn't just confined to the single gallery we see in the movie (and Battersea power station leaves a lot to be desired as any kind of Ark), then the AotA represents a leap of faith in the face of death. Maybe the artifacts are launched into space, or buried deep underground, but the idea of preserving our history and culture, for any possible future archaelogists to discover, either extraterrestrials or some other form of intelligent life following in our footsteps on Earth is anything but uninspired.
very good
This man is an absolute genius
@PtAltmVansanTarr Bear in mind that 'all philosophical mistakes are category errors'. Zizek's a psychoanalyst so he's interested in categories at the level of the mind. 'Democracy' may be externally more comfortable, but I think he would still ask about the hidden costs. Particularly its foundation on exploitation; Africa, Asia and South America were (and are by big Corp), completely colonized, their resources stolen by our democracies. SA in that sense is a permanent part of our unconscious.
@PtAltmVansanTarr Not sure where you'd find people unconcerned about the bottom line - an ideal socialism, perhaps; 'from each according to his ability, to each according to his need', though we've never seen such a state. But re the film's aesthetics, GB has THE APPEARANCE of greater historical identity and therefore makes a better EXAMPLE for the filmmakers when that identity is proved trivial in the face of crisis. All the same, I think Zizek would say all ideologies are trivial/superficial.
places liek switzerland and Germany in europe have the best education systems America and Britain (my mothers town) are acceptable. in Britain we have alot of contrast. you either have private religious schools or public schools, public schools have a lot of behavioural problems. and other countries the children are just happy to be able to attend school. it shows that when we have it on a plate we really do take it for granted.
@briangaylord No shit that it was chosen by some hack at Universal. The ineptitude of the editing, which highlights some of the least subtle cinematography of the film and undermines Zizek's analysis, was one of my main points.
And you'd be a fool to defer to an oncologist on matters that do not require any medical training without adequate explanation, as analogous here.
@degree7
I think his point is that in late capitalism, we are hanging onto our roots, but they are becoming more and more meaningless, and this is represented by the statue of David. The antagonism or deadlock this society is battling is its inability to create its own new history, roots, meaning, etc, and instead it cynically poses as "cultured", nodding and appreciating pointless statues which have no connection to reality.
@ElTresDeMayo1808 I personally wouldn't say Inception was all that bad but Children of Men is a work of art. I wouldn't call Inception a work of art. An entertaining film? Sure, but it's not going to make people see the world in a new light like Children of Men did for me.