Examined Life

BACK BY POPULAR DEMAND! |  "The unexamined life," goes the well-known maxim attributed (by Plato) to Socrates, "is not worth living." Well worth watching — and a popular hit during its premiere at Pacific Cinémathèque in March — Examined Life is an entertaining and rather unlikely documentary that pulls philosophy out of the classroom and puts it out on the streets. Like 21st-century versions of Socrates roving the Athens agora, the film features some of today’s most influential thinkers and prominent public intellectuals — including Cornel West, Avital Ronell, Peter Singer, Kwame Anthony Appiah, Martha Nussbaum, Michael Hardt, Slavoj Žižek, and Judith Butler — out and about and expounding on the Really Big Questions: truth, meaning, morality, ethics, justice, democracy, citizenship, living authentically. Canadian filmmaker Astra Taylor’s previous doc was Žižek!, a feature-length portrait of the provocative Slovenian thinker; one of the high points here has the animated Zizek expounding on ecology — and puncturing environmentalist pieties — in front of an urban garbage dump. "A thoroughly engaging documentary...playing off the centuries-old practice of great thinkers finding epiphanies in city rambles...Cornel West steals the show (and naturally testifies to the showmanship of oratory) as he extrapolates on the funk and blues of human nature in the backseat during a New York drive" (Guy Dixon, Globe and Mail). "Consistently invigorating...One of the most intellectually stimulating films of the year. Examined Life truly feeds your head" (Steve Gravestock, Toronto I.F.F.). Colour, 35mm. 90 mins.