Ikonophile Z

• Watchlist

Self-styled "revolutionary" Chris (T. Ryder Smith) is besotted with critical theory and can't stop talking about it. He is about to self-publish a book entitled "On Distraction", and is wrestling with "branding" himself, as per the advice of Laura, (Mitzi Akaha), a photographer with a special interest in ikons and a sideline baking pot brownies. In NYC over the course of several weeks, as Covid restrictions ease, Laura, Chris and his long-time on-and-off girlfriend, sociology professor Vanessa, (Betsy Aidem), meet virtually and in person to debate a vast range of thinkers and issues including identity politics, universality, praxis, the lumpenproletariat, escape from capitalism, the Haitian revolution, #MeToo, BLM, Guy Debord, Bernard Steigler, Achille Mbembe, the plays of Sophocles, the Twilight Zone, art-house cinema and fully-automated communism. The film culminates in a trip Chris and Laura take upstate where their hotel balcony overlooks Indian Point nuclear power plant. Will Chris stop talking long enough to make either relationship work? Does everything have to change for anything to change? And more importantly, have the birds of Central Park been replaced by cleverly-designed machines?