Criterion Collection: WR - Mysteries of the Organism [DVD] [1971] [Region 1] [US Import] [NTSC]

It's the heart-breaking narrative of Reich's persecution interwoven with moments that highlight the absurdity of sex that make this work so powerful. I saw it first in 1980 in the UK and that screening still reverberates.

Nothing against Mr. DeMeo, who's posted a comment complaining that the film is not historically accurate. I used to subscribe to DeMeo's mailing list and found him a bit humorless. I think the whole *point* of this is that it's a work of art, not a documentarian's take on Reich's work.

Say what you will about Makaveyev's work as a whole, this one is a winner.

WR: Mysteries of the Organism (Dusan Makavejev, 1971)

Dusan Makavejev has the greatest name in all filmdom. I get it stuck in my head on a regular basis. Which has absolutely nothing to do with WR: Mysteries of the Organism, Makavejev's best-known film and one that appears on an impressive number of thousand-best lists, as well as in Roger Ebert's book Great Movies. Makavejev took a page from Vilgot Sjoman's I Am Curious and spliced documentary with sex comedy, but where Sjoman's flick is an unwatchable mess that takes itself way too seriously, Makavejev's gets the spice blend just right and comes up with a winner. It took over three decades for the film to find its way to a widely-available American DVD (thank you, Criterion), but it was well worth the wait.

The documentary portion is about Wilhelm Reich, German philosopher and nutcase who built his entire philosophy around the idea of sexual freedom being related to a (non-existent) substance called orgone. (Reich's books on the subjects of both sexuality and orgone have been in print on and off ever since he wrote them, and shouldn't be hard to find at all; they make for highly amusing reading if you're a philosophy geek.) The Reich Foundation and Reichians around the globe had about the same reaction to it as did Makavejev's own government, who banned it in record time after its release. And to be fair to them, it's hard not to imagine the irrepressible Makavejev not snickering behind his hand in the editing room as he was cutting this flick. Then again, you've got to wonder how the subjects felt after viewing Errol Morris' far more serious Gates of Heaven.

The fictional bit is a classic tale of two friends who over the years have become very different, done Soviet-style-- one has become a rampant Socialist activist, while the other has become a crusader for sexual freedom. (Actually, the bits where the two philosophies collide and meld into one at an impromptu rally are far more convincing, if less realistic, than the documentary portions of the film.) The party girl has an affair with a famous Russian ice skater (cue huge amounts of subtext here), while her politically motivated friend tries to warn her away. Given the relationship between Russia and Yugoslavia, which is at the heart of Makavejev's film (both parts; Reich, whose philosophy attempted to unite Freudianism and Marxism, was castigated by Stalin), you know from the beginning that this cannot end well. The only suspense to be found is in wondering just how badly things will go. Which means you're sitting there watching a funny, sexy film and just waiting for the shoe to drop-- so that when it does, the effect is all the more devastating despite you knowing it's coming.

Deeply felt, powerful, and well worth watching even if you know nothing whatsoever about Soviet politics during the Cold War. ****

Reykjavik, Iceland Film Festival, September, 2000.

I was not sure what to expect from this. I am a longtime fan and student of all things Yugoslavian. I had seen Makavejev's comparatively commercial film A Night of Love prior to screening two of his more obscure films, Sweet Movie, which is nothing less than visually frightening and decidedly disturbing, and this, Mysteries of an Organism. With more disturbing visual imagery and borrowings from surreal fantasy, the second half of the film is more like a "film" in that it tells a story of a Yugoslav woman, who, like all women portrayed in the film, is very sexually liberated, and claims that this is so because all women have been justly liberated by the revolution and socialism in Yugoslavia. When she meets a visiting Russian figure skater, she realizes that the Soviet ideals of socialism are limiting and lead only to repression of the self. She tries to teach him that love and socialism are not at odds with each other, but are indeed intertwined. When they finally make love, he ends up killing her because his passions and love have been so repressed. The first half of the film, which is a bit excessive and strange, is more documentary in style, but it does illustrate the points that are made more eloquently in the second half of the film by probing the life of a man (whose name i cannot recall) who was demonised by the US government.

The screening in Reykjavik was luckily accompanied by the director himself explaining his ideas and what he hoped to accomplish. This is a fascinating film, a total departure from American, or really, any other films of any genre or nationality.