In his groundbreaking tome Film as a Subversive Art, Amos Vogel praises WR as “unquestionably one of the most important subversive masterpieces of the 1970s,” and he quotes Makavejev's own description of the film: “a black comedy, a political circus, a fantasy on the fascism and communism of human bodies, the political life of human genitals, a proclamation of the pornographic essence of any system of authority and power over others.” That about sums up WR and its broad ambitions, which are sometimes admirable, sometimes perverse, and sometimes just silly.

Because Makavejev and just about every critic who has ever written about the film describes it as a satire, it's sometimes hard to know when Makavejev is being serious and when he's undercutting something. The film's insistence on the power of sex to liberate us both intimately and politically is a clear product of the post-1960s era in which it was made, and while some may find such a carefree, libidinous attitude toward sexuality morally offensive, it is primarily naïve (or, to be more positive, idealistic). This leaves us with an important question: Is this very stance part of the film's satire, a purposeful overstatement of the power of any one thing to overcome everything else?

Granted, this is not exactly satire on the level of obviousness occupied by Jonathan Swift's admonition that the Irish eat their children to avoid starvation. However, proposing sex--and sex only--as the answer to political problems is so patently absurd that it is best read it as satirical. The reification of anything worldly as the absolute answer to everything will invariably lead to ridiculousness of some form or another, sex included. Just look at Hugh Hefner: While his dapper, liberated lifestyle was a true shock to the middle-class complacency of the 1950s, now he has been reduced to a parody of himself, an octogenarian sharing a palatial mansion with bimbo triplets for the viewing pleasure of VH-1 reality TV addicts.

WR: Mysteries of the Organism begins as a playful and thoroughly engaging documentary about Austrian psychoanalyst Wilhelm Reich, who claimed to have discovered a “universal life energy” he called “orgone.” Reich, who fled Austria after the Nazis annexed the country and moved to the United States, was a follower of Sigmund Freud and a pioneer in linking sexuality, neuroses, and politics (in a sense, he was trying to bring together Freud and Marx, a continuing project in leftist cultural studies). After designing and constructing so-called “orgone accumulators,” which he claimed could harness orgone and help in the healing of everything from cancer to impotence, Reich was investigated by the FDA and was eventually sent to prison.

It is not surprising that Makavejev finds Reich to be such an important figure: Not only do Reich's theories regarding sexuality resonate with Makavejev's own (although some claim that Makavejev has distorted the good doctor's views, especially in the way the director completely disassociates sex from love), but he was ultimately punished for them. Whether you consider Reich a quack or a misunderstood genius, the very fact that a U.S. judge ordered that all of his published works mentioning orgone be burned will send chills down your spine.

As it turns out, Reich is just a jumping-off point for WR, the majority of which is a collage of images and scenes, both documentary and fictional, that do more to rattle the senses than construct any genuinely meaningful argument. If you know what to look for, then Makavejev's mélange has a subversive impact, particularly in the fictional story of Milena (Milena Dravic), a female revolutionary in Yugoslavia who rejects Radmilovic (Zoran Radmilovic), her proletariat lover, in favor of Vladimir Ilyich (Ivica Vidovic), a model-beautiful Soviet ice skater who is constantly referred to as “The People's Artist.” There is little emotional impact in this story because the characters are not people, but rather symbolic stand-ins: Milena is the face of the true revolutionary spirit, Radmilovic is the manipulated worker class, and Vladimir Ilyich (note the name allusion to Lenin) is the surface-attractive, but ultimately repressive and sick face of Soviet communism. These sections of the film consist primarily of the characters espousing various platitudes, some of which are meant to represent Makavejev's political views and others of which are amusing parodies of perfectly formed “communist speak.” However, there are some amusing screwball moments, such as Milena trying to seduce Vladimir Ilyich while the frustrated horndog Radmilovic literally bursts through the wall in an attempt to claim her.

The rest of the film is interspersed with various bits that are meant to underscore the possibility of sexual liberation and to criticize the moral bankruptcy of a consumer culture (the soundtrack is littered with advertising jingles for products like Coca-Cola, which interestingly presages Makavejev's one foray into commercial filmmaking, 1985's The Coca-Cola Kid). Thus, we get scenes of Jackie Curtis, a transsexual member of Andy Warhol's Factory, talking about her first sexual experience with a man and later decision to become a woman; counterculture poet Tuli Kupferberg, dressed up in a parody costume of a U.S. soldier, freaking people out on the streets of New York City while he reads his poetry on the soundtrack; and artist Nancy Godfrey making a plaster cast of Screw editor Jim Buckley's erection. Sprinkled throughout are clips from The Vow, a 1940 Soviet propaganda film lionizing Josef Stalin, which Makavejev juxtaposes ironically with the corruption of Stalinism.

As a whole, WR: Mysteries of the Organism doesn't really hold together. It requires the glue of one's own subversive ideologies to make it stick, and if you're in any way wary of Makavejev's agenda, much of it will play as more ridiculous than meaningful. However, even if you don't fully appreciate WR's message of free sex as political freedom, it is impossible to deny the film's cultural impact. Makavejev's bravery in making such an explicitly anti-Soviet film in the shadow of the Iron Curtain is enough to validate his efforts, even if they aren't as successful as he would like them to be.

Copyright ©2007 James Kendrick

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