Dusan Makavejev's WR: Mysteries of the Organism is the most precise manifestation of Makavejev's personal perspective of socio-political liberation, according to Gary Morris' review. The WR could refer to Wilhelm Reich, a psychoanalyst convicted of medical quackery for a form of therapy he developed based on his invention in the 1930s of orgone energies. Reich became a cult figure in the 60s as his publications resurfaced. Makavejev, interested in the parallels between Reich's practices and his own visions of a utopia that merges sexual and economic liberation in the socio-political sphere, invested himself into the project of creating a poetic documentary weaving various aspects of sexuality and socialist ideals of the 60s.
The film is a juxtaposition of seven plots. The opening scene introduces the Orgone plot. The camera zooms in on unidentified hands passing an egg yolk around in a circle. The yolk breaks and the hands begin to interweave sensually, mired by the ooze. The action demonstrates a large theme in Reich's work. He picked up on the Freudian notion of sexual repression and decided that the body should be considered an outlet for the subconscious. The Reich plot takes a documentary form showing clips of interviews with Reich himself and clips of the Orgone theory as it transforms from physical therapy to mystical therapy.
Makavejev wheedles his audience into seeing a connection between socialism and sexuality. (For more on conceit, see the metaphysical love poem The Flea, by John Donne-- in which the speaker uses a tick bite metaphor to seduce a woman.) Immersing ourselves into the documented progress of Reich's strange therapy, Makavejev massages our imaginations while our minds begin to anticipate facts. Eisenstein's discusses meaning as a derivation from clashing images. The film's montage form and helps us extract Makavejev's personal socio-political hopes by noting how the separate plots are orchestrated and associated by juxtaposition.
Speaking of poetry, one could consider the composition of the film like that of a poem. It connects both reality with fiction, lacing the two with metaphors, and these elements together effectively occult a narrative or perspective, with the camera lens replacing the speaker of the poem. Makavejev extracts our emotions with vivid sexuality (i.e. Jim Buckley's onscreen hand job), excruciatingly awkward therapy sessions (i.e. a woman's arduous reenactment of her own birth), and various other moving moments, to exchange the imagery we imagine through poetic language with imagery on a screen for our own assemblage of language.
I think the perspectives both Makavejev and Reich are bigoted. Despite his championing of physical releases of repressed desires, it is known that Reich expressed conservative views about sexuality. He frowned upon masturbation and he was homophobic. Makavejev addresses homophobia with the Jackie Curtis biographical moments. (She was a famous transgendered poet, play write, and film star who is accredited with starting the glam rock movement) and he celebrates cross-gendered lifestyles laced with a vague mocking of capitalist materialism (i. e. she walks down the street in full glittery drag in a scene dubbed with radio advertisements for various beauty products and other consumer goods). Additionally, Makavejev shoots Curtis riding in a car's backseat, as she explains, in emotional detail, her first gay foray. Here, Makavejev captures the sense of sexual awakening. The scene could also function as decoy for egalitarian sexuality on Makavejev's behalf. Anticipating our assumptions that Makavejev and Reich have similar reservations about sexuality, the film included a refutation for those seeking elements of bigotry against homosexuality.
I saw a tint of bigotry in the film. Admittedly, I was armed with a conviction that most films addressing sexuality, regardless of genre, tend to invest in the celebration of the female libido, or the problem of it's inaccessibility with respect to plot advancement. Disproving my assumptions could have made for a more entertaining film; oh well I guess.
The Organon therapy sequences focused on scantly clan woman reenacting sexual their memories whereas the men of the therapy group, dressed in less revealing clothing, were shot participating in breathing exercises. So here, Makavejev highlights an objectification of women as Reich had practiced.
Furthermore, the femme fatal figure, which inspired a cultural repression of sexuality by conservative socialists, is debunked, overtly, as an inherent characteristic of women by Makavejev through the fictional political rally scene. We hear anti-institutional outcries such as bourgeoisie marriage is licensed prostitution. However, the charismatic leader of the rally is a feisty cute girl dressed in a sexy military uniform, which subtly conjures the femme fatal figure but removes her from an overtly sexual context. Instead the seductress is liberated but as a source of the crowd's energetic outbursts in political rally. The girl becomes a simulacrum for the femme fatal, bringing the myth back into consideration and not debunking it after all. She seduces men as a political activist which holds onto the idea of women as seductresses. Rallies for economic liberation become a cosmetic for the encouragement of female sexual liberation. The film even relies upon the female libido as the core or initiator of political revolt, as if addressing supporters of conservative socialism: Bind our women from willing themselves into sex with us and expect a revolt! Male sexual liberation arguably completes the couplet of sexual liberation in the film. However; it appears to be trivialized or somewhat of a novelty because heterosexual male sexuality is mocked or serves as advancement for comedic points. The Tuli Kupferberg (of the Slovenian experimental music group, Laibach) scene coupled with the the Stalin mugshot suggests a mocking of Stalin and the tyrannical polities he represents. However, the joke facilitates simulated male self-satisfaction with a gun, to suggest comedy and effectively mocks male sexuality to make its sardonic point. If Makavejev agrees that the liberation of sexuality, both male and female, as a progressive political stance which leads to a happy society, then wouldn't being referred to as a dick head be somewhat of a compliment?
And now: Laibach
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