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


Makavejev’s WR: Mysteries of the Organism (1971), has for me, from an ideological standpoint, been one of the most difficult films to understand. Perhaps this is because many of the allusions are lost on me; perhaps it is due to an incomplete understanding of what Makavejev is, through Wilhelm Reich, is really arguing for with respect to sexual and political liberty. Whatever the cause, just when I found myself drawing one particular conclusion or another as I viewed the film, a new image was placed before me that complicated my claim. Perhaps this is because, as Gary Morris states, “Reich was, like Makavejev, an unapologetic liberationist, disgusted by both communism’s hatred of creativity and capitalism’s idolatry of consumerism.” Makavejev never gives any definite conclusions, leaving it up to us to interpret the significance of specific juxtapositions.

In many scenes, it seems that the phallus is used as a stand-in idol, paralleled with consumer culture, that dictates political freedom or repression. I say this because imagery pertaining to ejaculation appears not only as a comment on war, with Tuli Kupferberg cocking his machine gun as symbolic of it, but also as a comment on the site of his action – New York City. Is Makavejev drawing a parallel between the commercialism of the U.S and the sexual desperation that causes both an increasing commercialism to flourish as well as a need for war? This seems to be the conclusion we are asked to draw, that capitalism thrives on repression, both political and sexual, and that communism liberates people from such repression.

Nothing in this film is so simply stated, however, for just as soon as we think we have discovered the message behind images of Stalin and of American advertisement and consumer culture/excess juxtaposed with phallic imagery and war-crazed ejaculation, we face the ending of the film, where Milena has been beheaded after achieving “a perfect orgasm” with Vladimir Ilyich. She dies in achieving sexual liberation, yet states, “even now I am not ashamed of my Communist past.” What exactly are we to conclude from this statement? Is liberation (Communism) dangerous in that it requires man to give up “control”, thereby leading to destruction? (Milena had to be destroyed because she made Vladimir lose control). If this is the case, then are we also being asked to consider that though Communism can lead to a loss in perceived control as part of the greater liberalization process, it is still favored to the maddening repression that capitalism feeds off of? Clearly both systems are flawed. The best way for me to think about these problems further is to examine them in light of one comment made in Owen Hatherley’s “I Still Dream of Orgonon”: “Above all, WR is an internal debate within socialism itself, against its repressive proponents and for its original promises.” (Where “repressive proponents” may be alluded to in the Vladimir character and “original promises” in Milena.)