Cinema
WR: Mysteries of the Organism
W.R. – Мистерије организма
Dušan Makavejev · 1971
Synopsis
Two kinds of material alternate. On one side, a documentary investigation of Wilhelm Reich, the psychoanalyst who linked social oppression to repressed sexuality, of his American disciples and of his end in prison, interspersed with scenes of New York counterculture and Stalinist archives. On the other, a fiction set in Belgrade: Milena, a young communist who regards revolution as a sexual liberation, sets out to seduce a Soviet skater, Vladimir Ilyich.
Context
The film grew out of a documentary that the author prepared in the United States around 1968, thanks to a Ford Foundation grant, and which a German television station financed; it was produced by Neoplanta Film, in Novi Sad, in co-production with the Federal Republic. Banned in Yugoslavia from its release, it earned its author the label of suspect artist and the road to exile, and became a cult film abroad.
Who it is for
About eighty-five minutes, in Serbo-Croatian, English and Russian, with no continuous narrative. The sexual images are explicit.
Prizes and reception
The best-known and most influential film by its director, fifth among the hundred Serbian films classified as cultural property in 2016.