W. R.: Mysteries of the Organism (W.R. - Misterije organizma) poster & wallpaper

Milena Dravic, Ivica Vidovic, Jackie Curtis

A dense film that cuts up footage of a primary plot of two young Yugoslavian girls, one a politico and the other a sexpot, and an affair with a visiting Russian skater. Mixing metaphors of Russia's re...( read more  read more... )lationship with Yugoslavia, intercut with footage and interviews with Wilhelm Reich and Al Goldstein of Screw magazine. The film applies Reich's theories of Orgone energy and analogies of Stalinism as a form of Freudian sexual repression. Also known as W.R. The Mysteries of the Organism in English subtitled version. Was banned in Yugoslavia shortly after it was made.

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78% liked it

781 ratings

Critics

85% liked it

13 critics

NC-17, 1 hr. 25 min.

Directed by: Dusan Makavejev

Release Date: October 13, 1971

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Flixster Reviews (93)

  • her69eyes
    August 17, 2009
    her69eyes
    I went into "WR: Mysteries of the Organism" completely cold. It was the first of Yugoslavian auteur Dusan Makavejev's films that I had seen, as well as the first time i'd been exposed to Willhelm Reich. Needless to say, I was at a loss for words. It's a fascinating film - complet...( read more)ely obscure, without restraint, and with such bizarre juxtapositions that I felt I needed to pause to take in what I was watching. Did I like it? Sure, I guess... well, I guess I really didn't know what to make of any of it.

    The first third of the film is largely a documentary about the controversial psychiatrist Willhelm Reich. Reich once served as an assistant to Freud, and his fascination was with the politics of sex. Among his innovations was the "Orgone Box" - what appears to be a small sauna. The exterior is organic material, and the interior is coated with metal and a single window. Allegedly, the user can sit in this box, and it will get their libido flowing to such a phenomenal extent that it could cure major diseases. This bizarre energy, which he calls "orgone", is enhanced via sexual therapy that involves intense breathing exercises that resemble extended orgasms. Reich ended up becoming a refugee from Hitler's germany, was imprisoned in the United States because of the belief that he was dangerous, and died while under U.S. custody.

    Sounds like a fairly normal documentary, right? Well, I haven't got into the rest of it. Most bizarre is a melodrama involving a Yugoslavian communist woman, Milena (Milena Dravic), and her roommate, Jagoda (Jagoda Kaloper), who practice free love and preach the benefits of sex. A Soviet ice skating champion, Vladimir Ilyich (Ivica Vidovic) comes to town, and while having sex with Milena he experiences an orgasm so intense that he cuts off Milena's head with a skate. Bodyless, she still preaches her radical politics.

    Ending the plot synopsis here would leave out Jackie Curtis, a transvestite pal of Andy Warhol, Tuli Kupferberg, a hippie running roughshot in a city clad in military gear and clutching an M-16, and a magazine editor getting his penis cast in plaster.

    I will not undersell the enormous vision of the film. The editing, which makes cuts as absurd as a shock therapy treatment to a Reichian workshop of people attempting to, I assume, raise their orgone levels, is certainly the star of the film. It's bizarre and all over the place, but never frustrating enough to give up on completely. As a whole, "WR: Mysteries of the Organism" is absolutely a bizarre spectacle - one that is simultaneously horrifying, profound, confusing, hilarious, pornographic, and so on. See it with an open mind and you're guaranteed to take something out of it, no matter what that may be.
  • shannylee38
    February 8, 2008
    shannylee38
    Although it is a VERY strange film, it is a must see because of two things: Sex and Politics. It cannot get better than this. The film might seem a bit to sophisticated and philosophical at times, but there are still other things to enjoy!!!
    It is not a typical conventional nar...( read more)rative film, but a collage which brings two separate subjects into one concept that might makes sense in the end. You might not understand what in the world im saying, but just enjoy yourself watching this "documentary" and you'll understand.
    Dont forget!!! There is Sex and Politics!!! It definitely wont be a disappointment!
  • ralch
    September 8, 2009
    ralch
    WEB. Una de las pocas películas que retratan el espíritu de libertad sexual de los años 60-70 y no se siente anticuada ni banal. Es irreverente, pero todo está calculado y estructurado con sumo cuidado. / One of the few pictures that portrays the spirit of sexual freedom from the...( read more) 60s-70s and doesn't feel dated or banal. It is irreverent, but everything is calculated and structured quite carefully.
  • sheriefzohairy
    July 27, 2009
    sheriefzohairy
    I didn't enjoy the strange style of this film as much as i enjoyed the concept behind it.
  • RisingSunce
    March 18, 2009
    RisingSunce
    I was amazed with this film, it was something completely different and refreshing - when I think of Serbian film up to that moment. I don't really want to say anything regarding this one, people should just watch it.
  • HuskersNC949597
    December 18, 2008
    HuskersNC949597
    Pr0n as social commentary, or something. Depends on how you feel about Freud.
  • jes25924
    August 21, 2008
    jes25924
    There's a documentary in this film about Wilhelm Riech that is fascinating, and a mini-film about the relationship between a Yugoslavian activist and a Russian Ice skater, lots of old propaganda films featuring Stalin, and man dressed as a soldier wa...(read more) lking around Ne...( read more)w York and reciting poems in voice over.

    Willhelm Riech was a psychologist and communist studying Freud, who came to the conclusion that the orgasm was essential to health, life, and world socialism. From here became a celebrity, guru, anti-pornography activist, and a bit of a mad scientist, until his writings were seized and burned by the US. Food and Drug administration, and he was eventually incarcerated(though for what this film is unclear).

    The mini-film seems weird at first but makes sense if you think of the man as Russia and the Soviet System (which banned Riech's work and drove him out, as would the US later), and the woman as Yugoslavia (where the director is from). According to Riech there can be no true communism or true democracy until sexuality is made free, and the workers maintaining a healthy regiment of orgasms (the bodies self regulating life energy?).

    Like that crazy general in Dr. Strangelove, who became "enlightened" when he refused to give woman any more of his precious "life energy", Riech and director Makavejev and by extension Kubrik seem to think many of our political tensions have sexual relationships we ignore, until it manifests as it's inverse, violence. Which is what I gather the "talking head" at the end is supposed to signify, the horrors of the world, without Riech's orgasms, deep breathing and primal screaming (actually the part that made the most uncomfortable), and Orgone accumulator Boxes(which look a lot like small closets).

    Riech's free love world is very much one of the 70's, a time before venereal disease, a time before public and ritual rape in Congo became the military weapon of choice(as a horrific 60 minutes report last night discussed...yeesh), before internet porn, but only a year after the Stonewall Riots, a strange time for sex and the state.

    Anyway, it was very well made, the music by very early underground rock band "The Fugs" stands out a lot in particular. The editing though jarring at first, is also the great device of this film, alternating fact, fiction, and dramatization in ways which were revolutionary for its time and pretty fresh now. The real revolution of this movie is probably found in it's technical skill with the material, which veers from comic, to realistic, to pornographic without announcing itself.

    The scene with everyone passing the egg yoke, was the one I found most effective. Nothing is said in that scene, but there's a palpable sexual tension and repulsion in it, that sets the tone for the rest of the movie.

    "Absurdistan" is a word I learned, for life under Soviet control, how many felt like the bureaucracies had reduced their lives to a kind of absurd theater of Kafka story(people forced to publicly ask to be executed, etc.), a lot of the films and art to come under this umbrella is similarly fragmented and anarchic, which may help to explain "W.R. Mysteries of The Organism", which is an interesting, and very stylized, if dated curiosity, and look at sex at communism.
  • ozrenn
    January 4, 2008
    ozrenn
    Pretty damn disturbing... a must see
  • caffeinatedalex
    October 5, 2007
    caffeinatedalex
    Freakish, bizarre, unfocused, and only moderately satisfying. The movie is hugely sexed up, starting off as a documentary about a sexual scientist, but ranging freely between several other stories. The movie tries hard to desensitize the viewer to it's own sexual nature by upping...( read more) the ante at almost every turn, climaxing with a bizarre sexual encounter and murder. While interestingly shot and concepted, there's little more to focus on in this movie than a broad idea.

View All W. R.: Mysteries of the Organism (W.R. - Misterije organizma) Reviews

Critic Reviews

October 23, 2004
Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times

An insanely brilliant comedy. full review

View more W. R.: Mysteries of the Organism (W.R. - Misterije organizma) reviews at RottenTomatoes.com

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