W.R.: Mysteries of the Organism

W.R.: Mysteries of the Organism is a film by Dusan Makavejev that explores the relationship between communist politics and sexuality, as well as exploring the life and work of Wilhelm Reich. It features interviews with Reich's children Eva and Peter .

Sub-plots of the film

The film is a series of plots and interviews intercut with one another. Dispite different settings, characters and time periods, the different plots produce a single story of human sexuality and revolution through a montage effect. The film's subplots are Toy Soldier, Organon, Betty Dodson, Yugoslavian Communists, Transexual Interview, Screw Magazine, and Nancy Godfrey and Jim Buckley.

Toy Soldier

The Toy Soldier is the work of a performance artist who, dressed as a soldier parodies the war, and the sexual nature of man's fascination with guns by masturbating his toy rifle. The film stock used in this segment is late 1960s film colour, and suffers from light bleaching effects in the "on-location" filming. The most common shot sequences used are full-body, middle distance shots, which challenge the viewer with the stage-performance aspect of these sequences. The "Toy soldier" plot commences early in the film, in a poor New York neighbourhood plastered with pro-communist slogans. Two female assistants help the male performer prepare his costume. During the middle part of the film, the performance artist storms areas of affluent, buisiness oriented New York. As part of the climax of the film, the soldier's gun masturbation is intercut with other orgasmic sequences.

Organon

This documentary part of the film focuses on Reich's work pioneering vegetotherapy and his treatment by the American community in which Organon (Reich's research centre and home) was based. This plot features interviews with Eva and Peter Reich (Reich's children), practioners of vegetotherapy , friends of Reich, and community members who recall dealings with Reich. Footage of vegetotheraphy in progress is shown. This plot is primarily at the beginning of the film, and lulls the audience into believing that neither montage, nor fictive material will be present in the film. Standard documentary techniques are used (flat interview photography, voice over, location shots minus characters). This plot fades towards the background as the film progresses.

Betty Dodson

Betty Dodson is an artist who asked friends to masturbate in her studio so she could draw them. Dodson discusses her experiences in drawing acts of masturbation, as well as her discussions within consciousness raising groups about female sexual response. The Dodson sequences are relatively straight forward documentary interviews, but the presence of Dodson's large scale drawing of a man masturbating dominates the background of the shots.

Yugoslavian Communists

Milena and her roommate Jagoda are proponents of free sexuality and work democracy . Milena avoids her previous lover, the proletarian Radmilovic in order to court the Russian artist Vladimir Illych. As Milena and Jagoda discuss freedom of sexuality as it relates to revolutionary freedom, Radmilovic pursues Milena by ripping down walls, to no avail. Radmilovic drunkenly accuses the Yugoslavian ruling class of being a red bourgeoisie .

Milena is a metaphor for the Yugoslavian working class's struggle for liberation against the totalising influence of Russian communist state. Milena is killed when her sexual encounter with Vladimir Illych (the representative of Russian communism) goes awry. He, unable to fully experience his orgasmic urge, beheads her with his ice skate which is the film's metaphor for recolutionary theory. Makavejev dooms self-determination of the Yugslavian people, and the struggle of people worldwide for true freedom, to the fate of being totalised by Russian state communism, and the quest for sexual freedom to be overshaddowed by "red fascists".

The Yugoslavian plot is primarily shot in interiors or sound stages. The coupling between Milena and Vladimir occurs in a winter exterior and river, generating both a divorce from Milena's previous life and a sense of eroticism combined with alienation. The use of a dramatic sequence in otherwise documentary material is confronting, and produces an effect similar to a literary essay. Milena's final declamation on sexual and revolutionary politics continues the film's subversion of its own formal construction.

Transexual Interview

This sub-plot explores the fear of sexual awakening, and the joy of living as ones self through an interview with an unnamed transexual. Most of these interviews are conducted in active locations: walking 42nd Street to contemporary (1970s) Radio advertisements for beauty products or in a moving vehicle.

Screw Magazine

Screw is a magazine or newspaper where sexual issues are discussed. The film only shows one scene of Screw magazine. People work there in the nude.

Nancy Godfrey and Jim Buckley

Nancy Godfrey is an artist who makes a cast of Jim Buckley's erect penis on film. This scene was a point of contention for the censors, so on most prints Buckley's penis is covered with psychedelic colours added in editing.

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