WR: Mysteries of the Organism

There are, unfortunately, a class of critics, who are so insecure that rather than call something they don't understand a screwed-up film, they instead label it a masterpiece. This earlier effort from Yugoslav filmmaker Dusan Makavejev (Montenegro, The Coca Cola Kid) picked up an award for best film at the Luis Bunuel Film Festival (an accolade which reflects poorly on Bunuel rather than elevates this obnoxious film). WR is an amateur grafting of documentary (on the life of sex psychologist Wilhelm Reich) and fiction (the boring and pointless parable of a romantic who falls in love with a Russian dancer and is beheaded). Interspersed throughout are snippets of explicit sex films (with political commentary on the soundtrack), footage of a man undergoing electroshock therapy, roomfuls of people engaging in primal scream therapy, and a quite pointless (but apparently shocking) look at former Screw editor Al Goldstein having his member plaster cast. What Makavejev is trying to say is anybody's guess, but the refrain which seems to run throughout this confusing melange of gratuitous everything is that without sexual freedom (as in "free love") the revolution is destined to fail. This idea is about as dated (and about as valid) as the Edsel, but even more infuriating is the director's insistence that political oppression turns people into robots (that's tenable), but that "free love," as in mount anything that walks, is an expression of individuality. That's not only stupid, it's offensive and completely contradictory. Makavejev, whose idea of art is to shoot a nude actress emerging from bed from several different angles (Greta Scacchi in The Coca Cola Kid) is a dirty old man masquerading as an artist. It's too bad that critics who should know better don't have the brass to expose him as he has gleefully disrobed so many others. Not recommended. (R. Pitman) [DVD Review—July 10, 2007—Criterion, 85 min., in English & Serbo-Croatian w/English subtitles, not rated, $39.95—Making its first appearance on DVD, 1971's WR: Mysteries of the Organism sports a great transfer with Dolby Digital Mono sound. DVD extras include an audio commentary assembled from Raymond Durgnat's 1999 book on the film (read by Daniel Stewart), writer-director Dusan Makavejev's 1994 film 'Hole in the Soul,' originally produced for the BBC (53 min.), two interviews with Makavejev from 1972 (28 min.) and from 2006 (30 min.), clips from Makavejev's 1992 'improved' British television version (5 min.), and an essay by critic Jonathan Rosenbaum. Bottom line: a fine extras package for a film that has a huge critical/cult following—as well as a handful of detractors, including us—and has never looked better.]