WR: Mysteries of the Organism
WR: Mysteries of the Organism • 1h 24m
Directed by Dušan Makavejev • 1971 • Yugoslavia
Starring Milena Dravić, Ivica Vidović, Jagoda Kaloper
What does the energy harnessed through orgasm have to do with the state of communist Yugoslavia circa 1971? Only counterculture filmmaker extraordinaire Dušan Makavejev has the answers (or the questions). His surreal documentary-fiction collision WR: MYSTERIES OF THE ORGANISM begins as an investigation into the life and work of controversial psychologist and philosopher Wilhelm Reich and then explodes into a free-form narrative of a beautiful young Slavic girl’s sexual liberation. Banned upon its release in the director’s homeland, the art-house smash WR is both whimsical and bold in its blending of politics and sexuality.
Up Next in WR: Mysteries of the Organism
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Dušan Makavejev on Danish Television
Though it toured the European festival circuit, WR: MYSTERIES OF THE ORGANISM was particularly well-received in Scandinavia. In this interview, conducted for Danish television in 1972, filmmaker Christian Braad Thomsen questions director Dušan Makavejev about revolutionary cinema and radical libe...
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Dušan Makavejev on WR: MYSTERIES OF T...
In October 2006, film scholar Peter Cowie sat with Dušan Makavejev to talk about the people and ideas that populate WR: MYSTERIES OF THE ORGANISM. In this interview, the director also discusses the effect the film had on his life and career, and his many years in exile from his native Yugoslavia.
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The “Improved” Version
In 1992, the UK’s Channel 4 approached Dušan Makavejev about reediting WR: MYSTERIES OF THE ORGANISM, as, due to an antipornography crusade, the channel could not air it. Rather than refusing or cutting, the director gleefully intervened in his own film, using computer graphics to challenge notio...
