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.
Imagine that Emir Kusturica (Black Cat, White Cat, Underground) was commissioned by the Institute of Orgonomy to make a film about the theories of pseudo-psychoanalyst Wilhelm Reich. This is the film they would reject.
It is, unfortunately, one of those films that sincerely believes that, because it is at once both anti-American and anti-Soviet, it must be ipso facto correct. Alas, from a 50-year perspective, it merely appears like a tragic portrait of mental illness.
