Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

WR: Mysteries Of The Organism

Collapse
X
Collapse
  •  
    Ian Jane
    Administrator

  • WR: Mysteries Of The Organism

    Click image for larger version

Name:	cover.jpg
Views:	1
Size:	18.2 KB
ID:	383287

    Released by: Criterion Collection
    Released on: 6-19-2007
    Director: Dusan Makavejev
    Cast: Milena Dravic, Ivica Vidovic, Jagoda Kaloper, Jackie Curtis, Tuli Kupferberg, Miodrag Andric
    Year: 1971

    The Movie:

    Croatian filmmaker Dusan Makavejev's Wilhelm Reich inspired WR: Mysteries Of The Organism takes the philosopher's ideas - primarily that orgasms are good for your health, that fascism is a result of sexual repression and that the libido regulates the flow of mankind's sexual energy - and puts many of those idea up on screen. While Reich originally rose to prominence working alongside Sigmund Freud, as the political landscape of Europe changed in the thirties and into the forties, his theories and thesis' would become increasingly political. If you've seen Makavejev's better known Sweet Movie, you'll know that sex and politics are right up the director's alley.

    The plot of the film, such as it is, mixes up footage of a singular running plot which follows two beautiful young Yugoslavian girls, one a political activist and the other a sex maniac, who get mixed up in a love affair with a Russian visiting their country to compete as a skater who just so happens to have never had an orgasm. From there, the film intercuts archival footage of Wilhelm Reich and clips showing various sexual deviants and artistic types (including Warholian hanger-oner Jackie Curtis) hanging out around the core of Manhattan, including an interesting bit involving SCREW magazine. It also interjects bits with Tuli Kupferberg of The Fugs dressed as a soldier who strokes his rifle in masturbatory fashion and a scene in which an artist named Nancy Godfrey makes a plaster cast of Jim Buckley's fully erect penis.

    WR: Mysteries Of The Organism was banned in Yugoslavia shortly after it was made and the director stayed out of his homeland for quite some time afterwards. The film also caused quite an uproar when it played in the United States and in England as well, and it seems that a lot of what Makavejev was trying to communicate was simply lost on an audience either unfamiliar with Reich's theories (and therefore unable to understand the way Makavejev mixed up sex and politics in this picture) or just unwilling to accept that there may be any validity to them. Underneath the sex and violence that is absolutely put into the film with the intention of shocking and titillating, however, is a pretty earnest message about the dangers of fascism and sexual hang ups and how the two relate. If you don't hold Reich's theories in any sort of regard, you probably won't agree with the points that it tries to make and it's probably really not quite as simple as saying 'the world would be a much happier place if everyone got laid as often as they'd like' but even the most puritanical right wing pundit has to agree that a healthy sex life has it's pros.

    More importantly, the film also possesses a rich sense of humor. There's a playfulness to its explicitness that ensures (if we're paying attention, at least) that we see the lighter side of the plights Makavejev points out. He's poking fun at the Soviet's because they don't see the humor in things and he's poking fun at the American's because they're too damn prurient when it comes to sex for their own good. He does so with some rather abstract and almost surrealist moments, but the comedy is there and the movie is a fascinating mix of pseudo-documentary, comedy, commentary, allegory and a celebration of human sexuality.

    Video/Audio/Extras:

    Criterion's 1.66.1 anamorphic widescreen transfer is a good one. Properly flagged for progressive scan playback, the image quality is strong throughout. There's a bit of mild print damage and some shots look grainier than others but colors are strong without looking artificially boosted and detail levels are very good. Black levels are good and while skin tones have been intentionally played with a bit here and there, sharpness and contrast look dead on. There aren't any problems at all with compression artifacts, edge enhancement or aliasing and the transfer probably looks as good as the elements could realistically allow for.

    The audio quality of the Dolby Digital Mono track is fine. Some scenes are spoken rather softly but not to the point where it's really a detriment. Dialogue is generally quite well balanced and there are no problems with hiss or distortion to complain about and generally things sound just fine here, the score in particular has some nice resonance to it.

    The first extra is a commentary track in which actor Daniel Stewart reads excerpts from Raymond Durgnat's 1999 book on this film which confirms in no uncertain terms the effect that Stalinist politics has had on Makavejev's picture. It also explains many of Reich's theories and how they clash with the fascist politics that Makavejev is lashing out against here and in some of his other films. There's the standard biographical information interspersed here, which helps us to understand Makavejev's position on things a bit better, but this track is at its best when its dissecting the many layers of the picture, which it does frequently and with refreshing honesty.

    From there we move on to a pair of interviews with Makavejev, the first shot in 1972 for Danish television is a twenty-eight minute segment in which the director speaks, in English, about how he worked Reich's ideas into this picture. The commentary covers a fair bit of the same ground but it's interesting here to get to hear Makavejev explain things in his own words. The second interview is a twenty-nine minute interview shot in 2006 where Peter Cowie basically interviews Makavejev about his film. This provides a retrospective look back at the film, its history, and its influence and it allows its creator to look back on it from a more modern perspective.

    The disc also includes two BBC related extras, the first of which is a five minute bit with Cowie and Makavejev in which they discuss how the BBC requested that the director make an 'improved version' of the film for broadcast - clips with digital censoring show how ridiculous it would be to try to make this film fit into that sanitized mold. The second BBC related extra is a documentary that Makavejev produced in 1994 called Hole In The Soul, which is a strange fifty-two minute autobiographical piece which he narrates. It's interesting in that it covers some of the controversy he's found himself wrapped up in over the years and uses pertinent clips to explain some of these issues.

    Also included inside the keepcase is a full color booklet containing disc and film credits as well as an enlightening essay from Jonathan Rosenbaum entitled WR, Sex And The Art Of Radical Juxtaposition which sheds some welcome contextual information on many of the film's themes and ideas.

    The Final Word:

    Criterion has provided an exceptional package for a truly unique piece of work. As thought provoking and incredibly well made as WR: Mysteries Of The Organism is, it's certainly not a film for everyone but those with an interest in the correlation of sex and politics as they relate to artistic expression and personal freedom will certainly appreciate Dusan Makavejev efforts and this extras laden DVD is the right way to do that.
      Posting comments is disabled.

    Latest Articles

    Collapse

    • Hot Spur (Severin Films) Blu-ray Review
      Ian Jane
      Administrator
      by Ian Jane


      Released by: Severin Films
      Released on: April 30th, 2024.
      Director: Lee Frost
      Cast: Joseph Mascolo, Virginia Goodman, John Alderman
      Year: 1969
      Purchase From Amazon

      Hot Spur – Movie Review:

      Director Lee Frost and Producer Bob Cresse's film, Hot Spur, opens in Texas in 1869 with a scene where a pair of cowboys wanders into a bar where they call over a pretty Mexican waitress and coerce her into dancing for them. She obliges, but
      ...
      03-22-2024, 11:53 AM
    • Death Squad (Mondo Macabro) Blu-ray Review
      Ian Jane
      Administrator
      by Ian Jane


      Released by: Mondo Macabro
      Released on: April 9th, 2024.
      Director: Max Pecas
      Cast: Thierry de Carbonnières, Jean-Marc Maurel, Denis Karvil, Lillemour Jonsson
      Year: 1985
      Purchase From Amazon

      Death Squad – Movie Review:

      Also known as Brigade Of Death, French sleaze auteur Max Pecas’ 1985 film, Death Squad, opens with a night time scene outside of Paris in the Bois de Boulogne Forest where cars pass by a small gang of transsexual
      ...
      03-22-2024, 11:46 AM
    • Roommates (Quality X) Blu-ray Review
      Ian Jane
      Administrator
      by Ian Jane


      Released by: Quality X
      Released on: February 28th, 2024.
      Director: Chuck Vincent
      Cast: Samantha Fox, Vernoica Hart, Kelly Nichols, Jerry Butler, Jamie Gillis
      Year: 1982
      Purchase From Amazon

      Roommates – Movie Review:

      Directed by Chuck Vincent and released in 1982, Roommates opens with a scene where a young woman named Joan Harmon (Veronica Hart) gets a hotel room with an older man named Ken (Don Peterson, credited as Phil Smith),
      ...
      03-15-2024, 01:10 PM
    • Night Of The Blood Monster (Blue Underground) UHD/Blu-ray Review
      Ian Jane
      Administrator
      by Ian Jane


      Released by: Blue Underground
      Released on: March 26th, 2024.
      Director: Jess Franco
      Cast: Christopher Lee, Maria Rohm, Dennis Price
      Year: 1970
      Purchase From Amazon

      Night Of The Blood Monster – Movie Review:

      Directed by Jess Franco, The Bloody Judge (or, Night Of The Blood Monster, as it is going by on this new release from Blue Underground) isn't quite the salacious exercise in Eurotrash you might expect it to be, and while it
      ...
      03-15-2024, 01:07 PM
    • Phase IV (Vinegar Syndrome) UHD/Blu-ray Review
      Ian Jane
      Administrator
      by Ian Jane


      Released by: Vinegar Syndrome
      Released on: March 26th, 2024.
      Director: Saul Bass
      Cast: Nigel Davenport, Michael Murphy, Lynne Frederick, Alan Gifford, Robert Henderson, Helen Horton
      Year: 1974
      Purchase From Amazon

      Phase IV – Movie Review:

      Saul Bass’ 1974 sci-fi/thriller Phase IV is an interesting blend of nature run amuck stereotypes and Natural Geographic style nature footage mixed into one delicious cocktail of suspense and
      ...
      03-15-2024, 01:02 PM
    • The Bounty Hunter Trilogy (Radiance Films) Blu-ray Review
      Ian Jane
      Administrator
      by Ian Jane


      Released by: Radiance Films
      Released on: March 26th, 2024.
      Director: Shigehiro Ozawa, Eiichi Kudo
      Cast: Tomisaburo Wakayama, Minoru Ôki, Arashi Kanjuro, Bin Amatsu, Chiezo Kataoka
      Year: 1969-1972
      Purchase From Amazon

      The Bounty Hunter Trilogy – Movie Review:

      Radiance Films gathers together the three films in Toie Studios’ Bounty Hunter Trilogy, starring the inimitable Tomisaburo Wakayama. Here’s how the three movies in this
      ...
      03-13-2024, 11:30 AM
    Working...
    X