WR: Mysteries of the Organism [Yugoslavia 1971]

WR - Misterije organizma
Director: D. Makavejev
Cinematographers: A. Petkovic, P. Popovic

Not released in Yugoslavia until 1988, this film is a 'personal response' to the theories of Wilhelm Reich, interspersing documentary footage shot in the USA with narrative footage shot in Yugoslavia. While it makes use of a wide range of evocative and sexually explicit symbolism, it seems to be putting forward a rather simple Freudian argument for free love under socialism.

Reich was a purveyor of rather bizarre theories involving blue-coloured cosmic energy and 'blockages' associated with sexual repression. More importantly for the theme of this film, he was a Communist early in life and claimed that fascism was a result of sexual repression. Later, after visiting the Soviet Union, he labelled Communism as 'red fascism', a phrase repeated in this film. This is central to one of the points of the film, which is that the cult of personality, whether of Hitler, Stalin, or Mao, is basically a result of people being sexually frustrated and transferring sexuality onto the leader figure, who becomes a phallic symbol, and who seemingly must perpetrate acts of violence in order to perpetuate this (thus being associated with an 'arrow' or a 'spear' thrown into the enemy camp). Makavejev goes further and claims that free love is necessary for socialism; not only does repression result in the cult of personality, but it also stunts and stultifies people--Trotsky's theory of permanent revolution, says Makavejev, must become a theory of permanent orgasm.

Apparently, followers of Reich repudiated the film from the beginning, claiming Makavejev tricked them into co-operating with the production by promising he would not portray Reich as advocating free love. But this seems beside the point. The film does not claim to be an exposition of Reich's ideas, even if it has been sometimes represented in that way, but rather as a 'response' to them. More broadly, and particularly given its thematic focus on the 'sexual revolution' occurring in the USA, it can be seen as fitting within the general Freudian current of the sexual revolution in general, as described in the excellent documentary by Adam Curtis. Thus, Reich's particular ideas aside, Makavejev associates sexual repression with political and social repression, and essentially argues that while both the American dream and the Soviet one have failed, Yugoslavia should chart a new path involving both worker self-management and sexual liberation.

This must be placed within the context of contemporary events in Yugoslavia. Through the sixties, corruption and inequality grew, partly as a result of the decentralised self-management system and managerialism within self-managed firms. Workers began to call for a more radical form of socialism, and in 1968, when this film began to be filmed, there were student demonstrations along the lines of the New Left in the West, calling for an end to the 'red bourgeoisie' (also attacked in this film), and for more socialist reforms. This film, while it was not released, can be seen as a contribution to that movement; while the parallel between the cult of personality and managerialism is not explicitly drawn, it seems clear that the film is making an argument that sexual liberation will have to be a part of solving the problems within Yugoslav socialism. Because of Yugoslavia's special situation, it perhaps became a place where, for a time, some of those on the New Left held some real hope that their ideas would be realised.

What of the merit of the argument of the film? Given that Freudianism has now been largely discredited and replaced by modern cognitive psychology and neuroscience, the theoretical idiom of 'repression', 'blockages', 'natural forces', etc. is of course rather outdated. However, as evidenced e.g. by the film by Curtis, as well as by anecdotal reports by patients of psychoanalysts, it seems the Freudian doctrine has succeeded at times in producing good predictions; so, while Freudian theories are false, they probably latched onto some important empirical regularities. The best way to assess the argument of the film is not in terms of its rather mystified theoretical vocabulary, but in terms of its empirical fit. This is not bad in a couple of areas.

First, the film counterpoises Soviet sexuality, represented by a classical-type Soviet ice skater, to the nascent sexuality of Yugoslavs, and depicts Soviet sexuality as stultified and repressed. This is also the depiction of the older generation in Yugoslavia, presumably reared on the same basis. One of them says that sex takes away energy from other, more noble pursuits like labour; and the Soviet man is totally ignorant of sex and unable to speak of it or in the end perform it. These characterisations fit very well with what is known about sexuality in the USSR, as argued in e.g. Kon's The Sexual Revolution in Russia. Kon describes how, after an initial period of normative liberalisation in the 1920s, followed by an influx of peasants into administrative and intellectual positions, Soviet sexual attitudes reverted to something more akin to traditional peasant values. The idea was repeated more than once that sex drained energy that is more properly used for labour, high culture, and participation in society. According to Kon, up until 1985, sex was something not to be spoken of, and not to be encouraged for any reason other than procreation. But the data he cites show that practices were, of course, increasingly at variance with norms. So the picture painted by this film of Soviet sexuality as stunted, Soviet man as naïve and ignorant about sex and unable to perform sexually, and the traditional Soviet Communist view being that sex for pleasure was detrimental to one's energy, seems entirely too accurate.

There is another interesting point mentioned by Kon that seems to go along with the film. That is the curious observation that Stalin was sexualised by a great deal of people, and made the subject of private (not written) sexual verses, peasant songs, etc., in which he figured as a great sexual conqueror with many wives. Apparently this was part of the way in which some people idolised him; and one does wonder if in a sexually stunted society, some people saw sex in the cult of personality in the same way as some people saw it in the cult of Elvis. However, while this is an interesting fact, it does not, of course, confirm the assertion by the film that the cult of personality was caused by sexual repression, nor does it translate to Freudian 'transference' of repressed sexual urges onto a phallic symbol of a leader. In the final analysis, the psychology around the cult of personality is bound to be a bit more complicated (and, I dare say, a great deal less mystified) than this; but it is interesting food for thought.

As for the metaphor of the Soviet ice skater and the Yugoslav woman, the metaphor seems to carry over beyond the realm of the purely sexual. The Soviet man says that the Soviets are confident that the Yugoslavs will eventually learn from their own experience that the Soviet way is best; the Yugoslav woman admires him for his athletic prowess and the show he puts on. But in the end he is impotent, unable to do anything but violence to her, and to eventually kill her, because he himself does not know what to do once things get beyond putting on a façade. She thus accuses him of perpetrating a monumental lie. The point is clear: Soviet socialism is a hypocritical, joyless failure, and by allowing itself to be taken in by the USSR, Yugoslavia can only be destroyed. While the point is made on a sexual level, it seems clear that it is intended to encompass the economic and political as well. In the context of the events of the late 1960s, this is a clear call for Yugoslavia to move in a new direction toward a more authentic socialism, or risk annihilation.

A further interesting detail is the way in which the footage in and about the USA serves to criticise the socialist countries. A woman who lives there says that in socialist countries, everyone has been conned into believing in a dream of the future and forgetting that they do not have enough to eat today; then she says that the American dream is also a total failure. The Soviet ice skater points to a poster of an impressive view of New York City, and says that the capitalist countries really have failed; what they lack is personal happiness, even if they have material well-being. This is clearly intended as an ironic moment. And even if American society is clearly not idealised here--there is a moment of display of the grotesqueness of advertising; there is the statement about the failure of the American dream; there is the crazed man in military costume masturbating his assault rifle--one could be forgiven for thinking that the vanguard of the sexual revolution is in the USA. Perhaps the point is to be critical of both the USA and the USSR, and point to a 'third way' for Yugoslavia; but the USSR certainly comes in for more criticism.

Formally speaking, the film makes heavy use of montage, with many sexually explicit shots, including actual sex, a woman taking a plaster cast of a man's penis, frank discussion of masturbation, and so on. Partly this may be for shock value; but a lot of it is clearly intended to create symbolic associations, as when the plaster casting scene is immediately followed by a shot from a Chiaureli-style film of Stalin, suggesting that both are a transference of phallic power. There is not really a lot to be said for the film formally, however; the point it seems to be making becomes rather repetitive and obvious after a while, and so the attempt to drive home the symbolism becomes a bit tiresome.

It is, of course, interesting that this film was made in the first place, although it was not released. That perhaps says something about Yugoslavia at the time. As one of the few places where Western Marxism and the New Left gained a toehold in the socialist world, Yugoslavia was bound to produce something like this. But the fact that it was not released also shows that there were still lines that could not be crossed. As a theoretical statement about sexual problems in socialism, the film fails largely because its argument is too simplistic and too couched in Freudian ideas. However, it succeeds as an indictment of the sexual stultification of the Soviet Union and perhaps of some other socialist countries. Regardless of one's opinion on free love and the 'sexual revolution', it is hard not to accept the conclusion that such an important part of life as sexuality has great effects on other aspects of social life, and that extreme conservatism about sexuality in the USSR must have had some role to play in its other failures.