WR: Mysteries of the Organism

WR: Mysteries of the Organism (1971) is Dušan Makavejev's provocation, and you can watch it online on iFILM. The Yugoslav director slams documentary against fiction, politics against sex, in one of Eastern European cinema's most reckless experiments.

Two threads run side by side. The first plays almost like reportage on Wilhelm Reich, the Austrian analyst who preached the energy of orgasm, emigrated to America, and died behind bars on an obscenity conviction. The second unfolds in socialist Belgrade, where free-spirited Milena falls for a buttoned-up Soviet figure skater on tour, and their affair curdles into a sharp parable about how ideology cripples desire. Between scenes Makavejev splices in Stalin-era newsreel and the street antics of New York's counterculture.

Banned in Yugoslavia for over a decade, the film earns its tagline: the picture they swore we'd never see. It's for viewers ready for jagged montage, pitch-black humor and cinema where political satire is inseparable from the body. Milena Dravić and Ivica Vidović take the leads. Stream WR: Mysteries of the Organism (1971) online on iFILM.