Dušan Makavejev, W.R.: MYSTERIES OF THE ORGANISM (W.R. Misterije organizma, 1971)

“A human being averages 4,000 orgasms per lifetime—do not turn off this pulsating motor of joy and life energy,” says controversial psychologist Wilhelm Reich in Dušan Makavejev’s W.R.: Mysteries of the Organism. This astounding 1971 docufiction film pays homage to the work of Reich, who believed in the radical power of sexual discharge. Makavejev’s kaleidoscopic montage envisions sexual liberation as a world revolution, stretching all the way from Reich’s laboratory in Maine and Tuli Kupferberg’s New York City to socialist Yugoslavia. Charting the intersection of sexuality and politics, the film remains a fascinating and provocative artifact of seventies counterculture. Come and see what makes this surreal arthouse smash its own pulsating motor of joy you won’t want to turn off.