Movie: The Films of Dusan Makavejev

After recently watching two of Dusan Makavejev's most popular films I feel the need to write something about them so as not to forget completely the emotions stirred by the experience. The two films were WR: Mysteries of the Organism and Sweet Movie. Both deal largely with the same underlying theme: The influence of socioeconomics on human behavior.

To even begin describing the films a little background information is necessary. In the 1930's a man named Wilhelm Reich began making waves in the infancy of psychoanalytics. Reich is best known for his theory of Orgone energy which can briefly be described as the electrical energy emitted by all organisms including humans. Reich believed that concentrating this energy by isolating an organism in a wooden box insulated with metal, certain maladies could effectively be cured, namely cancer. Now, this is a bit crazy but the theories that preceded this ridiculous invention are not so crazy. Reich believed that many of the destructive idiosyncrasies harbored by humanity were the result of the refusal to accept and to explore sexuality. He would go on to establish clinics where people could receive sex therapy. In these clinics they would be taught about contraceptives and the idea of free love, challenging their general fright and ignorance of their more basic desires. This was obviously controversial at the time because free love is a concept which is fundamentally incompatible with capitalism. Capitalism is predicated on individual ownership and looking through that lens one could say that a relationship is a situation of mutual ownership. The members of a relationship own each other, including the act of sex, preventing other people from borrowing what could be seen as a protected commodity. Free love in contrast can be seen as a very communist ideology. In communism, all commodities are owned by everyone. Individual ownership doesn't exist so within that system relationships would be dissolved and people would share each other equally, share the act of sex equally. Reich believed this was the more advantageous approach because if sex was free, people would partake in the act more often resulting in an overall healthier society.

WR: Mysteries of the Organism focuses on two major characters, a passionate activist obsessed with sparking the fire of communist revolution with the ultimate purpose of free love, and a free lover by nature who instead of trying to change the world around her, simply indulges herself without worrying about the guidelines of the socioeconomic climate. As the narrative develops the finer details of the absurdity born of taking yourself too seriously become clear. The lover lives perfectly happily while the activist is constantly mired in words and ideals rather than ever once partaking in the behavior she so passionately advocates. Yet I think the underlying point of the film is to express the necessity of both characters within a society. Activists take it upon themselves to guide social evolution, they affect policy, they influence perception, they express new ideas and educate the masses. Lovers on the other hand live, they reap the spoils of the hard work of the activists while showing the activists a clear portrait of what they're fighting to preserve. Lovers have no qualms about transgressing the rules of modern society and because of that they are a model of the happiness activists so passionately strive for. Unfortunately one must come to terms with the fact that social evolution is a cross-generational process and many activists and lovers on both sides of any conflict are going to wind up being casualties. 

Sweet Movie is very similar although more expansive in theme. The main character in Sweet Movie is a relatively naive and ignorant young girl who is exposed first to the idea of capitalist ownership then the extreme lack of ownership in anarchism. The film begins with her being sold off to an absurdly rich man who is seeking sexual purity. He's bothered by the risk of disease from prostitutes and as an alternative decides to buy a wife to fulfill his desires as efficiently and safely as possible. This is the ultimate expression of sexuality in the context of capitalism. Sex is bought like any other product or service and the transaction is very industrial, mechanical. There is no emotional development, no sense of partnership, simply the pursuit of the solution to loneliness and paying for it with the spoils of hard work. Obviously this is a sensationalized example, but it does make one reflect on how little of a stretch this is from reality. The girl, disgusted by the thought of herself as an object is cast away into society and eventually winds up a member of a group of anarchists. But she finds their existence just as disgusting as the capitalist. Since anarchy is predicated on the ultimate freedom of the individual, any individual is free to take part in any behavior available to them, and given that we're ultimately a disgusting organism, mired in blood, piss, shit, and ejaculate, anarchic life is a bit disgusting to someone previously initiated with clean civilization, which can be looked at as the avoidance of bodily fluids and the control of bodily urges. The final scene of the film shows the girl as an actress in a commercial for chocolate, she is writhing in a pool of it, sexualizing the product. She's decided that selling her body to commerce is advantageous to a life of lawless chaos. There is a completely separate narrative in this film, but after a little research I discovered that the other narrative was only added because the main actress quit half way through filming due to a few more extreme scenes she found to be uncomfortable and offensive. For this reason I won't examine the other narrative, but I will note the irony of using an actress to portray the evils of using people. Obviously I defend any filmmaker's efforts to do so however because people need to experience extreme characterizations in order to understand the limits of human behavior.

Both films deal with extremes. They show us sensationalized examples of the influence of socioeconomics on human behavior and in doing so they burn unforgettable images into our minds which ultimately serve the purpose of reminding us to be aware of our surroundings, to remind us what civilization is, the structure of it, the evolution of it, the potential evils and the potential subjective fulfillment born of it. We are constant spectators of the ever-changing beast that is the spirit of the times and have the freedom to align ourselves with it or rebel against it. And I'd say if you're fascinated by that sort of reflection these films are worth the investment of time. If not keep a wide berth. These films will offend you.

Movie: The Face of Another

The Face of Another is a film based on the Japanese surrealist novel of the same title by Kobo Abe. I've read a few of Abe's novels, but not this particular one, giving me the opportunity to experience the story with fresh eyes. Of course I know Abe's style which often involves taking a character and thrusting them into the unknown, into situations so absurd that their world or their perception of the world is completely changed which ultimately transforms their identity. In this particular story the protagonist suffers an explosion which covers his face with grotesque scarring. In order to live without horrifying the people around him he resigns himself to wearing bandages around his face at all times.

As this man navigates the world he realizes that he has begun to embrace the identity of a man without a face. The people of the bustling city around him interact with him with only cursory gestures. They're not horrified or startled, merely curious and when their curiosity is sated they avert their eyes and carry on with their lives never connecting with him on any emotional level. As he starts to embrace his new life as a permanent outcast he falls into despair which manifests itself as anger, especially toward his wife. She still performs all of her wifely duties but a distance forms between them emotionally and physically.

As the man falls deeper and deeper into loneliness his doctor, who originally treated his injury, informs him of the possibility of a radical procedure which will affix a mask over his face concealing the scarring and allowing him to re-enter society. The doctor is overwhelmed with worry about this procedure because of the psychological implications. When a man has the ability to assume another identity what would stop him from losing all accountability? A man could do great evil under the guise of someone else and then rid himself of the mask and the resulting guilt. And assuming anyone had this power there would no longer be any trust. There's no telling who you'd be interacting with, who you'd be sharing your secrets with, who you'd be in love with.

The doctor reluctantly performs the procedure with one caveat. The man is to be under constant surveillance so that any extreme behavioral changes can be monitored preventing him from doing anything destructive. Of course the man agrees and of course he rebels against this surveillance the first moment he can. He wants to experience his new identity, experience its effect on people without prying eyes. He approaches old friends and is delighted by the fact that they treat him as an attractive stranger. Then he becomes consumed by the unresolved tension with his wife. He decides to attempt to seduce her as a demonstration of how easily she can be swayed away from his previous deformed identity. This is a shameless trap, it's a demonstration of narcissism, exactly what the doctor feared.

The man is successful in seducing his wife, but is surprised to find out that his wife knew all along that this new man was in fact her husband. She agreed to their secret rendezvous to punish him for trying to deceive her. The man is stricken with complex emotions, but at this point his sense of guilt has become polluted. Is he a new person? Or is he his old self turned rotten by the ability of adulterating his past? He takes to the streets in a state of embarrassed disorientation and attacks a pedestrian. The doctor comes to his aid rescuing him from the police telling them that he's an escaped mental patient.

This story is a thought experiment, a meditation on the limits of identity. It attempts to approach the subject in a novel way and I think the audience comes away knowing a little bit more about the fragility of our personalities. It's common for people to embrace their identity as static, to perceive it as their unchanging soul, but our identities are simply collections of our past. Subtle changes in our lives change who we are over time and radical changes have the potential to send us spiraling into the depths of insanity. Death is the only event that brings about the end of our constant transformation.

5/5