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.