The film intercuts documentary footage and clips from other films — notably the Stalinist propaganda film
The Vow (1946) — with an imaginative and satirical narrative about a highly political
Yugoslav woman who seduces a visiting
Soviet celebrity ice skater. Despite different settings, characters and time periods, the different elements produce a single story of human sexuality and revolution through
montage. The woman, Milena, violates her
proletarian convictions (and rejects the sexual advances of a worker) by pursuing a
Joseph Stalin-like celebrity
ice skater — Vladimir Ilyich (
Lenin's first name and
patronymic) — who represents both
class oppression and corruption from
the West into communist beliefs. She succeeds, with difficulty, in sexual consummation, but V.I. is unable to reconcile his inner conflicts and ends the encounter by decapitating her. Distraught, V.I. sings a
Russian song after the murder: "
François Villon's Prayer" by
Bulat Okudzhava.
Sequences Tuli Kupferberg Poet and performance artist
Tuli Kupferberg of the band
The Fugs, dressed as a soldier, parodies war and the sexual nature of some peoples' fascination with guns by stalking affluent
New Yorkers on the street and masturbating his toy rifle. The scene is set to The Fugs' 1965 song "Kill for Peace". As part of the film's climax, the gun masturbation imagery is intercut with other orgasmic sequences. This segment highlights Reich's ideas that sexual frustration and violence are connected.
Artists Artist
Betty Dodson discusses her experiences in drawing acts of masturbation, as well as her discussions within
consciousness raising groups about female sexual response. The Dodson sequences are relatively straightforward documentary interviews; Dodson's large scale drawing of a man masturbating dominates the background of the shots. This segment illustrates a freer attitude toward sexuality. New York artist Nancy Godfrey was among a loose group called
Plaster Casters, who were known for taking
plaster casts of rock stars' penises. In a meeting with
Jim Buckley, co-founder-editor of the porn magazine
Screw, Godfrey makes a plaster cast of Buckley's erect
penis as a documentary part of the film. The soundtrack features another song by The Fugs, "I'm Gonna Kill Myself Over Your Dead Body", with Tuli Kupferberg satirically mimicking
John Wayne in his
a cappella vocals. This scene was a point of contention for censors. On UK video prints Buckley's penis is covered with
psychedelic colors added in editing (the cinema version was unusually approved fully uncut).
Jackie Curtis Jackie Curtis, a
cross-dressing member of
Andy Warhol's entourage and star in his films, is shown on the streets of New York enjoying an ice cream cone with a partner. Curtis' appearance highlighted Reich's theories of gender and sexuality.
Screw Screw was an
underground magazine that pioneered in bringing hardcore
pornography into the American mainstream during the late 1960s and early 1970s. The film shows a behind-the-scenes look at the publication, in which editor Jim Buckley casually consorts with his nude models.
Screw's notorious co-founder and editor
Al Goldstein is neither seen nor referred to in this sequence.
Alexander Lowen The film features a rare on-screen interview with neo-Reichian therapist
Alexander Lowen, the founder of
bioenergetic analysis, during a
therapy session, including
scream treatment.
Other sequences Reich's daughter Eva (1924–2008) appears on camera, speaking about her father's work and the sickness of contemporary life. The
Orgonon, Reich's last home and lab near
Rangeley, Maine, USA, is seen with brief shots of the interior and exterior, including a
cloudbuster. The film includes re-stagings of scenes from
Sergei Eisenstein films, alluding to the montage era of film making in the Soviet Union. Shots of the incinerator in which Reich's books were burned in New York City are included. ==Cast==