(13 October 1932 - 25 January 2019)
The Serbian screenwriter and director Dusan Makaveyev, who has died at the age of 86, will be remembered for his important contribution to Yugoslavian cinema from the 1960s onwards, which was part of a critical, anarchistic experimental film movement called Black Wave. He will be particularly celebrated for his film W.R.: Mysteries of the Organism (1971) which put him on the global cinema map. However, on account of its coverage of sexual and communist politics, in a documentary study of the life of psychoanalyst Wilhelm Reich, it mixed fact and fiction in a satirical way that unhinged the Yugoslavian authorities, and they banned the film for some sixteen years. Makaveyev’s cinema career began in the mid-1950s with a number of short films until his first feature in 1965, Man Is Not a Bird. This was followed by Love Affair, or the Case of the Missing Switchboard Operator and Innocence Unprotected. After W.R.: Mysteries of the Organism was banned by the oppressive political movement in his home country, Makaveyev moved to Canada to make Sweet Movie in 1974. It was another explicit film about sex which thereby limited its release to art house cinemas. Montenegro (1981) was made in Sweden with Susan Anspach and Erland Josephson. It was about a housewife who, seeking sexual liberation, tries to pep up her life by eating all her family’s food, setting light to her bed and poisoning the dog. The Coca-Cola Kid (1985), a satire on global branding, was made in Australia with Eric Roberts and Greta Scacchi. Eventually returning to Yugoslavia in 1988, Makaveyev made Manifesto (1988), a more conventional comedy-drama based on a book by Emil Zola about revolutionaries trying to assassinate a despotic European king. The cast included Alfred Molina, Simon Callow, Lindsay Duncan and Eric Stoltz, but it received only a limited release. Makaveyev went on to make more shorts, TV documentaries and two more features until his last in 1996. He was a vital voice in political cinema, albeit one that at times found difficulty in being heard. Dusan Makaveyev was married to Bojana Marijan, who often worked with him as an assistant or second unit director, writer and producer.
MICHAEL DARVELL
