The main character wanted a love act in the scene, but found himself in the middle of a discussion about ideology.
"Submission to social discipline causes stomach ulcers and respiratory diseases....
"You are a shameful remnant of our past, comrade Radmilović," the scrawny girl says briskly.
She is Milena, a young communist, giving speeches about women's rights, and in the film WR Mystery of the organism, by Dušan Makavejev, which caused controversy when it was first shown.
The character played by Milena Dravić othe brothers are Radmilović, a representative of the working class, who constantly provokes her.
And Makavejev, one of the pioneers of the Black Wave in Yugoslav film, did not obey.
The authors of this film genre were left-wing, criticizing the society of the time, realizing that the revolution did not bring the same progress to everyone.
"Few have managed to connect revolution as a political theme, sexuality and the psychoanalysis of human consciousness as he did," says Nikica Gilić, a film theorist from Croatia, to BBC Serbian.
Makavejev defied traditional norms and paved the way for then unacceptable topics such as the role of sex and love in revolution, criticizing both communism and capitalism equally.
Like many of his comrades, Makavejev was more respected abroad than in his own country, where he was unable to film for years.
"He was the most important professor I ever had, he taught me how to live," says Joshua Oppenheimer, an American director (Act of murder, Country) and one of Makavejev's students at Harvard University.
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Makavejev is the winner of numerous domestic and international awards, and a hall of the Yugoslav Cinematheque in Belgrade is named after him.
Skinny director, how they described him, passed away at the age of 86 on January 25, 2019.
"He is now a canonical author, he has entered British and American film anthologies, and his place in the film world is much better than during his lifetime, as is usually the case."
"When such a great man dies, he is no longer dangerous, and his greatness is recognized," believes Gilić.
Provocative and shocking
Makavejev attracted international attention with the film WR: Mysteries of the organism, although his previous achievement Innocence without protection, two years earlier, in 1968, won a prestigious award in Berlin.
"The mystery of the organism "is his epochal work, where he masterfully presented the culture of the 1960s and the cinematic, political and intellectual spirit of society, but for the Yugoslavia of that time it was provocative and shocking," says Gilić.
Pervaded by the idea that sexual and political liberation cannot be separated, the film was awarded at the Cannes Film Festival in 1971, but Yugoslav audiences were unable to see it until the middle of the following decade.
It's official was not banned - the film approval committee allowed the screening, but the Public Prosecutor's Office intervened and prevented the screenings.
"Our path into the future must be life-positive. Comrades, socialism and physical love must not be in conflict."
"Socialism cannot exclude human pleasures from its programs. The October Revolution failed on the issue of free love.", is the famous scene where the character played by Milena Dravić utters it on the balcony of a Belgrade building.
By thoroughly researching the work of German psychologist Wilhelm Reich, Makavejev found inspiration for this work.
The human soul has attracted him since his youth.
Before venturing into the world of film strips and lenses, he studied psychology.
Due to the problematic portrayal of communist ideology in WR Mysteries of the organism, he had to leave the country, but years later stated that "Yugoslavia was a wonderful environment for filmmaking."
'The most complex film from a communist country'
Born in Belgrade, between the two world wars, in 1932, Dušan Makavejev acquired his first knowledge of film at the famous Kino Club Belgrade, where many later celebrated film workers took their first steps.
"It was a special operation, there were always some secret projections, which only professionals could see."
"Then on Tuesdays and Fridays we would wait for the film truck, take two rolls, run with them through the restricted areas to the booth and stay to watch," the director recalled on the show. Portrait, Mystery of Maccabees.
In the meantime, he graduated in directing from the Faculty of Dramatic Arts in his hometown.
Already in the first feature film The man does not care from 1965. Makavejev deviates from the themes of Yugoslav cinematography to that time.
Set in a bleak industrial town in Slovenia, the film follows an older man's affair with a young and carefree hairdresser played by Milena Dravić.
"The most original, most intelligent, most witty and most significant film of the year."
"The most sophisticated and complex film from a communist country," write Vinsent Kenbi u The New York Times 1974. years.
With provocative and daring scenes, Makavejev continues to act in the film A love affair or a tragedy of a PTT employee showing the dark sides of life in the former Yugoslavia.
The film became recognizable for its, for its time, unusually explicit scenes of nudity, especially a shot in which actress Eva Rass lies on a bed with a cat perched on her buttocks.
Because of this, it was partially censored in some countries, including Great Britain, where that particular scene was cut.
"In him we can also see a love for film, amateurism, technology, and history," says Professor Gilić.
A face in world cinema
Dušan Makavejev found himself behind the lens during the student demonstrations of 1968, filming the events on the streets of Belgrade every day.
At that time, students in Yugoslavia, among other things, asked for democratization of society, abolition of bureaucratic privileges and solving economic issues, primarily unemployment.
A decade later, in the early 1980s, Makavejev would meet actor Svetozar Cvetković.
"He was superiorly intelligent."
"He knew how to talk about ten topics at the same time and take you as an interlocutor from one to the next, while covering each one with knowledge and wit," the actor describes the director for the BBC in Serbian.
Cvetković acted in three of Makavej's films - Montenegro, The Manifest i The gorilla bathes at noon.
When Bojana, Dušan Makavejev's wife, called him to offer him a role in Montenegro, which was filmed in Sweden, Cvetković, a young actor at the time, had no dilemma.
"There was no classic question of reading the script first, not with Makavejev," he says, adding that he could talk about the director "so much."
With this film, Cvetković was at the Cannes Film Festival for the first time, and Mak, as he calls him, brought him a chimpanzee, since that animal was his partner in Montenegro.
Cvetković had the most radical experience during filming. The gorilla is bathing in the afternoon.e.
These were the first days of a united Berlin, as the wall that divided the western and eastern parts of Germany was finally torn down in 1989.
They were filming a story about a Russian general trying to prevent the demolition of the largest monument to Soviet communist leader Lenin in East Berlin.
Cvetković recalls that they found the costume at a local flea market and that he spent an entire day on the bust, around Lenin's head, wiping off the paint.
They had a modest budget, and the cast consisted of eight people.
The filming plan was devised day after day, as they cruised the streets.
"Mak sees something interesting, we stop and film it," he recalls those days.
During these rides through the streets of Berlin, they encountered a large film crew, including the famous German director Wim Wenders.
"That's when I realized that Mak, as we would say today, was a big name in the top world of cinema and that everyone knew him," says Cvetković.
The story of a Russian general won the award for best film in Berlin.
Lessons about freedom
Makavejev left socialist Yugoslavia in 1973 for the capitalist United States of America, where he taught at the prestigious Harvard University.
"I admire America. It has always been my dream, as it has been for many."
"Regardless of anything bad about the United States, it is a country of freedom and respect for the individual," he said decades later.
In the fall of 1995, he met Joshua Oppenheimer from his student days.
"To be able to attend his class you had to reserve a spot in advance," he recalls.
In the classes they didn't learn about editing, shots and filming and how to translate a script into images, but about freedom.
"He taught us how to free the mind, throw off restraints, and supported and encouraged everyone in whom he recognized that desire for freedom."
"He had an infectious laugh, like an immediate, receptive bird's melody," Makavejeva describes.
But, he adds, he was not just a professor, but a friend.
This intimacy and admiration can also be seen in the way Oppenheimer speaks about him.
Oppenheimer, now a director, saw Makavejev again in Belgrade in 2013 and 2015.
His movie Act of murder (T) about the mass, organized execution of communists, their supporters, and innocent people in Indonesia in the 1960s, received high praise at the Belgrade Beldocs festival in 2013.
Two years later, Oppenheimer's second film was presented to the Belgrade audience. A look of silence.
Both times, his bearded professor, already gray-haired, was in the audience.
Makavejev in the movie WR Mysteries of the organism combines fiction with documentary material, a principle that Oppenheimer applied in his first film The entire history of the Louisiana Purchase in my student days.
Warm, gentle, creative and curious
Nikica Gilić met Dušan Makavejev only once - in 1999.
He was, as he recalls, fascinated by the director and his wife Bojana.
"An intellectual conversation in a very relaxed, friendly spirit, and he was warm and kind," Gilić describes their only meeting.
He is especially pleased that younger generations increasingly understand the role and importance of Makavejev in the world of cinema.
Svetozar Cvetković last saw "his Mak" on October 13, 2018.
It was Makavejev's birthday, and as always, his wife Bojana was there.
"She was his assistant in work and in life, and he did incredible things, eternally curious and creative," the actor adds.
That day, Joshua Oppenheimer spoke for the last time with his most important professor.
"Knowing him was like a very good adventure," concludes the American director.
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