A Serbian Film

The opening scene of A Serbian Film (2010) features a young boy staring in open-mouthed awe at a pornographic movie he stumbled upon by accident.  The suggestion by director Srdjan Spasojevic seems to be that some things, once seen, simply cannot be unseen.  And it’s an apt metaphor, considering that his film will leave just as many scars on its audience. 

Banned in several countries and censored in almost every other, A Serbian Film is the latest word-of-mouth record holder for the most “extreme” piece of cinematic exploitation, a notorious distinction of dishonor previously held by films likeLast House on the Left, Pink Flamingos or Martyrs.  Spasojevic’s film is without a doubt the most competently made…and also the most morally repugnant.

 

Milos is a retired porn actor struggling to stay on the straight and narrow and provide an income for his family.  So when an offer comes in to shoot an “artistic” adult film he begrudgingly accepts, despite the fact that the director, Vukmir, is a shady character with government connections.  With no script provided, Milos allows himself to be led into one bizarre set-up after another, all shot handheld by a small army of thugs.  And when he finally gets the courage to calls it quits, things go from bad to worse.

 

In interviews Spasojevic defends his film as a brutal representation of life under Serbian government control.  Ironically, that’s the same sort of propaganda used by Vukmir in the film itself, which layers on quite a few levels of irony.  Whether one buys into the film’s artistic intentions or not, it still crosses too many lines involving rape and pedophilia to be considered anything more than grindhouse extremism shined to a high-gloss luster.  Even the most jaded horror fan will come out of this thing feeling like Alex during the conditioning sequence of A Clockwork Orange.  And it’s exactly these sort of reviews that add to the films’ legacy.

 

There’s no denying A Serbian Film gets under your skin, particularly the eerie first half that plays out like a nightmarishly adult film noir.  But after Milos is injected with cattle aphrodisiac and turns into a sexual psychopath, the film follows him down a rabbit hole of snuff film perversity from which there is no escape.  From there all pretentions of high art are left in a wake of bodily fluids; it becomes obvious A Serbian Film is getting off on the very things it’s supposed to be criticizing.

 

 Previously available on a now 10-year-old bare bones home video release, Unearthed Films certainly delivers the full Monty here with two commentary tracks (one from the filmmakers, another with genre fans Joe Lynch & Adam Green), a pair of Q & As, trailers, stills and a preview of the unreleased A Serbian Documentary.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Tormented

Image
The west coast always struggled to create a creepy atmosphere on screen.  All that southern California sunshine just doesn’t lend itself to ghostly apparitions or gothic castles.  But  Tormented  (1960) gives it a good try, staging its opening scene in an abandoned lighthouse where blackmail turns into murder - and one cover up leads to another.  Director Bert I. Gordon, better known for his giant-sized - but low-budget - monster movies, works well at this level, turning in a film that delivers small scares but perhaps his most  professional finished product. Tom Stewart (played by genre regular Richard Carlson) is a fairly successful jazz pianist whose impending marriage to Meg Hubbard (Susan Gordon) will put him in an entirely new tax bracket.  Trouble is his old flame, Vi (Juli Reding), isn’t taking this lying down.  After  allowing  her to fall to her death in the opening scene, Tom is haunted by disembo...
Read more

All Ladies Do It / Frivolous Lola

Image
Every semi-professional review of erotica probably starts off with the same question:  what’s the difference between porn and art?  The internet age has essentially done away with foreplay; sex is merely the act of completion itself, minus the threat of any malware or suspicious browser activity.  But the work of Italian director Tinto Brass, for all its leering upskirt shots of derrieres and pubic hair, still communicates something that websites like Pornhub never will:  the art of seduction.  All Ladies Do It  (1992), a breezy sexual adventure, follows Diana (Claudia Koll) whose marriage is threatened by her fantasies of dalliances with other men, stories her husband believes are nothing more than exciting role play.  But her loose definition of adultery inspires plenty of promiscuous hook-ups, taking advantage of any (ahem)  loophole  that provides a quick thrill.   Flirting with some hardcore sequences (there...
Read more

The Cat and the Canary

Image
My favorite directors have always been showoffs:  Hitchcock, DePalma, Spielberg (when he’s feeling frisky) and gonzo auteurs like Sam Raimi.  There’s just something about their cinematic ambition, constantly reminding the audience that, yes, there actually  is  someone behind the camera calling the shots.  And that directorial discontent shines through even in the early days of the medium, such as Paul Leni’s 1927 adaptation of  The Cat and the Canary .  While the rest of the industry was still learning the basics of visual language, Leni fills his frame with tracking shots, POVs and dramatic lighting that set the standard for every spook show to come!  Gathered for the reading of the last will and testament of eccentric recluse Cyrus West,  the potential heirs meet up in his decrepit mansion to discover who will inherit the estate and family jewels.  Predictably there is some petty jealousy when young Annab...
Read more