http://templeofghoul.blogspot.com/2010/ ... -2010.html

Review by Dejan Ognjanović

A SERBIAN FILM is the most shocking film you're likely to see this year – or any year soon. And the most shocking thing about it is how well made, well acted and poignant it is.

You don't need to be a rocket scientist to realize that A SERBIAN FILM is not exactly the kind of fare you want to see with your mom. What with the story of an ex-porn star accepting one last job so he can sustain his impoverished family in today's Serbia, and the uber-sick underworld he stumbles upon in which pornography, war criminals and State Security are linked in ways unimaginable, yet so logical. Our star chances upon the kind of movies that can only be made where human life is very cheap!

Photo: From the set - director Spasojevic (left)




Oh, yes; there are hints of snuff here. But "snuff" does not even begin to describe the levels and amounts of depravity involved. The shocking, sickening stuff that men, women and children are forced to endure here. A whole new depraved subgenre of porn is introduced in what will certainly be the most talked-about scene of the film. But I won't spoil the goodies that await those with the strongest stomachs and nerves. I will just try to hint at the ideas and impressions that A SERBIAN FILM invokes.




Photo: From the set - director Spasojevic (right) and star (Srdjan Todorovic, in the car)





If you thought: "Oh, well; so now Serbia has discovered 'torture porn'? Who cares?" – think again. If you expect just a tired retread of cheap sadistic gimmicks already done to death in the SAW sequels and their poor direct-to-DVD cousins – you're in for a surprise.

First of all, A SERBIAN FILM puts to shame almost all recent attempts at nightmare inducing shocks, with only MARTYRS (and a somewhat bygone, but still unforgettable IRREVERSIBLE) as relatively solid reference points – not in terms of plot, but in terms of nerve-shattering effect on the viewer. This film will f*** your senses, it will rape your soul. Be prepared to see penis go where no penis has gone before. Be prepared to see new uses of Viagra for bulls. Be prepared to witness unprecedented levels of child abuse. And then some.




Second of all, this is a beautifully shot and edited film, with an excellent sense of timing and narrative economy and a superb industrial droning score by Sky Wikluh. Also, there are at least two incredibly memorable performances. One is by Srdjan Todorovic as Milos, the said ex-porn actor selling his sex tool for the last time. He simmers with quiet desperation through the first half of the film only to explode in a raging feat towards the end which will sear you like a wildfire until the very celluloid seems to be burning. The other is Sergey Trifunovic, as the shady Vukmir, insane producer and director, the puppet master of an "art" porn theater in which performers include a war-hero's widow and kids from a Home for abandoned and orphaned children. Although technically a villain, Vukmir is the one with all the best lines and the most thought-provoking monologues whose content may be as shocking to some as the imagery he shoots.





Third of all, none of this would matter if the film had shocks for shocks' sake, or if it were just another exercise in cinematic sadism. The horrors of A SERBIAN FILM actually have a point. There's an attitude and meaning behind it all. The film is firmly rooted in a feeling of frustration and despair of living in Serbia today. But, fear not: you need not know much about the recent history or the daily life or politics of this European country to be able to understand the frame of mind and the state of affairs behind the permeating sentiments of resignation, tiredness, despair, humiliation, cynicism, pessimism and the wish to leave all that behind. A SERBIAN FILM does not offer any false hope. Quite the opposite, it reinvents horror genre to suit its own purpose, finding in it the perfect vehicle to depict the feelings that life in Serbia evokes in its youth.




Mind you: this is not a documentary film, and the Serbia you'll see here is not the one you'll encounter if you ever come to this country. Instead of copy-pasting reality, A SERBIAN FILM transcends it and offers a stylized version of what it feels like to live in country humiliated, denigrated, impoverished, bombed-out, stripped of its territory, labeled genocidal and haunted by the spirits of war crimes both real and constructed. It is a country in which shady figures with strong political (and criminal) background still govern your life, where hope is hazy and dignity forgotten, where you are both metaphorically and literally f***ed.





In such a context, pornography and snuff are vivid metaphors for the raging Thanatos overpowering Eros, in a similar manner to another recent Serbian film, THE LIFE AND DEATH OF A PORN GANG (2009). Death drive governs the sex drive so much that even the pleasure-giving penis becomes a death-dealing weapon. And this metaphor is quite literal in this film, but without the mediating distance of splatstick humor of the Japanese Machine Girls or the Sci-Fi of mutating Tetsuos. You won't know whether to laugh, cry, stare in disbelief or leave the theater (provided your legs still obey your commands) at the transgressive new links between sex and death that A SERBIAN FILM reveals.




This review is intentionally vague about the plot details. You deserve to be as innocent and virginal as possible entering the film – before it rapes you like a bearded, ogrish war criminal.

A SERBIAN FILM should not be taken literally, like a "slice of life" depiction of today's Serbia. What it does is use strong and exaggerated metaphors to convey a certain feeling. If MARTYRS and IRREVERSIBLE, for example, portrayed sickening doings in France without making audiences believe it to be a nation of sick perverts and rapists, hopefully A SERBIAN FILM, in a similar manner, won't do much to hurt Serbia's already not too good public image. As the matter of fact, it plays upon certain expectations (and prejudices) associated with how this locale is perceived in the West, and can be understood as a grotesque parody of Serbia's current image in the eyes of foreigners. It seems to be saying: "You thought we were a nation of criminals and maniacs and ogres? You haven't seen anything yet!"





This is just one of the ways that A SERBIAN FILM implicates its audience into its cunning doings: it will involve you, whether you like it or not, and it will make you question not only your role as a spectator and voyeur of sexual and violent cinematic arousals, but will also shatter many other preconceptions you may bring with you to the film. It has a clever way of making you reconsider all that you hold dear. One thing is certain: it won't leave you indifferent. It will embrace you, seduce you and penetrate you before you know what's gotten you and once you start picking your jaw off the floor it will be too late.

Never again will you be able to hear or read the innocent phrase "a Serbian film" without a reflexive awakening of the searing images that Aleksandar Radivojevic (screenplay) and Srdjan Spasojevic (co-writer and director) have put on screen. For better or worse, A SERBIAN FILM will mark you for life like few other films have managed. It reinvents the somewhat forgotten art of real transgressive cinema and shows what real filmmaking can still accomplish.

A Contrafilm production. (International sales: Jinga Films, London.) Produced by Srdjan Spasojevic. Executive producer, Nikola Pantelic. Directed by Srdjan Spasojevic. Screenplay, Spasojevic, Aleksandar Radivojevic.

With: Srdjan Todorovic, Sergej Trifunovic, Jelena Gavrilovic, Katrina Zutic, Slobodan Bestic.

Taking the torture-porn concept absolutely literally, the bluntly titled "A Serbian Film" is a well-crafted, immensely indecent smut slasher that falls short of the original "Hostel" and "Saw," but still reps a daresay "respectable" go at the genre. Debuting helmer Srdjan Spasojevic's twisted tale of an out-of-work adult film star who (in every way) attaches himself to a deadly new project is also a warning call to budding thesps: Read the whole contract, and don't trust a director who claims that "life, art and blood" are their inspirations. Fanboys will be lapping up the ketchup in fright fests and ancillary.

Though word-of-mouth following its SXSW premiere promised a film that would make "Antichrist" and "Kinatay" look like "Leave it to Beaver," pic is actually heavier on the X-rated side than the gore, and only its final reel of carnage will give hardcore horror fans their due.

Story kicks off as a darkish, fairly entertaining deadpan comedy where Milos (Srdjan Todorovic), described as the "Nikola Tesla of world pornography," is short on cash and pouring himself a tad too many whiskeys. Stuck at home watching his own studded oeuvre, he's urged by his wife (Jelena Gavrilovic) and an S&M-garbed colleague (Katrina Zutic) to get back in the sack and make some dough.

What he's offered is to star in the next opus from ominous director Vukmir (Sergej Trifunovic), who claims to have held a "lifelong fascination with the world of film" and bemoans the fact that Serbia is "no country for real art." But once shooting begins, it's clear that Vukmir is no Kusturica, and his specialty is real-life versions of the work of Eli Roth and Mark Burg, with an auteur's taste for pre-adolescent girls, untold bodily violence and a special genre he dubs "newborn porn" (don't ask).

Despite such shock content, which reaches an almost criminal threshold at the very close, the film is not as off-putting as it sounds, and its sleaze-factor is distilled through clever construction, good acting and sleek widescreen lensing.

As for the title, dialogue makes reference to war orphans and the Hague tribunal, but otherwise it seems to be a stab at irony, and clearly one that won't please its homeland.

Camera (color, widescreen), Nemanja Jovanov; editor, Darko Simic; music; Sky Wikluh; production designer, Nemanja Petrovic; costume designer, Jasmina Sanader; sound (Dolby Digital), Drobhjakovic Milos; sound designer, Aleksandar Protic; re-recording mixer, Ameksander Perisic; special effects supervisor, Miroslav Lakobrija; assistant director, Miroslav Stamatov. Reviewed at Cannes Film Festival (market), May 15, 2010. (Also in SXSW Film Festival.) Running time: 99 MIN.


(Serbian dialogue)

http://www.variety.com/review/VE1117942 ... Id=31&cs=1

Review by Evil Andy (Dread Central)

“Where there is no life, there is no art” intones the snuff film director in A Serbian Film, but it might as well be the tagline of the movie. While much ink has been spilled regarding the boundary obliterating sex and violence on display in this self-funded Serbian shocker, it is the artistry of the film that one hopes it will be recognized, and eventually remembered, for. However, while full of raw power, the film’s commentary is somewhat blunt, and due to its Eastern European provenance, and a superficial similarity to torture porn, it seems far more likely that A Serbian Film will be regarded simply as the terminus of onscreen depravity.

It truly is hard to imagine any film going farther in its depiction of brutality, and with so much of its running time spent assaulting your limbic system, A Serbian Film seems destined to straddle the line between torture porn and other more highbrow investigations of sex and violence like Videodrome.

In reviewing A Serbian Film, one is left with the dilemma of where to start. Even if you admire the assured debut direction from Srdjan Spasojevic, the lack of exposition, the pure filmic use of visuals and sound to drive the story, the beautiful cinematography and agitating industrial score, there’s a compulsion to first address the elephant-cock in the room.

[Skip this paragraph if you want to avoid spoilers]. Since other reviews have already spilled the beans and since hearing about the graphic scenes will do nothing to diminish their impact, here goes. Yes, you will see in graphic detail massive real and rubber dicks being inserted into dead and drugged women, men, and children; eye sockets skull fucked; mouths gagged to the point of suffocation' and infamously, a literally seconds old infant raped to death.

That last paragraph was uncomfortable to even write, and trust me, you can’t imagine what it’s like to watch. However, it's not the excessively literal depictions of sexual violence that are in and of themselves disturbing. The key to the power of the visuals is really the tone and masterful direction. Much more is felt than is ever shown. This is no Murder Set Pieces or August Underground concerned simply with fidelity of gore. Even those who are angered and upset by what is shown must begrudgingly admit that they are responding to the craft of cinema not the explicitness of pornography.

That said, it’s still worth asking why the filmmakers felt the need to use such explicit imagery. At the Fantasia screening both the director and co-writer (Alexsander Radivojevic) were quick to explain that the violence was metaphorical and that people in Serbia felt “fucked from birth through death”. Todd Brown at Twitch smartly compared certain scenes in A Serbian Film to Jonathan Swift’s A Modest Proposal, in which eating babies is presented as a solution to Ireland’s hunger problem. The difference is that one is a crass literal depiction of being “fucked from birth” instead of a more refined, artistic metaphor like Swift’s. There’s nothing wrong with pushing boundaries, especially when you do it as effectively as A Serbian Film does, but writing off the perversity on display as simply metaphorical is a bit disingenuous. These guys are going for shock value even if their film aspires to much more than just that.

With that out of the way, it should be noted that the bulk of the depravity comes in the latter half of the film. An admirable amount of time is spent setting up the story of ex-porn star Milos (Todorovic) and his young family, who are trying to make a go of having a normal life. Money problems are the impetus for Milos’ return to porn, but the real reason seems to be Milos’ difficulty adjusting to civilian life. He is contacted by the Mephistophelian “artistic porn” director Vukmir (Trifunovic), who offers Milos enough money to retire permanently if he will take part in a film in which everyone knows the plot but him. At the same time we are introduced to Marko (Bestic), Milos’ cop brother who covets his wife and family to the point of using family videos as sexual aids. In the context of the Serbian civil war, this familial rot takes on an ominous, rather than licentious, tone.

The shooting of the film-within-a-film begins slowly with Vukmir directing not only Milos, but also the audience through an ever-escalating series of disconcerting vignettes. The starting point is a scene in which Milos is fellated while monitors show scenes of a teenage girl eating a popsicle and applying lip gloss. Much like in Videodrome the viewer is as complicit as the characters, and as the scenes become ever more depraved, we are left squirming in our seats, unable to distance ourselves from the onscreen activities.

And ultimately, what is onscreen is what counts in A Serbian Film. It is a pure cinematic experience, composed less of story and plot than visuals and sound. For this reason the familial disintegration that is at the heart of the film never really took root for me, and unlike comparable films like Irreversible, which was emotionally gut-wrenching, A Serbian Film left me emotionally distant. While this numbness to repeated trauma might be the point, the drama is a big enough part of the movie that the failure to evoke an emotional response to the characters still feels like the biggest weakness of the film.

It’s hard to know where A Serbian Film will end up. It seems unlikely that it will ever get a theatrical distribution in its current form, and who knows if an edited version will hold up to scrutiny. With a title that seems constructed to define the cinema of an entire country, it would be a shame if certain explicit scenes overshadow the rest of the film. It’s easy to imagine that with some moderate editing the artistry underlying A Serbian Film could be brought to the foreground, allowing this truly interesting and exciting film to gain the exposure it deserves.

4.5/5

http://www.dreadcentral.com/reviews/serbian-film-a-2010