A Serbian Film
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 Y'know, A Serbian Disaster would've been a better title.
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A Serbian Film (Српски филм / Srpski film in Serbian) is a 2010 Serbian exploitation horror film, produced and directed by Srđan Spasojević and co-written by Spasojević with Aleksandar Radivojević. The movie stars Serbian actors Srđan Todorović and Sergej Trifunović. Upon its debut on the art film circuit, the film received substantial attention and controversy for its graphic violence and sexual content. The film has been banned in several countries including the Philippines, Spain, Australia, New Zealand, Malaysia, and Norway.
Alongside films like Saló, Cannibal Holocaust, The Human Centipede, Anti-Christ, or Men Behind the Sun, it's often considered one of the most disturbing movies of all time.
Plot
In Serbia, the retired porn star Milos is married to his beloved wife Marija and they have a little son, Peter, who is their pride and joy. The family is facing financial difficulties, but out of the blue, Milos is contacted by the porn actress Lejla that offers him a job opportunity in an art film. Milos is introduced to the director Vukmir who offers a millionaire contract to Milos to act in a film. However, Vukmir neither shows the screenplay nor tells the story to Milos. Milos discusses the proposal with Marija and he signs the contract. But he soon finds out that Vukmir and his crew are involved in sick snuff films of pedophilia, necrophilia, and torture and there is no way back to him and maybe it is too late to protect his family.
Why It's Intentionally a Massive Serbian Failure
Note: This movie is intended to be bad in the first place.
- The incredibly uncreative title would be a first reminder for people who are about to watch this film. It’s pretty generic sounding and doesn’t even sound professional either.
- Contrary to its title, the film has nothing to do with the history or culture of Serbia at all, though this is most likely intentional.
- Unlike Cannibal Holocaust or Saló, the film is pure shock value without any plot, lore, story, or message to begin with.
- The movie is infamous for its extremely graphic content, even by standards of the entertainment industry as a whole. Much like Cannibal Holocaust, I Spit On Your Grave and The Human Centipede: Full Sequence, the depictions of rape, necrophilia, pedophilia, and abuse overall obviously try too hard to make "horror" out of shock content, but each and every single attempt at it falls flat because, for the record, violence, and gore doesn't make a movie scary, and just makes it pretty disgusting and hideous to watch.
- The so-called political subtext said by the director doesn't make the unsettling concept and execution any less excusable, in fact, it barely makes any sense at all.
- Vukmir is an extremely unlikable villainous character as he sees rape and murder as a way of art and even influenced Milos to rape his underage son. On the other hand, it may even be a plus since that makes the audience heavily dislike him.
- The dialogue is pretty terrible with somewhat no thought put into it.
- The film tries to symbolize the molestation by the Serbian government but fails miserably due to the movie being nothing more than shock value.
- It also claims it's an allegory for the atrocities of the Yugoslav Wars, sounding like something the director made up to give this film a free pass.
- Even the third season of Drawn Together was more subtle than this.
- The cinematography can be very ugly and grotesque, especially with the gore.
- This film has borderline child rape such as the infamous scene of a newborn infant getting raped and the brutal climax scene.
- At least during the making of those scenes, they used dolls, not actual minors, but still.
- It simulates child nudity and snuff films together, both of which are already bad from the start.
- Ungodly downer ending: Milos and his family commit suicide only for a film crew to perform sex on their dead bodies.
- This movie is supposedly a black comedy satire. But good luck finding one scene that is even remotely amusing.
Redeeming Qualities
- The soundtrack is decent.
- The scene where Milos killed Vukmir is very satisfying.
Reception and Controversy
This film has gone down as one of the most abysmal cult hits ever made. The film was released to great controversy over its portrayal of sexual violence. Spasojević has responded to the controversy with "This is a diary of our own molestation by the Serbian government ... It's about the monolithic power of leaders who hypnotize you to do things you don't want to do. You have to feel the violence to know what it's about."
While acknowledging some level of conservatism among the public and theater owners, Spasojević says that government-enforced censorship in Serbia is non-existent and was not the driving force behind the making of A Serbian Film: "In Serbia we don't have ratings, there is no law forbidding anything from being shown in a film and there is no law forbidding anyone from buying a ticket.
Based on 32 reviews collected by the film review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, 47% of the critic's reviews were positive. The site's critics' consensus states, "A pointless shocker and societal allegory, a film whose imagery is so gruesome as to leave you scarred for life...or rolling your eyes for 100 minutes. " It has a 4.9/10 on IMDb and a 2.1/5 on Letterboxd.
Trivia
- During the making of certain scenes like the scene where a baby is raped, dolls were used, not actual minors.