A Serbian Film

If you are reading this please understand that it is a warning. You are not going to enjoy this film. If you do enjoy this film then you did not understand it. Never in my life have I seen such unspeakable things recreated in a movie. It’s rare that I have a visceral reaction to something so strong that I am physically ill or queasy. I’ve seen a lot of movies and I have never seen anything quite as disturbing as this. If you are a gore fan you may be thinking to yourself “Awesome, I’m gonna love this movie.” And if somehow you are not rocked to your core by this film then you my friend are a sociopath. So now that you’ve been warned let me tell you about this film.

“A Serbian Film,” is remarkable. It is the story of a retired porn star who is desperate for money for his family. He takes a job that promises him millions but he soon finds out it will cost him more than he bargained for as he is forced to perform terrible acts. To further warn you I will give away one of the tamer scenes in the film. Please keep in mind that what I am about to describe is the tip of the iceberg, that is, it gets soooooo much worse than this!! In one scene a woman has all her teeth pulled out and is forced to perform fellatio on a man with her blood spewing gums until she chokes to death. How can it be any more disturbing than that you wonder? I mean, that’s one of the most graphically disgusting things I’ve ever heard, but I assure you it is nothing compared to the rest of the film. I hate gratuitous violence in movies, but this film is different. Usually it is just gore for gore’s sake, which I hate. And part of this film is a commentary on that. It is so incredibly extreme because its goal is to make even the most desensitized person feel sick. It is also about fetishism, of violence and of sex. Where does it end? How extreme can humanity get? This film takes you there to show you how disgusting the world really is.

The other reason I really liked this film is because I understood what it was trying to say. If all you come away with from this film is the torture/porn, then you missed the point of the movie. The only other time I felt this way about a movie was when I saw Pier Paolo Pasolini’s “Salo, or the 120 Days of Sodom.” This film is the Serbian equivalent of Salo. Salo was made as a response to the horrors of fascism in Italy, but also to show the corruption of youth by older generations. There is no way to see this film and not understand that it is a direct reaction to the war in Kosovo and the genocide that occurred there. There is a great scene in the film when one of the characters talks about victims, and victimization. This is at the heart of current Serbian national identity. The film makers also said this film was a reaction to political correctness, but I don’t buy that. You could make a film about the seven dirty words if it was really about that. A film this brutal was made because of some deeper trauma that a whole nation experienced and is trying to come to terms with. I really think this film is amazing, but I would be very reluctant to sit through it again. I can’t honestly recommend it to most people; you may never recover from it. But I will say that I think the filmmakers a brilliant, they are geniuses and it is a masterpiece. I must also commend the actors in the film as all of the performances were stellar. I can almost guarantee that because of the content it will never be released in theaters in America. But I wish the filmmakers just enough success that they will create another film.