Review of A Serbian Film (2010) by Parker M — 17 May 2011

2.5 Stars out of 4.

Anyone's conclusions on A Serbian Film are not wrong or unjustified. The film has a power to it, while also being extremely unpleasant and exhibitionist. Granted, the film - directed by Srdjan Spasojevic (his only charted film) - is looking, with tooth and nail, to find an audience. An audience willing to endure immense visual pain for intense, eye-opening ideological answers. Trust me: eyes, be it yours or the characters, get (one time literally) fucked during this film.

A Serbian Film is horrific but not the first of its kind. These demonstrations in "torture porn" have dated back for a while, mostly identified under Saw and Hostel. I've read essays and articles on both films and seem to be underwhelmed by every writers' conclusions. Those films are too exploited, predictable, and amusing. Those films have entertainment value to it, which is not right. A Serbian Film makes you feel the pain vicariously, tortured like our tragically dumb protagonist Milos.

Milos is an ex-porn star with the nether parts of Dirk Diggler but a brain many inches shorter. He has a gorgeous wife, a little boy, and a nice-comfortable house. He is hired by "art" filmmaker Vukmir (Sergej Trifunović) to star in a porn film like no other. Vukmir is an innovator and wants to make pornography a visual challenge more than a masturbatory one. Milos agrees, it's for the money, but is reluctant that Vukmir refuses to reveal the story.

Milos, essentially, goes down a more twisted rabbit hole. He engages not in a world of ecstasy and eroticism but a haunted house of sadistic acts and sexual confrontations. Milos is forced into sexual acts that are not meant to harm him physically but psychologically. He is hypnotized until he becomes his own erogenous beast of pain, agony, and murder. He is a citizen, pushed into a world of dark desires, blurring the boundaries of pleasure and anger. Milos becomes a vicious, horrible thing of nature. But he is now smart and aware of the evils around him.

The film takes form of a psychological horror. I'm not sure if it exceeds. Srdjan Spasojevic is not interested in us identifying with the mind of Milos but understanding the mutation of his nature. There's a difference. Instead of becoming Milos, we look at him shocked by what he has become or - more precisely - what everything else has become.

A Serbian Film, unlike The Human Centipede, does not succumb to parody. This is a meditation as much (or more) as it is a geek show. I can tell what a bad torture film is when I think "Oh I cannot wait for the next gross scene!" That usually happens. Most of these films are so eager to appall us visually that they do not shock us intellectually. Some may laugh when I call A Serbian Film "intellectual." But I watched the film appalled, sickened, assaulted, but never offended. This is a world it believes in. A New Age under a monolithic Serbian government who prods its people into doing undesirable acts.

A Serbian Film is a statement. Its violence is not for shocks though it will do that. It is not a prop either. It is layered in the film with a maddening urgency and undeniable inventiveness. From necrophilia to pedophilia to every "philia" in the pervert's book, A Serbian Film has got it. What it also has is meaning - in some ambiguous form. It could be exploring the paradoxes in punishment for intelligence, pain for pleasure, and imprisonment for freedom, but that is up to you to search for them.

Why see this movie? Well, after watching Dogtooth and earlier films like Salo I think I have found my answer. We watch these films to comprehend the other buried and much-ignored dimensions of cinema that hath no boundaries. Many will ask: what is the point of this film? It shows us that conventions (we are often exposed to) need to be broken to see the world in ways that go beyond formulas and optimistic resolutions. A Serbian Film wants us to look at our existence and be appalled by what we have forever ignored.

But not now. Milos cannot escape his new reality. He at first despises but then yields to it. His character changes from an innocent family man (albeit unintelligent) to a crazed sex fiend who appears oddly more in touch with his misbegotten world. Not many films use violence for symbolism unless that symbol is nonsense. The MPAA hates sex and tolerates violence, but here it finds its dilemma: both elements are graphically mixed.

The film has been investigated for its assault on sexual freedom. That is - of course - expected. No one is wrong to hate A Serbian Film, and neither is someone foolish to love it. I found myself bored at times by some repetitiveness and its constant need to rouse me with disturbing images. I can only take so much. Some of its conclusions about art, to me, were pretentious. They lacked invention, somewhat insipid involving such comments on how art is anything and everything around us and how Milos is the representation of art in pornography. I didn't buy it. Not because it is wrong but because that is not deep, but kind of simplistic.

Nevertheless, both this film and Dogtooth do tell us that these films deserve a thorough analysis like, perhaps, Birth of a Nation did. That's a film, from 1915, that was made and hated in its political incorrectness but revered from an artistic standpoint. It is racist, absurd, and at times just plain wrong. I gave it four stars. Maybe I give A Serbian Film two-and-a-half stars in fear I do the same.

Note: I have purposely revealed very little of the repulsive events in the plot. If I did, I would be a victim of hypocrisy: since I do not believe the value of A Serbian Film is in its violence why even, in detail, explain it?