Review of A Serbian Film (2010) by Daniel V — 20 Mar 2011

Firstly, this is not a good movie, but that is not quite the point here, and if better direction and better acting would have made it more convincing I'm glad that they were lacking. Srdan Spasojevic's allegory is pretty much in-your-face.

The trouble is that so is everything else, and I heartily wish I had not seen it. Unless you want to be sickened, I suggest that you don't watch it. To illustrate 'fucked from before you're born until after you're dead' does not make for pretty cinema and we are more than merely uneasy with scenes of murderously violent rape and unconscious little boys being sodomised.

But it was not made for us, that is, the greater part of civilized society without the black beast of gut-churning nightmare memory lurking in any unlooked-at corner; it was made by very angry Serbians for Serbians in denial.

I don't envy either of them.