Friends? In Serbia?!?

I watched the consciously notorious Srpski Film (A Serbian Film) and have a few things to say about it. I'm putting these things after the jump since they are spoilery, but mostly because they are reflections on the most depraved piece of fiction I've ever experienced. If the "unique magic of rigor mortis" is already too graphic for you, move on, by god, move on!

Srpski Film opens with a young boy (probably around 6-years-old) viewing pornography that stars his father. By the end of the film, the boy is raped by his father (accidentally, although I saw it coming, which says everything about how obvious and wretched Srpski Film is). Almost every sex scene (the porn within the torture porn) involves a minor (a young girl, who appears to be 13 or so typically watches sex and/or sex and violence passively). The youngest of those minors is a newborn infant, who's raped by a man seconds after leaving the womb.

I'm telling you this now because I feel like you should know what we're dealing with. (I should also probably repeat that this is film is fiction and none of the heinous acts are real, lest you think I'm getting into snuff.) There are films that push the boundaries of what we consider explicit, and then there are exploding anuses. Srpski Film is the latter -- shocking to watch play out, unpleasant by nature and so, so lazy. A push and a grunt and director Srdjan Spasojevic had his film in the can.

The plot concerns ex-porn superstar/sexual athlete Milos (think John Holmes if he'd gotten a family instead of AIDS), who's hired by a director, Vukmir, to appear in an artistic-minded erotic film. That's about the only information Milos is given about the movie he's commissioned for. Vukmir promises him a lot of money -- so much that not even we are allowed to know the amount (when Milos tells his wife in bed how much he will earn, he whispers it in her ear even though they're the only people in the room). Milos spends the first half of the movie mulling over whether to appear Vukmir's movie, despite knowing nothing about its plot. The director is obviously keeping something from him, and while I have literally zero experience with child porn, if someone commissioned me for a porn movie and insisted I sign a contract without telling me about the content and being an ominous weirdo all the while, I would immediately think, "Oh, this must be for child porn. Yeah, no." Milos forges ahead, I guess because he's used to the upstanding porno industry, where nothing unsavory, fucked up or exploitative ever happens. What could go wrong? Trust a pornographer! He works in the industry of love!

And talk about not knowing one's industry -- as Vukmir (a former child psychologist) reveals his larger scheme after Milos signs on and has done plenty of fucking (and woman-beating) in front of a minor, he tells Milos that because Serbia "is one big shitty kindergarten," only through making their violent child porn "can we prove this nation is alive and useful for anything." He then shows Milos the aforementioned "newborn porn" work and christens it part of a new genre. Again: I know nothing about child porn, but I'm sure that this is not new. Babies have been raped and filmed before, obviously, because if something can be imagined and is in the realm of human possibility, some piece of human worthlessness has already done it. Newborn porn -- how reprehensibly passe. Know your genre, asshole.

When it comes to extreme cinema, I enjoy sitting back as detached as possible and watching what the film is doing to try to freak me out. However, I did not enjoy Srpski Film on any level. The amount of detachment needed to do so would require decapitation. It's one thing to set your movie in the realm of child porn -- it's risky territory for sure, but whatever. Child porn happens and it's conceivable to create a narrative that would not celebrate the deplorable, life-destroying practice, but incorporate it. It's not likely, but it's possible. Spasojevic plunders his chance by adopting a pornographic structure for the film's last quarter. In a stretch of gonzo filmmaking as base as any disjointed assemblage of actual fuck scenes, Milos retraces his steps during his final hours of filming in a series of flashbacks that come from him reviewing tape -- we experience random scenes of brutality, ass pumping and murder. See, Milos can't remember how everything turned out because he was drugged. "Cattle aphrodisiac" is the official story and really -- is that even a thing? And would Viagra for bulls make you so uncontrollable that you wouldn't realize you were fucking your son's 6-year-old's asshole (even if your son has a hood on)? Of course, Milos getting involved in this whole thing in the first place is nonsense. Like Vukmir's knowledge of his illicit medium, Milos' entire motivation is dubious -- he's just here as a vessel to shock us. If these characters weren't as foolish as possible, Spasojevic would not have a film. The explanation is so threadbare, Spasojevic would have been better not even considering the concept of rationale in the first place. It feels like he's invested in qualifying without really having a leg to stand on and the result is this wishy-washy brand of nihilism. And wishy-washy is the absolute worst thing nihilism can be.

Spasojevic and Srpski Film co-writer Alexsander Radivojevic have said that the depravity of this movie is a metaphor to show how people in Serbia feel "fucked from birth through death." I think the first rule of metaphors must be: DON'T LET YOUR METAPHOR RAPE A BABY. Just as there are certain things that cannot be unseen, there are certain things that can be seen only. If Spasojevic is even being honest in the first place (again, let's trust a pornographer), he's essentially allowing his film to cannibalize itself. (In the spirit of depravity, I can't imagine him minding that so much, actually.) The bottom line is that Srpski Film assaults us with The Worst Thing Possible by venturing into mostly unexplored territory that still feels obvious (no shit you're going to repulse and piss people off with depictions of child porn!). It made me angry in the same way that the animal torture in Cannibal Holocaust does. That was real, Srpski Film is fiction, and that they're equally offensive to our intelligence is no small feat.

Comments

[saigon]

Yikes...

[Picon]

Yikes, indeed. I thought that Human Centipede was the most shocking movie I had ever heard of but we have a new champion.

This is so fucked up. I agree with everything you wrote. Totally sick.

You said that this director took a risk. It sounds like he failed horribly. The metaphor that he trying to present is totally bullshit.

Jesus.

[Stranger Danger]

Really, Yikes?

Films like these are outliers. I'm more offended at the septic tank of plagiarism and cookie cutter productions with over inflated effects budgets that are dipped in Crisco, fried-up and served to the masses as brand new content. Cruel and morally distressing films, albeit are hard watches, are welcomed if it's original as much as anything can be original. That said; Rape is wrong, whether it's a baby, dog, man, woman or robot...except if it were Jack Black and then murdered..that's a blessing.

Srpski Film's content may be ultra violent, deplorable, and blatantly depraved: So is half the shitburgers Disney and MTV puts out there and you'll let your kids watch it.

[Aaron]

LOL @ comparing Srpski Film to Disney.

No, please, do go on.

[Jelena]

I think that your review is good if taken from a point of view of somebody who doesn't really have an inside perspective of a nation that went through a war (or participated in creation of a war). As a croatian person who did grow up being sourrounded by shady politics, war, hate towards the aggressor I found to realize that Serbs as much as Croats went through the similar thing of pretty much being fucked over by the situation of politics - starting from birth to death. Since most of us did see some extremely graphic stuff starting from early age up until 1995-6, even in newscasts at like 2 pm (shots of murders, dead bodies, raped people etc.) we became somewhat indifferent to how fucked up world really is - since it was happening in our back yard. This movie, I feel, presented the right amount (and lot of it) of shock, disgust and anger which lot of people who live in the Balkans felt growing up and still do to an extent. The whole concept of the actor "not knowing what he was getting into" could be just as well of a metaphor for every soldier going into the war because they have to or because they believe that it's something "expected" of them since everyone else is doing it. As well as it can be interpreted through every young person just taking all the crap the government gives us because we have no other option (him needing the money is him not having another option). Croatian and Serbian politics and lifestyles are pretty much similar despite us being on different side of the fence during the war 20 years ago, but this movie reflects the aftermath of what a new generation has to live with and lot of people who never experienced the limitations, political insecurity, national lack of worth created by the treatment of "well off" countries, will never completely get this movie and will only see it as a gore fictional child porn. This movie is here to shock and morbidly entertain and push the limits, but for people who lived it metaphorically it pretty much - hits home.
Imagine being born into a war, into a world of where you HAVE to hate your neighbor because the politicians told you and you can't really ask why, imagine everyday going to shelters hiding from bombs, making ends meet, holding onto any particle of normalcy till this day. I am 25 and even though the war ended when I was about 10 we still feel the political consequences and most of all cultural consequences. People still act like victims and they still have that victim/agressor syndrom stuck in them.

I don't expect people to really get this movie because it's almost like expecting someone to understand how a death of a child hurts a parent, when they are not a parent themselves. They will understand that it would be a great grief and that it would be horrible, but they wouldn't REALLY get it unless they lost a child of their own....

Regardless, always nice reading your reviews and I am glad you checked this movie out.

[Jelena]

I think that your review is good if taken from a point of view of somebody who doesn't really have an inside perspective of a nation that went through a war (or participated in creation of a war). As a croatian person who did grow up being sourrounded by shady politics, war, hate towards the aggressor I found to realize that Serbs as much as Croats went through the similar thing of pretty much being fucked over by the situation of politics - starting from birth to death. Since most of us did see some extremely graphic stuff starting from early age up until 1995-6, even in newscasts at like 2 pm (shots of murders, dead bodies, raped people etc.) we became somewhat indifferent to how fucked up world really is - since it was happening in our back yard. This movie, I feel, presented the right amount (and lot of it) of shock, disgust and anger which lot of people who live in the Balkans felt growing up and still do to an extent. The whole concept of the actor "not knowing what he was getting into" could be just as well of a metaphor for every soldier going into the war because they have to or because they believe that it's something "expected" of them since everyone else is doing it. As well as it can be interpreted through every young person just taking all the crap the government gives us because we have no other option (him needing the money is him not having another option). Croatian and Serbian politics and lifestyles are pretty much similar despite us being on different side of the fence during the war 20 years ago, but this movie reflects the aftermath of what a new generation has to live with and lot of people who never experienced the limitations, political insecurity, national lack of worth created by the treatment of "well off" countries, will never completely get this movie and will only see it as a gore fictional child porn. This movie is here to shock and morbidly entertain and push the limits, but for people who lived it metaphorically it pretty much - hits home.
Imagine being born into a war, into a world of where you HAVE to hate your neighbor because the politicians told you and you can't really ask why, imagine everyday going to shelters hiding from bombs, making ends meet, holding onto any particle of normalcy till this day. I am 25 and even though the war ended when I was about 10 we still feel the political consequences and most of all cultural consequences. People still act like victims and they still have that victim/agressor syndrom stuck in them.

I don't expect people to really get this movie because it's almost like expecting someone to understand how a death of a child hurts a parent, when they are not a parent themselves. They will understand that it would be a great grief and that it would be horrible, but they wouldn't REALLY get it unless they lost a child of their own....

Regardless, always nice reading your reviews and I am glad you checked this movie out.

[The goddamn Master]

You're starting to sound like Brad Jones, which makes me think all the more you should be on TGWTG.com
Seriously. Your awesomeness cannot be contained by VH1.

[spazmo]

On another discussion board, an equally critical commenter asks "Passolini’s Salo is an ugly film depicting ugly things, its cinematography appropriately cold and unexciting so as to keep the spectator at bay, fully aware of the unfolding horror instead of sucking him in with eroticized violence. Not so here. Why ?"

My best guess is commerce.

What's more, the trailer has that Hollywood-slick action-flick look to it, complete with stylized interstitial blood splashes and s throbbing, bass-heavy backing track.

So is this an important art film crafted by angry and brutalized visionaries, or is it an exploitative fraud perpetrated by spoiled Serbian upper-class film grads untouched by the horrors of the Balkan conflict hoping to cash in using depraved imagery and the free publicity generated by the looming threat of international censure?

Guess I'll have to watch it to find out, though honestly, I'm leaning toward the latter.

[Manolo blahnik]

I don't expect people to really get this movie because it's almost like expecting someone to understand how a death of a child hurts a parent, when they are not a parent themselves.

Manolo blahnik is good,Manolo blahnik on sale

[Sugarblind]

I enjoyed both this review and Jelena's response very much.

[MAC Cosmetics]

This movie is here to shock and morbidly entertain and push the limits, but for people who lived it metaphorically it pretty much - hits home.
this movie reflects the aftermath of what a new generation has to live with and lot of people who never experienced the limitations, political insecurity, national lack of worth created by the treatment of "well off" countries, will never completely get this movie and will only see it as a gore fictional child porn.
Croatian and Serbian politics and lifestyles are pretty much similar despite us being on different side of the fence during the war 20 years ag.
。

[notsentimental]

The first time I read a synopsis of this movie, it upset me so much that I couldn't sleep without some "chemical assistance". Yes, I know it's fictional and things like this and worse happen, but JESUS. No, not every movie has to be bright and happy-crappy, but who the fuck wants to wallow in this kind of sick misery? What's the point? I was discussing this movie with someone online and he said, "Well, you haven't seen it so you can't really say how you'd feel if you did." O rly? I can't say how I'd feel if I watched a newborn baby raped to death and a woman getting her teeth pulled out and choking on her own blood as she gives a blowjob? Because I'm pretty sure shit tastes terrible, but I'm not about to put it in my mouth to find out.

Ugh. I think I'm going to need Tylenol PM again tonight. Please post lots of Winston and Rudy GIFs soon to help bleach my brain of this trash.

[Colopure Cleanse Review]

I have heard a lot about this movie but never got any chance to watch it.

[Adam]

The fact that the above comment is spam advertising a product to cleanse your insides is ingenious.

[Kathy]

I like Jelena's comment (and apparently, so did some bot shilling for MAC Cosmetics), and I think Jelena makes a good point, but my quandary is this: did Spasojevic and Radivojevic make this film solely for Serbians?

Rich wrote this: "Spasojevic and Srpski Film co-writer Alexsander Radivojevic have said that the depravity of this movie is a metaphor to show how people in Serbia feel "fucked from birth through death.""

Ostensibly, people in Serbia already know how they feel ("fucked from birth through death"), which is why the movie might "hit home" for them. But why make a movie to tell a Serb how a Serb feels? That seems like patronizing pandering at best. So it appears to me that, based on their explanation of why the degradation was needed, their primary audience is everyone else in the world - to communicate to us what the Serbian experience is like. And if I watched this film and then rated it on how well it accomplished that communication, I'd give it a big fail.

First, the child-porn is so off-putting, the degradation is so extreme, that they risk alienating and losing the audience. If I somehow managed to get suckered into a showing of this film unknowingly, I'd walk right the fuck out and demand a refund, and then try to figure out how to never remember that film again. But I wouldn't go home with a new understanding of Serbian experience. Just extreme disgust at everyone involved in the film.

But not having seen this movie, my main issue is the explanation for the degradation doesn't seem to logically fit the film. I get making a degradation film to show how Serbians feel "fucked from birth to death," but it seems like that would be more clearly communicated if the film focused on the "main protagonist" being fucked and degraded from birth to death, just for being a Serb.

The way it actually plays out (and admittedly this is based on Rich's review), I feel like all they need to do is through in a scene of Milos fucking a corpse, and they'll have successfully communicated "Serbs will fuck anything, from its birth (babies) to its death (necrophilia)," you know? But maybe the actor portraying Milos managed to convey the horror, despair, whatever else, he felt at having to rape his son and a newborn, to get across that *his* feelings (and not his actions) are representative of Serbian experience.

[Kathy]

Sorry - meant to emphasize the main protagonist in second to last paragraph, not put it in quotes like I'm questioning Milos's place in the film or something.

What I mean is, I could give more credence to their stated intention if *Milos* was the one being raped and degraded. (And I guess he is, metaphorically?, by Vukmir, but all the raping/degrading Milos does himself clouds that.)

Wow, that's much shorter. :)

[julesverne]

I'm kind of tired of rape being used as a metaphor. It's just weak and lazy as hell.

[Francesco is procrastinating]

a snippet x-posted from livejournal

"Now in text, this movie sounds all kinds of fucked up. And it is - the content is, anyway. But the acting is soooo terrible, and the dialog is terribly bad (think "Showgirls" but WITHOUT all the amazing campyness) AND anytime there is penis, it's a fake penis. And not believable either - it looks like they bought cheap dildoes at an adult toy store or something. Like... it's not like in "Boogie Nights" where you question if it's real or not - it's fake at a glance. And who takes fake dick seriously? Dildoes are generally hilarious

The result? Most scenes are hilarious instead of "edgy" or wtf ever this director was trying to achieve.

And I just cant help but wonder about the fake peen. You see boobs, butts, vagina, and all kinds of fucked up shit... but a movie that boasts itself as hardcore cant even show dick?
It's like a guy that talks a big game about how he's going to fuck you hard, but then when you get down to business, he's got micropenis and is a premature ejaculator; you laugh more than anything else that was promised."

[Francesco is procrastinating]

also if Serbians feel "fucked from birth through death", I fail to see how depicting that literally achieves anything other than making you look like an asshole.

This guy has no concept of the beauty of subtly... or even general cleverness for that matter

[jason]

i saw a serbian film two nights ago & i enjoyed it very much. when i first read about it i felt a bit disturbed but i kept thinking about it & examining my feelings. in the end i realized that if a story that's created by another person's mind can disturb me, then i must be disturbed to some degree in the first place. whether you or me or anyone think that this film is good or bad is completely irrelevant to what i'm talking about. when i finally watched it i was able to disable my emotions about what i was seeing. i was also intentionally not in a state of mind to evaluate the film technically or artistically. what was my feeling by the end of the film? pleasant, soothing & as if some stress that was trapped in me had been relieved. in case you're wondering what kind of person i am i can tell you something brief. my number one priority in life is to give respect to everyone whether they are an asshole or a nice person. my way to get through to another person is to see that no matter how different we are, we are essentially the same when it's all stripped down to a basic level. i'm not a hateful person nor am i a nihilist but i do believe in constructive nihilism. a habanero pepper hurts when it's going down your esophagus but it's cleaning your blood. this film was like drano to my pipes. this film wasn't just a metaphor for serbia (i can't prove that it really was but you can't prove that it really wasn't), it was a metaphor for me in many ways about anywhere on planet earth where there are people, who because of their story since birth have become selfish, disrespecting & greedy. i don't think that this film is devoid of metaphors & that the people behind it's making are slinging non existent
crap about it's meaning, but if that we're the case it wouldn't make any difference to me as far as how meaningful the film can be experienced. i can't prove it but i feel that the way to embrace existence is to understand why everything is what it is. don't be destructive to yourself or anyone else but when there is a force that exists, that is destructive, find your strength, direct it & destroy it.... if you have the strength to do that. at least give it your best & by all means don't hold back. this film doesn't hold back. i hope it's annihilating missile finds it's target in the selfish/greedy/power crazed human psychic ether and does great damage. alot of comments i'm reading here are filled with fear, unconsciously masqueraded with outrage or criticism. take that as a wake up call. about yourself.

[YEP]

Jason, I have no idea what the hell you were trying to say.

[jason]

well, YEP, i can't say that's the first time someone has told me that.

[glen]

just watched it
jasons's comment is the best so far

[KC]

i can't eve read through the review. A movie of this deplorable content should never see the light of day. How sickening!!!! As a victim of child abuse this is truly unsettling.

[jason]

KC, because you are a victim of child abuse i would recommend seeing it. it's a disturbing tunnel to to go through for you more than the average person, i would imagine, but coming out the other side should make you stronger. if you are holding your pain inside then this film might break open your dam. i'm not trying to say "DO IT!" but i am saying that it might not be a bad thing in the end (after alot of upset). the danger is that if your not in the right frame of mind (a strong one) you might cave in & add trauma on top of trauma. the best way i can describe this would be to say that if a trauma could be likened to a body of water, i would much rather be above that water looking down (whatever it takes to get there) than under the water looking up. i wish you the best.