Milos(Srđan Todorović) is a former porn star, now living a quiet life with his wife and young son. However, mounting money troubles convince him to take one last job from a mysterious director named Vukmir, that comes with a very strange caveat: Milos will be paid enough to last him the rest of his life, but he must sign the contract with the script sight unseen.
The first half of the film is a slow burn, all muted colors and careful dialog. Srđan Todorović does an excellent job of displaying the conflict in Milos, who relies on a bottle of Jack and the memories of reflected lemonlight and easy money of his porn career to avoid dealing with the very real darkness lurking on the edges of his tranquil life (lack of skills to make the money he needs, Milos' brother's sexual fixation on his beautiful wife, the unraveling of the innocence of young son Peter partially due to some accidental exposure to Milos' porn films).
The offer from Vukmir for an "art film" at first seems like a blessing, one last dance with the devil and Milos can move on to a better life for good.
However, what seems too good to be true, most often is. Milos' star turn is in a glorified snuff film, with themes of pedophilia and rape. Vukmir, who seemed like a benefactor, is a twisted auteur of victimhood and suffering, who shows Milos a horrifying scene of "newborn porn" to explain his philosophy.
A deeply disgusted Milos quits and storms out, but Vukmir has deep government connections, a security detail and we jump cut to a battered, bloody Milos, who remembers nothing of the past 3 days.
Through the second half of the film, it becomes a suffocating nightmare of epic proportions. The soundtrack gets louder, the editing jumpier as Milos recovers bits and chunks of his missing memory. Vukmir and his "doctor" have access to a powerful sexual stimulant, that essentially turns Milos into a human version of "Firefly's" reapers, full of sexual rage and a single minded intent to rape and kill.
An onslaught of broken flashback scenes of Milos in a doped out spree of rape/murder, necrophilia,sodomy, child rape, massacre and mayhem ensues. However, Vukmir is not yet done. To cap off the atrocities he's put Milos through, Vukmir arranges for Milos to rape his own son, while Milos' brother gets to finally act upon his sick fantasies and rape Milos' wife standing beside him(Annotated by Vukmir as a "true Serbian family"). As an enraged Milos breaks the drug trip and begins to beat Vukmir, his guards, and his own brother to death, Vukmir cheers him on, as the extreme violence and revenge are "the true actions of cinema!" Disgusted and broken by the suffering inflicted upon them, Milos and his wife return home battered and bloody, realizing that the only way to end this torture is death. The family embraces one last time, and Milos shoots a bullet through the trio. A new director enters the frame, and instructs guards to one last act of necrophilia, "starting with the little one" before "A Serbian Film" finally fades to black.
Director Srdjan Spasojevic's claims of political allegory fail on every level, and seem little more than a flimsy shield against accusations of "torture porn". I'm inclined to agree that "A Serbian Film" doesn't belong in the company of "Saw" or "Hostel". Both of those films were cartoonish(bad acting, obviously fake CG blood, poorly plotted, shitty dialog), and were far easier not to take remotely seriously for sheer ridiculousness.
"A Serbian Film" is consistently well acted, written, scored and filmed. Not since Gualtiero Jacopetti and Franco Prosperi's "Addio Zio Tom" has quality filmmaking/audio/cinematography been used in the service of an examination of something so amazingly hideous.
I never watched that again either.
The first half of the film is a slow burn, all muted colors and careful dialog. Srđan Todorović does an excellent job of displaying the conflict in Milos, who relies on a bottle of Jack and the memories of reflected lemonlight and easy money of his porn career to avoid dealing with the very real darkness lurking on the edges of his tranquil life (lack of skills to make the money he needs, Milos' brother's sexual fixation on his beautiful wife, the unraveling of the innocence of young son Peter partially due to some accidental exposure to Milos' porn films).
The offer from Vukmir for an "art film" at first seems like a blessing, one last dance with the devil and Milos can move on to a better life for good.
However, what seems too good to be true, most often is. Milos' star turn is in a glorified snuff film, with themes of pedophilia and rape. Vukmir, who seemed like a benefactor, is a twisted auteur of victimhood and suffering, who shows Milos a horrifying scene of "newborn porn" to explain his philosophy.
A deeply disgusted Milos quits and storms out, but Vukmir has deep government connections, a security detail and we jump cut to a battered, bloody Milos, who remembers nothing of the past 3 days.
Through the second half of the film, it becomes a suffocating nightmare of epic proportions. The soundtrack gets louder, the editing jumpier as Milos recovers bits and chunks of his missing memory. Vukmir and his "doctor" have access to a powerful sexual stimulant, that essentially turns Milos into a human version of "Firefly's" reapers, full of sexual rage and a single minded intent to rape and kill.
An onslaught of broken flashback scenes of Milos in a doped out spree of rape/murder, necrophilia,sodomy, child rape, massacre and mayhem ensues. However, Vukmir is not yet done. To cap off the atrocities he's put Milos through, Vukmir arranges for Milos to rape his own son, while Milos' brother gets to finally act upon his sick fantasies and rape Milos' wife standing beside him(Annotated by Vukmir as a "true Serbian family"). As an enraged Milos breaks the drug trip and begins to beat Vukmir, his guards, and his own brother to death, Vukmir cheers him on, as the extreme violence and revenge are "the true actions of cinema!" Disgusted and broken by the suffering inflicted upon them, Milos and his wife return home battered and bloody, realizing that the only way to end this torture is death. The family embraces one last time, and Milos shoots a bullet through the trio. A new director enters the frame, and instructs guards to one last act of necrophilia, "starting with the little one" before "A Serbian Film" finally fades to black.
Director Srdjan Spasojevic's claims of political allegory fail on every level, and seem little more than a flimsy shield against accusations of "torture porn". I'm inclined to agree that "A Serbian Film" doesn't belong in the company of "Saw" or "Hostel". Both of those films were cartoonish(bad acting, obviously fake CG blood, poorly plotted, shitty dialog), and were far easier not to take remotely seriously for sheer ridiculousness.
"A Serbian Film" is consistently well acted, written, scored and filmed. Not since Gualtiero Jacopetti and Franco Prosperi's "Addio Zio Tom" has quality filmmaking/audio/cinematography been used in the service of an examination of something so amazingly hideous.
I never watched that again either.