Over the course of the last 5 years or so the world of cinema has seen a handful of films whose main attraction, for most, is the hype around the brutality: Pascal Laugier’s 2008 film ‘Martyrs’, Tom Six’s 2009 film ‘The Human Centipede’ & Srdjan Spasojevic’s 2010 film ‘A Serbian Film’. The thing that differentiates those three particular films from the run of the mill cash grab trash films like the Saw series is their capacity for resonating with the viewer long after initial viewing; there are moments in each three of the listed films that 99% of viewers will never forget for the rest of their lives. Where as a Saw film will shock you for a few seconds, making you turn to your friends in awe asking “Did you see that?!”, ‘A Serbian Film’ will grasp your mind, imprint its images upon your psyche, and make you ever so slightly more curious about just exactly what the people you know do when they’re alone. I’d had the film recommended to me in a sort of roundabout way, “you haven’t seen A Siberian Film yet?” I was asked.
I searched for a synopsis that only sort of sparked my interest: retired porn star needs money to help his family, get suckered into making snuff films, alright, whatever. About a month later I randomly remembered the film and searched yet again and after reading that the film contained, without censorship, “infant rape, child rape, necrophilia & decapitation during sex: among other things” I thought to myself “I have to see this.” Not so much because I’m a gore junky, this is hardly the case, but every once in a while I get a little scratch in my mind that won’t go away until I see what the fuss about a particularly so called “brutal”, “extreme” or “relentless” film is all about. A lot, around 98%, of the films turn out to be absolute trash, but every once in a great while one of these ruthlessly brutal films contains more than just what is bleeding on the screen; there’s something more, something intellectually stimulating. So, I took the whole 2 or 3 minutes it took to find a torrent of the film, because lets face it it might be a while before this reaches DVD in the US. The copy that I ended up with was the “Screener Version” or something like that; it says that its the unedited version and if there is a more complete version than this then I think that maybe Satan is real and he exists as that longer version because all that was found in the version that I saw was more than enough to permanently scar most people.
Spasojevic has said in reaction to the controversy surrounding his debut film that its meant to be taken as a symbolic tale, an allegory of how the Siberian government treats its people. Now, when a director has a bad film on his hands and they know its terrible, or eventually realizes how horrible it is, they will try to play the whole “Yeah, this is how I meant it to be seen.” (Tommy Wiseau, I’m lookin’ at you, no ones buying it.) card, but after seeing ‘A Siberian Film’ I can understand Spasojevic’s statement. Now, I know next to nothing about the circumstances in current Siberia so I won’t go around saying that this is symbolic of this or that, but what I will say that in a general sense one can view the film as a symbol for the general willingness of humanity to exploit others without sympathy. The powers that be will more than willingly drug those below them, not literally of course, into a state of confusion so that they eventually become nothing more than puppets capable of the most heinous and disgusting acts imaginable, but only after lying to them about how they’re simply looking out for their best interests, that whatever is to come will be okay because they have it under control. Now drink this and do what I say. The fact that the film is titled ‘A Serbian Film’ begs the question “Why this title?” It could have been given a multitude of other names, but Spasojevic intended for people to see this film and understand that this is his venomously hateful view of his country & government, full of immoral opportunistic scum.
Some have declared that the director is criticizing his country for willing to become more like the West, that the film is nothing more than some sort of fascist fear mongering propaganda film portraying the influence of the west as one of hedonistic and full of decadence and debauchery. This feels like reaching for a grain of sand in a dark room the size of the Atlantic ocean. This simply reads as Serbians, or people of Serbian descent, reacting the way the director wanted them to; shame. Now, perhaps its shame that the director, in their views, is depicting their homeland as a place of nothing but pimps, prostitutes, pornographers and other societal goodies, but again, this just seems like spitting in the wind.
The premise of the film is as simple as they come: A man needs money to help his wife & son. How he gets it is something not so commonly found. A retired porn star he receives a tip from an ex-“coworker” that there is a new breed of porn emerging from their country to be released to the whole world: Art Porn. Milos, the main character, meets with the man in charge, a man by the name of Vukmir Vukmir (chillingly odd coincidence that a psychotic woman with the same last name has been recently elected to the Wisconsin State Senate.) Milos asks his brother, a man jealous of Milos’ family life (obviously indicated by the fact that he got fellatio while watching a home movie he shot of his sister in-law), a cop to check up on his employer and nothing incriminating is found. Things begin to turn dark and darker amd eventually there is no possibility of turning back from the bottomless abyss into which Milos has been flung.
The effects in the film do more than their job in convincing the viewer of their dedication to a realistic depiction of decapitation, forced anal sex and a few other things that I’ll leave as a surprise to whomsoever is brave enough to seek this out, or to watch it with me. There isn’t really much to say about the cinematography of the film as with a film like this cinematography is of little to no importance; its the impact of the experience that matters the most. There is no real bad acting to be found in the film, from the lead characters to the tiniest role everyone does a compelling and convincing job with their characters. The soundtrack works to create a mood of impending doom and chaos.
‘The Human Centipede’ is disturbing in a “what if” sense; "What if some guy, or gal, was psychotic enough to do something like this for no real particular reason other than their own gratitude. ‘A Serbian Film’ is disturbing in a realistic, 100% visceral sense, because you know in the back of your mind after watching this that the movies you saw being filmed are sitting somewhere on a shelf in someone’s house.
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