T
he verdict is still out on whether A Serbian Film is a vile piece of gruesome exploita- tion or a valid artistic expression of a decidedly extreme experience – or, whether it can be both. Various comparisons have been made to films ranging from rough snuff re-enact- ments in the vein of the August Underground series, to more polished but still graphic
genre outings such as Martyrs, all the way to respected art house classics such as Pasolini’s Salo: 120 Days of Sodom or Gaspar Noé’s Irreversible. Whatever the case, critics who have seen the still-unreleased film during its festival run agree that no other recent work has shocked, pro- voked, disgusted and angered as many audiences, resulting in it being censored and banned, and even leading to death threats against its director.
Trying to break the boundaries be-
tween genre and art, exploitation and statement, film and reality, newcomer Srdjan Spasojevic’s debut feature – co- written by Aleksandar Radivojevic – is a devastating sado-masochistic de- scent into darkness. Srdjan Todorovic stars as Milos, an ex-porn star who ac- cepts one last job in a shady but well- paying “art-porn” production in order to earn enough so that he can leave the country with his wife and child. As the production becomes increasingly strange and violent, he decides to quit, but there is no escape; he’s drugged and forced to participate in a series of escalating atrocities – in- cluding assault, rape and murder – that eventually involve his family. (It’s all set to an aggressive electronic soundtrack by rapper Wikluh Sky of Serbian hip-hop trio Bad Copy, which
increases the sickening atmosphere consid- erably.) Though the plot is simple and the acts depicted sickeningly graphic, this is only the shocking surface of a complex work. The title is key. “A Serbian Film” speaks di-
rectly to a national identity. The early 1990s – when the directors of the new wave of Serbian cinema were growing up – were tumultuous times for what used to be Yugoslavia. As the country was splintering along ethnic/religious lines it was falling into chaos – a period when abnormality became quite normal. Images of slaughtered bodies were a staple of prime time in the notorious Additional News pro- gram, which featured detailed reports of var- ious war crimes in the neighbouring Croatia and Bosnia. Those were political snuff films, whose main aim was to enrage the public and mobilize them for the war. Gruesome photos of Serbian heads cut off by the Moujahedeen, who fought for the Bosnian Muslims, and brief footage of Serbian paramilitaries executing
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