Ok folks this is going to be a difficult film to review as it is currently unavailable in uncut in the UK. I'm Not going to go into the details of how i got hold of a copy and the review will contain no pictures except for the poster and no trailer. The Film has caused a lot of controversy here in the UK and was actually removed from Film4's FrightFest this year but was screened fully uncut at a private screening at the Raindance Film Festival in London.
A Serbian Film has caused a lot of censorship problems in the UK due it's inclusion of certain taboo sexual acts such as Paedophilia, incest. necrophilia and hints of bestiality. The film has been submitted to the BBFC that has issued 4 minutes of cuts to the film in order for it to receive a DVD release. This has raised a lot of complaints from cinema advocates and one person in particular is very Vocal on the censorship and hush hush spectacle of A Serbian Film and that person is Tim Porter, a filmmaker. musician and podcaster who has not only touched upon this controversy surrounding the film on three of the five podcasts but has dedicated an entire hour long show to it which can be downloaded here TheXperiment or downloaded for free from I-Tunes. It's recommended listening.
Now Tim has been badgering me to watch this film which i managed to do tonight and folks i can only tell this is like nothing you have ever seen before.
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THE PLOT:
The plot revolves around a semi-retired porn star called Milos who is offered a very large sum of money to make an 'art film' from shady film maker Vukmir. Milos is told that the money would set him and his family up for life. Milos agree and signs a contract, but Vukmir will not tell him the plot of the film as he wants everything to be 'real'. When he is shooting a scene and a young girl is in the room, milos decides that he doesn't want to do this and that it is wrong. He tries to leave. Vukmir talks to Milos and shows him a very disturbing video(contents of which i am not going to say as the scene is very shocking) to which Milos storms out of the house. While on the way home, he is seduced by a woman who injects him with a cocktail of drugs that puts him in a sort of Autonomous state in which he becomes a puppet for Vukmir's sadistic ideas. Over the course of 3 days Milos acts out varies brutal sexual scenes from rape, necrophilia and paedophilia. He wakes up and returns to Vukmir's house where he discovers tapes. He takes the tapes and watches them back where he discovers and witnesses what was originally an art film turn into a snuff film and he was the culprit. The Film ends with a suggestion of Necrophiliac paedophilia in a scene that has Milos, his wife and his Child lying dead on a bed and a business man and two men filming them.
The film is supposed to be a parable of the harsh realities and mental torture that Serbian people suffer from the hands of a sadistic dictator but i didn't see this. I kept thinking...is this film trying to say that it's a little country that continues to get fucked, i don't know, all i do know is that i found the film to be powerful in it's imagery but could not find the message behind these shocking scenes. Maybe that's just me, maybe I am ignorant and am over looking a scenes of political slandering.
The films first 35 minutes are an easy watch, it starts like any other film. After the 35 minutes and that video that i mentioned the Film takes on a different life, it goes from what seemed like the usual Euro Art house film and becomes a brutal thriller. This is what i liked most about the film, the shift in tone. At times i was reminded of Park Chan Wook's Old Boy and then it would become original again. Other films i was reminded of were Irreversable, Martyrs and Lukas Moodyson's A Hole In My Heart which i truly dispise, But it's that shift in tone that really elevates the film above your usual Art house film. This could have been another god awful Anti-Christ (Lars Von Trier) but the film did keep me gripped where as the former bored the crap out of me.
The film also has moments of darkly comic humour such as the scene where Milos is watching a tape of bestiality in which a woman walks upto a donkey and does a sexy dance for it and that they game Milos an overly large comedy penis. This made me think Milos was the John Holmes of Serbian Porn.
like i said in my opening statement, this is a hard film to review because i didn't like parts of it but it still had me hooked. The casting for instance. The Milos character is brilliantly played by Srdan Todorovic and it is a brilliant performance. When Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds came out everyone raved about Christoph Waltz as Col. Hans Landa and rightfully so as he stole the movie, Todorovic's performances surpasses that and it's a shame the film has caused such controversy that it's unlikely he'll ever get the recognition he deserves, the same goes for Sergej Trifunovic as Vukmir, he is creepy, insane, vile but strangely charismatic which is wrong for the character to be as he is supposed to make you hate him yet he gets you to kind of like him. It all comes down to the well written and well structured script that brings out these performances.
The Direction is very good and it's the first film from director Srdan Spasojavic. Every single angle, shot and edit is well done and the cinematography is beautiful. The DP manages to show Serbia as a quite a beautiful country while also showing us the darker side, making a pretty obvious contrast between the two.
The music adds to the film as well with it's use of Grungy Dub-step and beats. A Serbian Film is the sort of film in which an orchestral score would be miss placed. The music in this has a Rawness to go along with the film.
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MY FINAL VERDICT:
while i found my self gripped, i could not see the apparent theme of 'oppression' that is supposed to run through the movie, that i'd heard so much about. But if you watch it as a reality horror thriller and not as an Art house film, it's actually a very good film. I know im gonna get pulled apart by Mr Porter when he reads this but i think the 4 minutes of cuts that the BBFC have asked for are warranted as certain scenes involving young children are a little too much and i felt uncomfortable while watching it. But having seen this uncut, i think the cuts would disrupt the flow of the film.
In Retrospect, A Serbian Film is one of the Films that will have people talking and unlike that much hyped recent release, The Human Centipede, which one reviewer classed as the sickest film ever made, A Serbian film takes it to another level, this is extreme cinema at it most extreme.
Should You watch it? Yes and No. If you are easily offended, stay well away but if you want to see a well made powerful, brilliantly acted film then I recommend watching it, but only once, once was enough for me.
But Pedro what do score this film?
A SERBIAN FILM
Film: 7/10 (purely on the acting and the direction)
!!!!!!!!WARNING! SPOILERS AFTER THE JUMP!!!!!!!!!!
Now Tim has been badgering me to watch this film which i managed to do tonight and folks i can only tell this is like nothing you have ever seen before.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE PLOT:
The plot revolves around a semi-retired porn star called Milos who is offered a very large sum of money to make an 'art film' from shady film maker Vukmir. Milos is told that the money would set him and his family up for life. Milos agree and signs a contract, but Vukmir will not tell him the plot of the film as he wants everything to be 'real'. When he is shooting a scene and a young girl is in the room, milos decides that he doesn't want to do this and that it is wrong. He tries to leave. Vukmir talks to Milos and shows him a very disturbing video(contents of which i am not going to say as the scene is very shocking) to which Milos storms out of the house. While on the way home, he is seduced by a woman who injects him with a cocktail of drugs that puts him in a sort of Autonomous state in which he becomes a puppet for Vukmir's sadistic ideas. Over the course of 3 days Milos acts out varies brutal sexual scenes from rape, necrophilia and paedophilia. He wakes up and returns to Vukmir's house where he discovers tapes. He takes the tapes and watches them back where he discovers and witnesses what was originally an art film turn into a snuff film and he was the culprit. The Film ends with a suggestion of Necrophiliac paedophilia in a scene that has Milos, his wife and his Child lying dead on a bed and a business man and two men filming them.
The film is supposed to be a parable of the harsh realities and mental torture that Serbian people suffer from the hands of a sadistic dictator but i didn't see this. I kept thinking...is this film trying to say that it's a little country that continues to get fucked, i don't know, all i do know is that i found the film to be powerful in it's imagery but could not find the message behind these shocking scenes. Maybe that's just me, maybe I am ignorant and am over looking a scenes of political slandering.
The films first 35 minutes are an easy watch, it starts like any other film. After the 35 minutes and that video that i mentioned the Film takes on a different life, it goes from what seemed like the usual Euro Art house film and becomes a brutal thriller. This is what i liked most about the film, the shift in tone. At times i was reminded of Park Chan Wook's Old Boy and then it would become original again. Other films i was reminded of were Irreversable, Martyrs and Lukas Moodyson's A Hole In My Heart which i truly dispise, But it's that shift in tone that really elevates the film above your usual Art house film. This could have been another god awful Anti-Christ (Lars Von Trier) but the film did keep me gripped where as the former bored the crap out of me.
The film also has moments of darkly comic humour such as the scene where Milos is watching a tape of bestiality in which a woman walks upto a donkey and does a sexy dance for it and that they game Milos an overly large comedy penis. This made me think Milos was the John Holmes of Serbian Porn.
like i said in my opening statement, this is a hard film to review because i didn't like parts of it but it still had me hooked. The casting for instance. The Milos character is brilliantly played by Srdan Todorovic and it is a brilliant performance. When Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds came out everyone raved about Christoph Waltz as Col. Hans Landa and rightfully so as he stole the movie, Todorovic's performances surpasses that and it's a shame the film has caused such controversy that it's unlikely he'll ever get the recognition he deserves, the same goes for Sergej Trifunovic as Vukmir, he is creepy, insane, vile but strangely charismatic which is wrong for the character to be as he is supposed to make you hate him yet he gets you to kind of like him. It all comes down to the well written and well structured script that brings out these performances.
The Direction is very good and it's the first film from director Srdan Spasojavic. Every single angle, shot and edit is well done and the cinematography is beautiful. The DP manages to show Serbia as a quite a beautiful country while also showing us the darker side, making a pretty obvious contrast between the two.
The music adds to the film as well with it's use of Grungy Dub-step and beats. A Serbian Film is the sort of film in which an orchestral score would be miss placed. The music in this has a Rawness to go along with the film.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
MY FINAL VERDICT:
while i found my self gripped, i could not see the apparent theme of 'oppression' that is supposed to run through the movie, that i'd heard so much about. But if you watch it as a reality horror thriller and not as an Art house film, it's actually a very good film. I know im gonna get pulled apart by Mr Porter when he reads this but i think the 4 minutes of cuts that the BBFC have asked for are warranted as certain scenes involving young children are a little too much and i felt uncomfortable while watching it. But having seen this uncut, i think the cuts would disrupt the flow of the film.
In Retrospect, A Serbian Film is one of the Films that will have people talking and unlike that much hyped recent release, The Human Centipede, which one reviewer classed as the sickest film ever made, A Serbian film takes it to another level, this is extreme cinema at it most extreme.
Should You watch it? Yes and No. If you are easily offended, stay well away but if you want to see a well made powerful, brilliantly acted film then I recommend watching it, but only once, once was enough for me.
But Pedro what do score this film?
A SERBIAN FILM
Film: 7/10 (purely on the acting and the direction)
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