Sarah takes on A Serbian Film in this Filmcake guest post:
A Serbian Film can only be described as an assault. With the exception of a certain dining scene in Salo, no other film has had me seriously contemplating whether or not I needed to grab myself a vomit bucket. And by the time this thing ended, I’d pretty much been reduced to a whimpering, curled-up ball on the end of my sofa.
Also, I was pretty sure that I’d never be able to have sex again.
I should mention that I’m not easily shocked. In fact, I have a long history of actively seeking out films that generate controversy, outrage and disgust. The more extreme, the better. As teenagers, my friends and I threw Faces of Death watch parties. I’ve seen Antichrist – twice. I look forward to the Human Centipede’s return as a Full Sequence. I want a film (and art in general) to show me something new, to provoke some kind of visceral reaction.
Usually, these kinds of films fall short of the hype. What plays out on-screen is rarely as horrific as what I’ve anticipated in my mind. A Serbian Film, perhaps because I knew so little about it going in, most certainly did not fall short. I had my visceral reaction, all right. But interestingly, A Serbian Film is more than just another torture porn wannabe.
Don’t get me wrong, there’s plenty of torture. And porn. And more torture. It’s no wonder that so much controversy has been generated – A Serbian Film employs something of a “no taboo left behind” strategy. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t spend the majority of this film absolutely revulsed, hiding in my hoodie, knees pulled to my chest. But after processing it all for a couple of days, the increasingly over-the-top shenanigans start to seem increasingly silly, as though director/co-writer Srđan Spasojević was simply checking off boxes: Bestiality? Check. Pedophilia? Check. Necrophilia? Check. In retrospect, it just seems a little too much.
Subtle, this is not.
However, what makes this film more than mere exploitative trash is that Spasojević is actually trying to say something. There are some interesting ideas there – about contemporary Serbian politics, about the complicated nature of the relationship between the oppressed and the oppressor, about the movie-going audience’s complicit role in the violence. (Perhaps even suggesting that as long as there’s someone to watch, say, A Serbian Film, than these things will continue to exist. We are all to blame!)
However, I think a lot of these ideas were either introduced too explicitly (I probably could have figured out some of the sociopolitical metaphors without a monologue spelling them out for me) or else they seemed half-formed and jumbled. To be fair, I should revisit the film to develop a more thoughtful analysis of its thematic content, but I just don’t know if I could sit through it again.
Also worth noting is that a surprising amount of the violence and sex actually occurs off-camera. It’s rather impressive (my compliments to the editor) that the film managed to so effectively imply a lot of the horror without actually showing it. The viewer still ends up as freaked out as if it was being depicted graphically on-screen – and since our imaginations tend to fill in the blanks with far worse things than could ever actually be shown – perhaps even more so.
Finally, A Serbian Film is just technically well-made. It’s nicely shot, well-edited, and Srdjan Todorovic’s performance is terrific.
If you’re curious, not easily offended, and have a strong stomach, this is definitely a film worth seeking out.
