A SERBIAN FILM

It's inevitable.


Every year a film gets released that's pegged by many to be THE sickest, THE most disturbing, THE most batshit crazy film ever made. This year alone we've been privy to two such films, THE HUMAN CENTIPEDE (FIRST SEQUENCE) and A SERBIAN FILM. While I hate to be the party pooper here, neither film lives up to that title. THE HUMAN CENTIPEDE (FIRST SEQUENCE) is, despite all of it's pacing problems and a script that essentially runs out of gas shortly after the big reveal of the titular human centipede, a striking film, one that tempers it's absurdity with a genuine strain of pathos. A SERBIAN FILM, while likewise a striking piece of film, feels like nothing more than a film designed to offend it's audience. As such, the shocks and grotesque proceedings feel forced and artificial. It's akin to a child eating messily at the kitchen table who stops periodically to display a mouthful of wet, mushy, chewed food. It seems more concerned with gruesome spectacle than anything else.


A complete rundown of the plot is unnecessary. Anyone reading this review right now has some idea of what this film is about. A spoiler warning is also unnecessary as nearly all of the film's shocks have been spoiled to death on other film sites - not to mention the film is available on just about ever torrent site online. But if you're one of those people living in a self-imposed blackout on all things A SERBIAN FILM, consider yourself officially under a spoiler alert.


It becomes obvious after awhile that the people labeling these films as "the sickest, most disturbing, most batshit crazy film ever made" have very little with which to compare under their belts. Most certainly, anyone who has sat through MEN BEHIND THE SUN, SALO - THE 120 DAYS OF SODOM, or any of the AUGUST UNDERGROUND films are not going to be terribly shocked by anything on display in this film. The majority of the violence on display is sexual in nature - virtually every character, male and female, young and old, is raped during the course of the film - with most of the major bloodletting occurring during the film's final 20 minutes. Whether or not you find sexual violence disturbing and offensive will likely determine your response to the film.


Now I don't want to say that I do not find sexual violence disturbing - IRREVERSIBLE, with it's endless anal rape scene, was one of the few films to make me physically ill - but the parade of rapes in this film become quickly routine and tired. Even the film's final, big GASP! moment, by the time it happened, seemed less of a shock than an inevitability - I sat there thinking "who HASN'T been raped yet?" and came quickly to the realization of who it was hiding under those sheets.


Maybe I'm just missing something. I've read many reviews which paint A SERBIAN FILM as a critique of the social and political environments in Serbia. Maybe that's true, but as my knowledge of Serbia is practically nonexistent, whatever subtext the film may contain at that level is completely lost on me. Without some kind of inside track on the supposed social commentary, I'm forced to view A SERBIAN FILM as nothing more than an exploitation film. I suppose it does work on that level, just not for me. The litany of horrors the film contains - multiple rapes of adults, children and even a newborn baby; a decapitation; several beatings; a few shootings; a woman is choked to death on an erect penis; some very literal skullfucking - are strong stuff indeed when taken as set-pieces, but the film itself doesn't add up to much. It just feels pointless and forced.


I can't help but compare this film to previous "THE sickest, THE most disturbing, THE most batshit crazy film ever made" films, films like AUDITION, MARTYRS, and even the recent Lars von Trier masterpiece, ANTICHRIST. As far as I'm concerned, this film has nothing on any of those films. I know that this is just my own personal opinion, but for a film to be disturbing, it has to do more than just throw grotesquery around like confetti. The reason ANTICHRIST, in particular, hits so hard is because of the content, true, but it also has to do with a certain level of restraint and care. The final third of ANTICHRIST is so strong because by the time the sexualized violence occurs, we are invested emotionally - maybe not in the characters but definitely in the film itself. I was shaken psychologically by the time the really visceral stuff began to happen and, as a result, the violence struck me harder. While director Srdjan Spasojevic makes an attempt to connect his audience with the characters, I have to say I felt so very little for the characters on display that I simply had no way to connect with anything in the film. So when lives started being destroyed, I was already experiencing a level of disconnect that the imagery, sickening as it is, simply couldn't overcome.


Story over spectacle works every time in every circumstance. Without a character or situation to hang your hat on, a film just parades before your eyes and you, the viewer, is just that. A viewer. Not a participant. As I said previously, your reaction to A SERBIAN FILM will most likely depend on your reaction to scenes of sexual violence. For me, I couldn't find anything to grasp on to during the film, a fact which reduced it to nothing more than a series of gruesome set-pieces. And gruesome set-pieces simply do not add up to "disturbing" for me.


Not recommended.