A Serbian Film
Year: 2010
Director: Srdan Spasojevic
Starring: Srdan Todorovic & Sergej Trifunovic
Runtime: 104 mins
BBFC: 18
Published: 27/07/23
Director: Srdan Spasojevic
Starring: Srdan Todorovic & Sergej Trifunovic
Runtime: 104 mins
BBFC: 18
Published: 27/07/23
I love controversial films, and there are few films as controversial at A Serbian Film. Notorious for its sick subject matter, and for having some of the most graphic scenes ever put to film.
I had held off watching the film as I wanted to track down an uncut version, expose myself to the full brutality of it all, but the years went by and I simply couldn’t get hold of one without requiring a bank loan, and I couldn’t find a good quality version online. So…BBFC approved it is, and I’m very happy I didn’t spend loads of money on it because even with more gruesome content the film itself is a total disaster.
Retired pornstar Milos (Srdan Todorovic) is contacted by director Vukmir (Sergej Trifunovic) with the promise of the largest pay check he’ll ever receive and the most artistic porn film he’ll ever have started in. Milos agrees, but when he attends the shoot he begins to realise that he’s agreed to a nightmare.
A Serbian Film opens with an intro from the director, Srdan Spasojevic, and for the version I watched it’s a mix of him complaining that the film being cut goes against artists free speech and is political correctness gone mad; and that the film is a metaphor for how Serbian citizens have been treated by both the Serbian and international governments. He comes off as a complete incel because of the way he keeps slinging the word rape around until it’s lost all meaning, and because of how much he hates political correctness and it’s ‘raping’ of free speech. But it’s clear he believes the film to be this high-art political statement, when in reality it’s a shoddily cobbled together mess that’s only goal is to shock and repulse.
I had held off watching the film as I wanted to track down an uncut version, expose myself to the full brutality of it all, but the years went by and I simply couldn’t get hold of one without requiring a bank loan, and I couldn’t find a good quality version online. So…BBFC approved it is, and I’m very happy I didn’t spend loads of money on it because even with more gruesome content the film itself is a total disaster.
Retired pornstar Milos (Srdan Todorovic) is contacted by director Vukmir (Sergej Trifunovic) with the promise of the largest pay check he’ll ever receive and the most artistic porn film he’ll ever have started in. Milos agrees, but when he attends the shoot he begins to realise that he’s agreed to a nightmare.
A Serbian Film opens with an intro from the director, Srdan Spasojevic, and for the version I watched it’s a mix of him complaining that the film being cut goes against artists free speech and is political correctness gone mad; and that the film is a metaphor for how Serbian citizens have been treated by both the Serbian and international governments. He comes off as a complete incel because of the way he keeps slinging the word rape around until it’s lost all meaning, and because of how much he hates political correctness and it’s ‘raping’ of free speech. But it’s clear he believes the film to be this high-art political statement, when in reality it’s a shoddily cobbled together mess that’s only goal is to shock and repulse.
The first half of the film is just about Milos trying to decide if he even wants to make the film. He has a wife, Marija (Jelena Gavrilovic), and child, Petar, and he is content enough with life as a family man. But they could do with the money, and Milos does miss the artistic process.
The second half meanwhile dives into the actual production of said film, which gets progressively more disturbing and disgusting.
Though the production value had certainly left me struggling to commit, it was the point at which Vukmir begins exclaiming ‘Newborn Porn’ at the top of his lungs whilst showing Milos a video of a man penetrating a baby that had been born just a few moments earlier that made me realise the kind of film I was watching. Spasojevic claims his film is challenging political correctness and painting an accurate portrait of what life is really like in Serbia, but it's total bullshit. This does not represent anything of value, it doesn’t have anything to say, it just wants to show you the vilest thing it possibly can and then laugh at it.
From then on, you’re subjected to a torrent of excessively violent sex scenes in which the women are killed during intercourse, children engaging in sexual activities with adults, or children being drugged, tied down, and raped. The BBFC left a surprising amount of it in-tact, in fact the biggest cuts aren’t even made to sex scenes involving children. But this is a film where a man kills someone by shoving his penis into their eye socket and thrusting it into their brain. It’s the kind of film that leaves you with a cold and empty feeling inside of you that not only someone was able to think of this and write it down as a film script, but that a production company thought it was a good idea and funded it, and that people wanted to star in it.
The second half meanwhile dives into the actual production of said film, which gets progressively more disturbing and disgusting.
Though the production value had certainly left me struggling to commit, it was the point at which Vukmir begins exclaiming ‘Newborn Porn’ at the top of his lungs whilst showing Milos a video of a man penetrating a baby that had been born just a few moments earlier that made me realise the kind of film I was watching. Spasojevic claims his film is challenging political correctness and painting an accurate portrait of what life is really like in Serbia, but it's total bullshit. This does not represent anything of value, it doesn’t have anything to say, it just wants to show you the vilest thing it possibly can and then laugh at it.
From then on, you’re subjected to a torrent of excessively violent sex scenes in which the women are killed during intercourse, children engaging in sexual activities with adults, or children being drugged, tied down, and raped. The BBFC left a surprising amount of it in-tact, in fact the biggest cuts aren’t even made to sex scenes involving children. But this is a film where a man kills someone by shoving his penis into their eye socket and thrusting it into their brain. It’s the kind of film that leaves you with a cold and empty feeling inside of you that not only someone was able to think of this and write it down as a film script, but that a production company thought it was a good idea and funded it, and that people wanted to star in it.
Whilst there’s plenty of internet horror out there that’s just as bad, if not worse than A Serbian Film, the biggest hurdle you come up against is that this has actual production values behind it. They aren’t very good, showcasing some awkward camera angles, choppy editing, and performances that are incredibly bland. But you can see that a half decent amount of money was put into this thing, it’s not just been made by one guy with his camcorder and uploaded to YouTube, this is a feature film that went to festivals, and had an international release.
I did track down the clips that the BBFC cut from the film online and watched them, just to make my day worse. I wouldn’t say that they’re much worse than what you see in the film anyway, but they definitely leave less to the imagination. They don’t make the film better, but they do make you lose your faith with humanity just that little bit more.
I couldn’t ever recommend A Serbian Film to someone, not even a gore hound who just wants to see the nastiest thing possible. Part of what makes good horror digestible is the detachment from reality, the absurdity of it all. Whilst A Serbian Film is definitely absurd at times, child porn is very real and honestly, I feel like this acts to glorify it somewhat. To make matters worse the film isn’t even well made, so it’s not like I could take an objective standpoint and praise the production values because they’re just as bad as the indefensible subject matter.
I think it illustrates the great thing about film censorship, and it’s that once you’ve seen something, you can’t unsee it. For a long time I sought out A Serbian Film just to see how bad it was, and whilst I definitely expected it to be worse, I can’t unsee what I did watch, and I’m going to have to live with that.
I did track down the clips that the BBFC cut from the film online and watched them, just to make my day worse. I wouldn’t say that they’re much worse than what you see in the film anyway, but they definitely leave less to the imagination. They don’t make the film better, but they do make you lose your faith with humanity just that little bit more.
I couldn’t ever recommend A Serbian Film to someone, not even a gore hound who just wants to see the nastiest thing possible. Part of what makes good horror digestible is the detachment from reality, the absurdity of it all. Whilst A Serbian Film is definitely absurd at times, child porn is very real and honestly, I feel like this acts to glorify it somewhat. To make matters worse the film isn’t even well made, so it’s not like I could take an objective standpoint and praise the production values because they’re just as bad as the indefensible subject matter.
I think it illustrates the great thing about film censorship, and it’s that once you’ve seen something, you can’t unsee it. For a long time I sought out A Serbian Film just to see how bad it was, and whilst I definitely expected it to be worse, I can’t unsee what I did watch, and I’m going to have to live with that.