I’ve seen Salo, Cannibal Holocaust and Martyrs. I own Hostel, The Human Centipede, Audition and countless other gruesome, disturbing and gory films. Initially I was just a fan of horror movies and their ilk. I simply enjoyed watching films that sought to scare or disturb the viewer.
Just like any other fear junkie, where I started was no longer good enough. There were no longer any scares to be had from American horror films. So then I got into foreign horror movies, which were doing things that Hollywood was too unwilling or unimaginative to try. Movies like Audition and A Tale of Two Sisters successfully bothered me where the Hostel films just had me going ‘meh, look, more severed appendages.’ They did it by being excellent, compelling films that also happened to be freaky as shit.
Then those too got stale, and I decided to give myself the ultimate challenge. I went online and started to search for lists and articles that proclaimed ‘the most disturbing films ever made.’ Oh yeah, these aren’t just horrors, these are movies that push the line so much they erase it. It’s no longer a movie you’re watching – it’s an exercise in masochism. Movies like Irreversible, and Happiness. These aren’t horrors, but the source material is so unapologetically difficult that you can’t help but squirm in your seat.
Yet, I overcame even those movies. Sure, there were scenes in all of them that had me shifting in my seat, not quite willing to maintain eye contact with the screen. But at no point was I genuinely bothered until I arrived at the fecal feast scene in Salo. At that point I assumed that I had seen the worst that film could possibly throw at me. I had stared truly disturbing cinema in the eye and gagged a little, but ultimately came out the other side with my psyche perfectly intact.
Then I watched A Serbian Film.
On to the review?
A word of warning: I am not going to mention everything in this movie but there will still be some frank and earnest descriptions of horrific scenes. There are portions of this movie that I would happily purge from my memory banks a la Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. I truly would. When you make a movie whose detailed visual account of an actual skullfucking is only the sixth or seventh most disturbing thing about it, then you sir have officially won the ‘Fuck YOU, Taras’ award.
A Serbian Film is so fucked up, Netflix dropped it from their DVD service. It’s so bad that it’s the only movie on IMDB that my workplace will not let me access, and I’m pretty sure I’m going to be investigated just for Googling it on my lunch break. It’s so goddamn disturbing that I am willing to get rid of the Blu-ray copy I bought off Amazon for the sake of watching it. It’s such a fucked up movie, I refuse to let it rest next to my copies of Audition and Dead Alive for fear of cross-contamination.
The premise is as follows: Retired porn star Milos (Srdjan Todorovic) is running low on savings and would like to provide money for his wife and son. He’s considering getting back into pornography but would rather not, when he’s given a surprising offer. An auteur filmmaker, Vukmir (Sergej Trifunovic) is willing to pay him enough money to never have to work again in return for starring in one last film. The catch is that Milos will have no access to the script. Up to this point in A Serbian Film it’s simply talk, lots and lots of nudity and frank discussions about all sorts of perversions. Weird and mildly jarring, but nothing that’s going to have me running for the hills in fear.
Of course, this is what makes the movie so much worse than Salo or Irreversible. There’s something about a movie that moves mostly chronologically and slowly, slowly ramps up the disturbing actions, always making the next scene worse than the one before it. Because of the narrative coherence, you’re far more invested in the characters because you’re not trying to figure out who is who and what is where and when is now. You already know everyone and what the basic plot is. This allows you to better focus your attention when a guy threatens to cut off his own dick with a kitchen knife. (Also not nearly the most disturbing scene.)
What finally got to me was the relentless sprint from uncomfortable to all-out disturbing that characterized the last 45 minutes or so. Once our lead agrees to do the porn, things slowly spiral out of control. When he’s forced to beat a girl while she gives him head, Milos realizes that a dark side of him actually enjoyed it. This leads to severe guilt, and in a last-ditch effort to save his sanity, he quits the project.
Vukmir, of course, doesn’t appreciate that. He has our porn-star ‘hero’ drugged. The last third of the film follows Milos as he retraces his steps after regaining his senses four days later. Never before have I watched a movie that had scenes so visceral it caused me to utter negatives at the screen. Also, I learned that shaking my head and going “No no no oh god fuck no no no oh shit no.” does not make a scene any easier to tolerate.
Before I re-shock myself with tales of rape, torture, gore, blood, bestiality and worse, I’ll wrap things up.
A Serbian Film is not a movie that I would recommend to anyone. If you’re morbidly curious, if you’re like me and simply want to challenge yourself with something that’s not quite a movie but not quite a snuff film, then by all means, give it a try. If you just want a fun movie, be it scary or suspenseful or what have you, don’t come near. It’s not worth the memories.
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