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Review

PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS REVIEW REFERS TO INVINCIBLE PICTURES' DVD RELEASE OF A SERBIAN FILM WHICH, FOR LEGAL REASONS, HAD APPROXIMATELY 30 SECONDS CUT FROM THE ORIGINAL VERSION.

Normally, when we look to films to teach us the horrors of genocide, we look to films like Schindler's List or Hotel Rwanda that directly address actual genocide. While the horrors of the Balkan war are only alluded to (both symbolically and literally) in A Serbian Film, one is left, after enduring its horrors, with a far more visceral feeling of genocide than almost any film that directly addresses the subject. As both an exercise in political diatribe and as a shock film, A Serbian Film couldn't be more effective.

Milos (Srdjan Todorovic) is an aging legend of the Serbian porn industry who lives happily with his pretty wife and young son. He, needing money, ends up accepting an unusually generous offer to star in what the director Vukmir (Sergej Trifunovic) describes as an artistic porn film. The catch is that Milos can't know anything about what they will actually be filming. Uncomfortable with this plan, he says no, only to relent and accept the offer at his wife's suggestion. When he arrives on set and ends up performing sex acts in front of an underage girl, his reservations deepen. Eventally, he visits the director and tries to quit the film. This is when the real nightmare begins.

Director Srdjan Spasojevic goes on to subject the audience to the unrelenting horror, pieced together in flashback, of what Milos is forced to perform next. As A Serbian Film's overwhelmingly disturbing content actually got a film festival programmer in Spain thrown in jail for screening it, it goes without saying that these scenes are unbelievably horrifying. A women is butchered in the middle of sex, a man's wife is raped in front of him, a young girl's grandmother offers up her granddaughter's virginity, a little boy is raped by his own father... the list goes on, but, needless to say, one is left chilled to the bone, nauseated to the core and with lingering thoughts of some of the most horrifying acts of genocide ever committed. The effect is powerful.

For such a shocking film, the technical aspects are flawlessly executed. The cinematography, in particular, is crisp and expertly framed with colors vividly emerging from the screen. The acting never feels forced or fake. Because everything gels together so well and the truly horrifying imagery doesn't come until the film is half over, one may get the impression that the film will only be moderately disturbing and, perhaps, not end so badly for all the characters. This impression, of course, only serves to intensify the effect of the later scenes.

Needless to say, it takes a particularly high threshold for taboo and disturbing imagery and concepts to sit through A Serbian Film but, for viewers brave enough to endure, a film of unique power and focus comes through. It's certainly an experience that very few who witness it will ever forget.

 -- Daniel Reed