Cut by a whopping 4 minutes 11 seconds by the BBFC and setting disapproving tongues wagging with its explicit content during its festival run, A Serbian Film is the latest controversy-baiting movie that almost dares to you see what all the fuss is about. However, as what so often happens in these instances, the controversy far outweighs the quality of the notorious exhibit in question, and A Serbian Film isnt the smart allegorical commentary that the filmmakers would have you believe.
The film focuses on retired, heavy-drinking porn star and father of one, Milos, a guy who misses the good old days of poolside threeways and the healthy pay checks they used to bring. So, when an old colleague informs him that a new, experimental director wants Milos for a new kind of porn film, he naturally debates cumming out of retirement, especially as the pay, for reasons unclear, is so phenomenally good.
Reluctantly accepting the new job, Milos is gradually lured into a strange production where there is no script, though Milos apprehensions are realised when the odd flash of violence and abuse begins to enter the plot. Quitting the production before things get nasty, Milos is eventually drugged and forced back into starring in his very own snuff movie; a new, revolutionary style of pornography where nothing is off limits.
Taking the theory that the Serbian government continues to metaphorically rape and molest its people (even after death) and applying it quite literally and unsubtly to his film, director Srdjan Spasojevic, has put together a movie in which women are decapitated during sex, newborn babies are raped, and as the films climactic Grand Guignol, a father rapes his young son. All perfect ingredients for exploitation cinema, though the list of touchy taboos is far more shocking on paper than it is on film (perhaps because of the BBFC, who knows?).
Absorbing and entertaining for the first 30 minutes or so, A Serbian Film begins with subtlety and intrigue before things get silly and the film descends into a relentless and tedious mesh of cartoon violence and shock-value depravity. It doesnt move you, inform you or indeed enlighten in any way, and its hard to view a film in which one character has their eye socket fucked by a big prosthetic penis as a serious social commentary.
In what is perhaps a telling sign during the introduction on this Blu-ray (nicely presented on the audio/visual front, but we cant imagine anyone would actually want to own this film and watch it for a second time), the director is almost playful when introducing the film and discussing its reputation. Maybe he merely wants to emphasise the ludicrous nature of the censorship boards reactions, or maybe this is just all one big sick joke and hes having the last laugh.
Overall Verdict: Watch it to see what all the fuss was about, but dont expect anything profound or moving. This is disposable shock-value exploitation and little else.
Special Features:
Directors Introduction
Q&A Session
Reviewer: Lee Griffiths