A Serbian Film.

[ErikJ972]

Posted: 4/14/10 at 12:51pm

I was hoping with the box office failure of Hostel 2 that the torture porn craze in horror would die down. I've always been a big fan of horror, and don't generally have a problem with violence/gore in movies, but I generally think movies in this category are nothing but cheap, exploitative, misogynistic, and depressing.
A Serbian Film premiered at the SXSW festival and has reached a new low of depravity. The film is about a retired Serbian porn star who is lured back into the business by a director offering him a life changing amount of money. The catch is he won't be told what's in the movie or what he will be required to do before hand. The film includes such things as (and I guess this might be a spoiler if you plan on seeing it) a woman having her teeth removed and being forced to perform fellatio until she chokes to death and sexual abuse of a new born infant.
What surprises me is that many of the early reviews for this movie have been positive. Harry Knowles review (for what that's worth) has created somewhat of a firestorm over at Ain't it Cool News.
I know this genre has it's fans. And it's been debated on this board before. But I just don't get why anyone would want to see something like this. I'm not for censorship but is there a line that needs to be drawn?


Harry Knowles reviews A Serbian Fil

[ErikJ972]

Posted: 4/14/10 at 12:53pm

And now I'm robert.berliner!

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 4/14/10 at 12:54pm

Notfiy the mods. They'll blame it you, though.

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 4/14/10 at 12:57pm

Holy god, Harry Knowles is a fecal writer.

[ErikJ972]

Posted: 4/14/10 at 12:58pm

I'm no fan of Harry Knowles. But I've pretty much only read positive reviews of the movie so far. And I was interested in the debate it started on the forum.

[doodlenyc]

Posted: 4/14/10 at 1:05pm

That's the worst written review I've ever read!

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 4/14/10 at 1:07pm

Something tells me there isn't going to be anything new in the debate. Personally, I loathe Eli Roth and his apologists (has he died in a plane crash yet? no? too bad), but maybe this movie has more to it than giving its director something to masturbate to, which, near as I could tell, is the reason the Hostel movies exist.

Harry Knowles's illiterate movie chat about it was not enlightening in the least.

[ErikJ972]

Posted: 4/14/10 at 1:12pm

Yeah Namo you're right. After reading it more the talk back there is...pretty bad. I did read a better review that went into the directors motives a little more. A review that of course I can't find a link to now. But I'll look when I get home.

[Mister Matt]

Posted: 4/14/10 at 1:13pm

I simply don't have the patience to sit through any more films that strive to make the "most shocking" list any more. I simply refuse to believe they exist for any other reason than infamy. I saw that one about the woman who hires a gay guy to study all facets of her vagina and that was my last venture into "shocking cinema". It was boring and gross and served no purpose that I could find other than to be shocking and revolting.

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 4/14/10 at 1:26pm

That sounds fun! Was Eve Ensler involved?

ETA Found a more English-based article about Serbian Film I'll put at the link. The director sounds dozens of times more thoughtful than anything Eli Roth could come up with. Not that I want to see the movie or anything.
Shocks

Updated On: 4/14/10 at 01:26 PM

[Mister Matt]

Posted: 4/14/10 at 1:34pm

Anatomy of Hell! That was the name of that stupid movie. I had read about it and was intrigued by the notion of Rocco Siffredi in a feature film, but outside the brief opening scene, there is no other reason to watch this boring pointless mess.

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 4/14/10 at 1:37pm

I love Rocco.

I just found another sort of review of Serbian Film, again, devoid of Knowlesese. I love the final graph:

I cannot recommend Serbian Film to anyone. It is a movie that hard-core horror fans will be daring each other to endure for years to come. On an intellectual level, I think I can see and appreciate what it's trying to do. But if I could unsee it, I would.

"If I could unsee it, I would' is a great line.

[JerseyGirl2]

Posted: 4/14/10 at 4:46pm

The trailer was more than enough for me. Gross.

[strummergirl]

Posted: 4/14/10 at 5:03pm

Harry Knowles is like the basement-living version of Ben Lyons with a Hawaiian shirt. I have no idea when movies studios print his reviews of their films. Not well-written or well-researched most of the time. Judging by the trailer and the synopsis, this film almost feels like it could work a lot better in a campy Russ Meyers kind of way.

And now I read some of the "extremes" and "shocks". Skipping this.

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 4/14/10 at 5:08pm

"I have no idea when movies studios print his reviews of their films."

Usually because the other sentient beings who know how to put a sentence together have nothing good to say about their movies.

[Mister Matt]

Posted: 4/14/10 at 5:31pm

I read the article Namo posted and I'd be far more interested in attending the Q&A than seeing the film. For example:

Screenwriter Srdjan Spasojevic fielded questions during a Q&A, framing the movie as an angry reaction to the country’s rampant censorship laws. “This is a diary of our own molestation by the Serbian government,” he said. “We’re giving this back to you.” He pointed out that the movie, which has yet to play in its native country, reflects a hidden anti-government sentiment. “In the past 10 to 15 years, the only films made in Serbia have no connection to Serbian reality,” he said.

So is it the ex-porn star that's being molested or the victims of the film in which he's "forced" to engage?

But Spasojevic argued that the radically unsettling rape-murder motif had a pointed intent. “It’s about the monolithic power of leaders who hypnotize you to do things you don’t want to do,” said Spasojevic.

Or...to do things you didn't expect to do. From what I gather, the "protagonist" agrees to return to porn, but signs an agreement to do anything he was asked without being told any specifics. And he does it for the money.

“You have to feel the violence to know what it’s about.”

Or more specifically, we have to be exposed the most extreme cinema taboos to know what your film's about?

I'm sorry, but if the aim of that film is to illustrate the plight of Serbian filmmaking and...sympathize?...with Serbian directors/screenwriters, I don't think it's going to be extremely effective.

Or it could get hailed as the cinematic masterpiece of the 21st century. What do I know?

[strummergirl]

Posted: 4/14/10 at 6:05pm

"Usually because the other sentient beings who know how to put a sentence together have nothing good to say about their movies."

I would rather just make them up like some studios do.

Mr. Matt, I read that even the goreheads who dig the Eli Roth type of films were shocked by some of the stuff that happened in the film. Reading some of the shocks, I can understand why.

[Mister Matt]

Posted: 4/14/10 at 6:12pm

Sometimes a figurine in a pile of poo is just a figurine in a pile of poo.

[JerseyGirl2]

Posted: 11/5/10 at 9:41am

Oh heavens. Did anyone ever actually SEE this?! What kind of sick individuals think this crap up? Every time you think it can't get worse and they can't stick their weens in anything else, they do, right up until the last second. I just kind of fast forwarded through it, but I shouldn't have gone there.

[Borstalboy]

Posted: 11/5/10 at 11:48am

This film will never get released here except through bootlegs...kind of like Larry Clark's KEN PARK.


I find the director's comments that this is somehow about what Serbia has been through to be completely condescending and utter bullsh*t. "Oh, sheltered little Westerner...you couldn't possibly know what our people have been through. Here, watch a newborn baby getting raped to death. It means something."

[JerseyGirl2]

Posted: 11/5/10 at 1:03pm

I watched it on a boot, of course. It's online. It's sicker than you can imagine, but not anything that moves toward the side of good film making.

It was still better than SATC 2.

Updated On: 11/5/10 at 01:03 PM

[Jordan Catalano]

Posted: 11/5/10 at 1:20pm

Was Liza in this one as well?!?!

[SNAFU]

Posted: 11/6/10 at 1:25pm

Who do you think gave birth to the baby Jordan?

[misschung]

Posted: 11/7/10 at 9:32am

God, I just keep hoping these kinds of movies go away. I understand freedom of speech/expression/creation, whatever. But if given a choice to watch either this or Sarah Palin's new show on the Discovery channel, I would choose the later, and that's scarier than anything to me.

People can be really atrocious

look at the images in this:
http://survivallink.com/15-most-painful-execution-techniques/

then look at this:
http://www.games.net/article/feature/113802/13-grisly-horror-movie-moments/

the non-fictional scenarios are worse! I truly think some things should just be left unsaid, or unshown.

[JerseyGirl2]

Posted: 11/7/10 at 10:02am

Wait... Faces of Death was FAKE?!!