I am of course talking about none other than the infamous A Serbian Film.
Yes, I was one of the sick fucks who downloaded the screener copy of this film and watched it in all of it’s uncensored glory.
Now, if you have not heard of this film, you should know that I will be discussing spoilers in the following review, but that’s Okay. You are going to want to know about every detail of this film before attempting to watch it.
Trust me, this is not the type of movie you want to go into completely blind.
I will start out by saying that despite the controversial nature and graphic content of this film, that from the start it is an excellent piece of cinematography. Everything from the quality of the video to the acting, even the story itself, is nothing short of amazing. Even the explicit scenes are beautifully shot, which only serves to make them that more surreal upon viewing.
The film follows the life of Milo, a retired porn star, and his very cute family. We know that Milo is an ex-porn star from the start as the movie begins with a scene from one of his films, in which he is happily fornicating with some chick in an alley. This plays just long enough to induce a nice, creepy vibe once it quickly cuts away to Milo’s 6-year-old son sitting on a couch, watching the very film of his fathers that we began the movie with.
You know that uncomfortable feeling of confusion mixed with dread in your pants? Yeah, it’s just going to keep getting worse. Be prepared for many scenes of graphic sex that quickly switch over to young children, teenage girls, and even newborns.
In other words, don’t watch this with your mother, unless you’re unnaturally close to the woman in which case this movie was made for you.
In fact, there is not a single scene of eroticism in this film that is not immediately followed by something equally disturbing. Every sexual encountered quickly cuts away to something that’s guaranteed to either nauseate or perturb the audience.
So five minutes into the movie and already you’re wondering about the legalities of it, well the ride has just begun, as our protagonist Milo, aka Porno Man, is starting to come up a little short on cash. While his stud years fattened his coffers considerably, his desire to grant his family the absolute best in life has thinned the honey pot by quite a bit.
Just as he’s starting to realize this fact, in walks the answer to his prayers in the form of an ex-costar of his who has a proposition for him. Some mysterious director has a desire for Milo’s talents for an art film he’s producing. It seem that our Milo not only has very impressive genitals, but he’s also able to achieve an erection on command, with little to no prompting, and can keep that sucker up for as long as needs be.
The twist, and a lot of people have criticized Milo for this, is that our director.....who looks just like Non, the dimwitted Kryptonian sidekick from Superman 2, seriously the resemblance is uncanny......insists that Milo not know anything about the movie beforehand.
 |
| Separated at birth? |
Now this where most people who have seen this movie are screaming BULLSHIT, because this is obviously foreshadowing for something exceedingly twisted, but what my video comrades seem to forget in their indignation is the fact that Milo has his brother, who is a cop, investigate the director for him, as he was suspicious at first, not only because of the shady behavior of the director, but also due to the fact that his ex co-worker has a history of doing questionable work due to a drug dependency, which formed sometime after their acquaintance ended.
So Milo is not completely stupid here, he does attempt to do his homework, he just didn’t realize that he was trusting his future to a brother who’s obsessively envious of him and his life and has a nasty habit of watching Milo’s pornos whenever he’s entertaining females, as well as jerking off in Milo’s bathroom anytime he stops by for a visit.
So backed by his brother’s recommendation, as well as an unspecified offer of money that’s guaranteed to take care of his family's financial issues for the rest of their days, he takes the job.
Cut to Milo’s training montage complete with a special penis pov camera shot.
Now keep in mind, that during the initial set up of this offer, which makes up the first part of the movie, that the film is also building up the relationship between Milo and his family, which while unorthodox, is still extremely touching as the love between them is surprisingly realistic in it's portrayal.
In fact, it’s these touching scenes, that seem so out of place in the rest of the film’s setup that will deliver the most crucial blows later on. Say what you want about this movie, but the man responsible for it’s creation knows how to set a mood, and also just how to use something as innocent as a family’s love for each other to destroy the peace of mind of the audience later on.
Milo’s first day of work begins in an abandoned children’s orphanage, where he is given an earpiece and through it, instructed to perform some increasingly weird sexual acts in which he receives head from a woman while watching a little girl on a screen, and later is instructed to beat a woman during another oral encounter while a young girl dressed as Alice from Wonderland sits in a chair and watches. He’s obviously creeped out by this point, but is forced to hit the woman after she bites down on his family jewels to the point that she draws blood.
Afterwards, he decides that too many lines have been crossed for his comfort and plans to quit the project, but being a man of honor, he feels that he owes the director an explanation in person.
This is Milo’s greatest fault throughout the movie, the fact that he is basically a decent guy, putting his trust into others, and ending up screwed over for it in the end.
During his visit with director Non, he’s offered some brandy, and the director, in an attempt to change his mind, explains the nature of his film, which is to show the victimization of the Serbian people, which, is also what the actual director of this film claims his movie represents. He is shown a video which is the source of the majority of controversy this film has received.
Now I’m going to explain this scene in some detail, so bear with me here.....the movie is of a woman, in a dark and dank room, giving birth. A masked man stands nearby and anyone who hasn’t read spoilers will naturally assume that some post-baby sex is about to occur......which is the case, just the woman isn’t the object of penetration.
The birthing scene itself is the most explicit part of this portion of the film. Everything that follows is implied, but the implication of a newborn child being raped is horrific enough that most people are going to react with extreme levels of disgust and horror, the bottom line is that you do not see a baby being raped, you only have the suggestion of it happening. The worst part of the actual newborn rape scene are the shots of the “mother’s” face, which has a eerie smile plastered to it, while a screaming infant can be heard in the background.
Disgusted, Milo quickly leaves while a orgasmic Non (don't sue me DC) screams out “NEWBORN PORN” with the kind of insane frenzy usually reserved for high school pep rallies.
As he’s driving away, he stops at a light and a woman approaches his vehicle, overcome with a sudden, inexplicable urge of lust, he gropes the woman’s breasts and is driven away with her.
Cut to Milo in his home 3 days later, beaten, bloody, and with zero memory of what has happened to him. What is worse is that his family is missing.
What follows is Milo’s attempt to recover what has happened over the past few days, which he’s mostly able to piece together through various video tapes he finds while ransacking the deserted set.
Now, I have regurgitated enough spoilers into this review for now, and if you think my comments have ruined the film for you so far, then trust me, there is still a great deal to come as Milo desperately tries to locate his family and remember just what has happened to him at the hands of a artistic madman.
I will reveal one last tidbit in regard to Milo’s discoveries, as I feel that this is something people should be aware of before watching this film, as every other review just seems to focus on the implied newborn rape, which I do not consider to be the most distressing part of the movie as a whole.
There is a scene towards the end of the film where a young child is raped and frankly, it was this scene, out of all of the rest of the film, that I found truly sickening to the point that I have not been able to watch this movie since my initial viewing of it. The scene was so graphic, that you can literally see blood forming on the child’s thighs as he is being raped, and while you only see the lower part of his body, and I can only hope that a stand-in doll, or really small adult, was being used, it is still unsettling enough that all of the previous scenes, including the suggestion of infant rape, could not even compare. Even closing your eyes during this scene is not enough to block out what is happening, as the sound effects are exceptionally, but disturbingly superb.
This is the type of movie that will make you question whether or not you should register on some type of list after watching it. You will spend the rest of the night listening for sirens as you prepare for the authorities to break down your door in order to drag you off for your chemical castration.
The bottom line is that this film is about the destruction of innocence, the creation of victims and the need to feed into the desires of a society that craves ever-increasing levels of depravity and perversity in their entertainment. And it's also supposedly about the rape and victimization of the Serbian people, but I am not knowledgeable enough about Serbian history to comment on that particular comparison, so I'll just have to take the director's word for it.
Now, I have watched many a horror film in my days. I have seen countless pseudo-snuff films from NIN’s Broken to the Guinea Pig movies. I have a twisted and morbid love for rape-revenge movies and can watch extended scenes of fictional violence, rape and torture without flinching, and yet viewing this film hurt me on some level.
Afterwards I felt numb, shell-shocked, as if I had seen something so horrific that my mind could not cope with the proper emotional response.
Was this a good movie? Yes. It was an excellent movie. Everything about it was beautifully portrayed, and expertly exacted, and that is where the damage lies. It was too real, too brutal, and involved too many instances where lines where crossed. And not in the usual over-the-top, absurd manner that so many of these shock-jock, torture porn flicks attempt for either, it was masterfully done so that not a single scene of this movie could be looked at from a humorous angle.
There was no possible escape into hilarity, because each situation was so precise in it’s cruelty, that it didn’t overreach into the boundaries of B-horror movie humor.
So that is my take on this film. It was one of the best, and worst movies I have ever seen in regard to this genre. I do not believe that it will ever be topped, regardless of how many people Tom Sixx sews together in his Scaterpillar flicks, or how many stupid college kids Eli Roth kills off in his Hostel movies. Even the August Underground films are unable to hold a candle to this, mostly due to the fact that those movies come off like a bad student film, but also, because they lack the atmosphere and buildup that this film achieved.
Every touching scene in the movie quickly becomes bittersweet as we are taken captive by a sadistic madman, forced down a road of depravity just as surely as Milo is, caught in the web of our own making for gorier, more disturbing films to shock our increasingly desensitized minds.
This movie is what we asked for…..and we will regret it in the end because the worst part about this film is that it turns the mirror right back at us and forces us to face our own sick natures.
No comments:
Post a Comment