A Serbian Film (Srpski Film) (2010)
Distributor: Revolver Entertainment
Release Date (UK): 10 December 2010
Directed by: Srdjan Spasojevic
Starring: Srdjan Todorovic, Sergej Trifunovic, Jelena Gavrilovic, Katarina Zutic
Review by: Ben Bussey
CAUTION: This review features substantial spoilers.
As a general rule of thumb, we prefer to keep things as spoiler-free as possible at Brutal As Hell, but in this instance as part of my job here is to illustrate the differences between the original cut and the BBFC approved version, I felt it was necessary to discuss the scenes that were affected. On top of which, given how much debate this film has inspired these past nine months, I sadly suspect the content of the most notorious sequences has long since become common knowledge…
And oh, has this film inspired debate. Our own Britt Hayes covered the world premiere at SXSW, and the resulting review (which I recommend you read before continuing here, if you haven’t already done so) quickly became one of the most visited and commented-upon articles in the site’s history. Whenever and wherever A Serbian Film comes up, extreme reactions follow. I myself was all set to catch the UK premiere at this August’s Frightfest, until the film was abruptly pulled from the schedule mere days before the event; it was the most discussed film of the festival, without even being shown. And this past Thursday at the Prince Charles Cinema, finally getting to introduce the film – albeit in a cut more than four minutes shorter than the filmmakers intended – Frightfest organiser Alan Jones declared A Serbian Film to be the most controversial film he had ever encountered in his career; quite a statement when you consider that this is a man who worked through the video nasties era.
What a dilemma that leaves for this reviewer. It would surely be insufficient for me to merely give a brief synopsis then summarise my own feelings on the film. A Serbian Film has long since become more than a horror movie; it is a rallying cry. Yet, of course, it does not scream the same thing to everyone. It has some (and not just the usual moralist minority) calling for greater censorship, and others calling out for the liberties of the artist and the viewer.
All this ensures that A Serbian Film is without question a noteworthy film. Thankfully, it doesn’t begin and end with sensationalism. A Serbian Film is of course provactive, disturbing and distasteful, but above and beyond this it really is quite a remarkable piece of filmmaking. At the tail end of arguably the most controversial scene in a film bulging with controversial scenes, the psychologist/filmmaker/megalomaniac Vukmir (an astonishing Sergej Trifunovic) declares his work to be “a new genre,” and one gets the impression that’s just what was being aimed for with this film. And I daresay they weren’t far off.
This kind of content – sexual violence as horror, and the male sex drive as monster – really hasn’t been explored this way on film before. I found myself reminded of the most distressing literary explorations of the subject that I have ever encountered: American Psycho, Jack Ketchum’s The Girl Next Door, but even more so than those – Andrea Dworkin’s Pornography: Men Possessing Women. Any heterosexual male who has ever read Dworkin has doubtless gone through the same cycle I did of being enraged by the assertions made of our gender, yet ultimately coming to the crushing realisation that everything said about the masculine was true: the drive to dominate, to brutalise, to attempt to satiate the ultimately insatiable appetite.
This, I think, is the overriding theme that has made A Serbian Film the hot topic it is. At the screening, director Spasojevic reiterated his assertion that the film’s primary function is to serve as a metaphor for life in his home nation (and while I do not doubt his conviction, I must say I do not entirely approve of filmmakers promoting so specific a reading of their work; there’s a lot to be said for leaving things open to interpretation). But to my mind the film is really driven by the universal theme of the male sex drive, and of course the universal taboos of rape and paedophilia. It is not anti-porn per se – central protagonist Milos (the also remarkable Srdjan Todorovic) is portrayed as a well-balanced, down-to-earth family man, never frowned upon for his chosen profession – but tough questions are asked about where ‘good’ porn ends and ‘bad’ porn begins, and just how much it takes for a man to embrace those heinous impulses which, like it or not, on some level exist within us all.
This would seem the appropriate place to address the cuts made by the BBFC – and as such, spoilers will follow.
After reading that A Serbian Film is the most censored UK theatrical release in almost two decades (having been cut by 4 minutes 12 seconds – which, incidentally, is 30 seconds more than was initially demanded prior to the film being pulled from Frightfest), it comes as something of a surprise that the film does not feel much weaker for it. Images of erections, ejaculation and necrophilia, once major no-nos with the BBFC, remain intact. Even that scene with the newborn baby is lacking only a few shots, leaving the worst of it to the viewer’s imagination. However – and this is something that very few people seem to have said in A Serbian Film’s defence – the worst of it had been left to the viewer’s imagination anyway. The way A Serbian Film has been talked about (not least by those commenting on Britt’s review) would give the impression that this was a film that never cut away, that left nothing unshown, that examined every unspeakable atrocity in gynecological detail. This is an absolute falsehood. Of course the acts commited in the film are atrocious, but for the most part they remain suggested and, lest we forget, simulated.
By and large only specific shots have been censored, most of them relating to children in sexual scenes; cutaways to images of children on TV screens whilst characters are being fellated. That the children themselves never appear in frame during sexual activity and are not participants therein was not sufficient, it would seem. The final rape scene has had a few shots trimmed too, notably those of the small body beneath the sack. The only scene that has been almost entirely excised is the murder-by-fellatio, and this is one of the few really jarring moments where it is obvious a cut has been made, and as such it does hurt the rhythm of what was otherwise a very well edited film.
For the most part the cuts may not substantially lessen the impact or detract meaning from the scenes in question, but this does not make the justification of this censorship any less shaky. The BBFC classify these cuts as applying to “images of sexual and sexualised violence which have a tendency to eroticise or endorse the behaviour.” Put simply, this is nonsense. Certainly the scenes in question are explicit, often uncomfortably so, but to suggest that the film promotes rape and paedophilia is beyond absurd. Never is it remotely implied that Vukmir is in the right, or that what Milos is coerced into doing is good. We might note that Milos only performs these acts when drugged out of his mind, and when at last he comes to his senses he is left a broken man by what he has done, and his once happy family a shell of what it was. I’d hardly call that an endorsement.
Whether you accept the film as a political allegory or not, there is no question that A Serbian Film stirs deep questions in the mind of all those who see it, and regardless of whether or not the viewer enjoys the film they are unlikely to forget it. Scott Weinberg has famously remarked, “I admire and detest it at the same time. And I will never watch it again. Ever.” I understand and respect his position, but I must say – having at the time of writing seen A Serbian Film twice, both in its original and BBFC-approved versions, I have every intention of watching again. Not because I like the idea of rape and murder, but because I appreciate good filmmaking; and, as simply hasn’t been said enough, A Serbian Film is a very well made film indeed. It is beautifully photographed and edited, powerfully scored, very well written, and tremendously acted: truly, without two such skilled lead actors as Tororovic and Trifunovic, there’s no way the film would have such an impact. Plus, as has also not been noted enough, it’s truly quite funny at times: don’t tell me we’re not supposed to laugh at Milos diving through a window like Sally in The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, or a man being killed by a cock in his eye socket (another moment that notably went by the BBFC unscathed). Censored or uncensored, this is without question one of the most distinctive, powerful films in recent memory. It’s not for all tastes, for certain, but this has always been true of the horror genre, and A Serbian Film stands tall as an example of what can be achieved within horror by those with the skill and vision to push the generic boundaries into genuinely new places; into something approaching “a new genre.”