I'm not the kind of person who would say he wasn't shocked by "A Serbian Film", because he wants to come across as a tough guy. As a matter of fact, however, this movie left me strangely cold. It's depressing and calculated in its shock value, the logical next step after torture porn flicks such as "Saw" and "Hostel". Instead of just depicting blood and guts, director/author Srdjan Spasojevic breaks sexual taboos: He shows the raping and slaughtering of women and children (without actually getting too pornographic. You see erect penisses, blowjobs, even the birth of a child, but no explicit penetration).
If you're shocked by the thought of this alone, "A Serbian Film" will have the intended effect on you and disturb you. I, however, felt that the whole thing was kind of predictable and half as extreme as it was made out to be.
Spasojevic is neither an unethical director, as some will claim, nor does he push the boundaries of what art is allowed to do. The depiction of violence has its end in itself in this movie. That makes "A Serbian Film" so much less powerful than other extreme movies such as "Martyrs" or "Cannibal Holocaust", where the explicit violence actually served a deeper meaning. "A Serbian Film" is neither deep, nor fun too watch, just shocking to a certain extent. That makes it interesting enough for the moment, but not too memorable in the long run. Trust the horror genre to give birth to something more extreme before too long.
If you're shocked by the thought of this alone, "A Serbian Film" will have the intended effect on you and disturb you. I, however, felt that the whole thing was kind of predictable and half as extreme as it was made out to be.
Spasojevic is neither an unethical director, as some will claim, nor does he push the boundaries of what art is allowed to do. The depiction of violence has its end in itself in this movie. That makes "A Serbian Film" so much less powerful than other extreme movies such as "Martyrs" or "Cannibal Holocaust", where the explicit violence actually served a deeper meaning. "A Serbian Film" is neither deep, nor fun too watch, just shocking to a certain extent. That makes it interesting enough for the moment, but not too memorable in the long run. Trust the horror genre to give birth to something more extreme before too long.