A Serbian Film

Already notorious among devotees of extreme cinema, this blandly titled movie from writer-director Srdjan Spasojevic easily lives up—or down—to its reputation as one of the most unsettling pictures ever made. Srdjan Todorovic stars as Milos, a heavy-drinking retired porn star with a loving wife and darling 6-year-old son. In need of funds, Milos accepts an offer to take the lead in a film being shot by a mysterious director named Vukmir (Sergej Trifunovic), who insists that Milos know nothing about the content. The shoot turns out to involve not only graphic sex, but also torture and even killing. At one point, Vukmir devises a bit of grotesquerie involving a doctor and a just-delivered infant—which, in a burst of inspiration, he terms “newborn porn.” The scenario moves further into extremes of violence and sexual abuse as Milos is forced into performing even more lurid acts (and hallucinates about worse horrors), and his spouse and child are also drawn into the nightmare. While it's easy to dismiss A Serbian Film as nothing more than loathsome torture porn, one has to admit that in its own absolutely perverse way it's well made. And some dialogue indicates that Spasojevic intends it as a scathing commentary on the national character of his country, whose recent history has been marked by hatred, slaughter, war, and ethnic cleansing. But just because it wants to be taken seriously doesn't mean that it's an easy or even worthwhile watch. Not a necessary purchase. (F. Swietek)