Can we all agree on something? Can we all agree to stop creating things that we think are sick and twisted under the pretense of it being something else? Can we stop assigning false philosophies to things that don’t deserve them? Can we call a cigar a cigar, and a meaningless film about human degradation just that?
As I commented to friends last night, A Serbian Film is a metaphor in the same way that the bible is the word of god. Just because a whole bunch of people are going to believe it, doesn’t mean it isn’t mostly horseshit. Interested in the plot? Read about it elsewhere. What I want to talk about today is torture porn, dressed up like a prostitute in pointless, phoned-in philosophy. There is no question that A Serbian Film is just that, and not much more. It is not a clever critique on society, Serbian or otherwise. It is empty, meaningless, with a simple, obvious plot visible from a mile away, a lazy “film-within-a-film” premise, hastily drawn characters and “metaphors” that are as subtle as hatchet to the head. It’s sick, but not inventive, shocking, but predictably so, and utterly disappointing.
Much will be made of the “newborn porn” scene, but what disheartened me the most about this scene wasn’t the subject matter, but how cheaply obvious the “message”. I called it, well before the Q&A. I KNEW the filmmakers would say “it’s a metaphor for how we’re born fucked”, because baby-fucking is the most obvious and juvenile way to communicate that idea. Say what you will about it being an allegory, the film-within-a-film mechanic means that the film equates itself with a film being made about raping newborn infants. The logical conclusion of that equation is that I, and the other 700 or so people in attendance watched a movie about infant rape (and decapitation, incest, torture, skullfucking, etc.), and hundreds of years of political unrest in Serbia don’t make that mean anything more than what it is.
Negative reviews, discussion of how scandalous and shocking a film’s content might be usually only serve to boost consumption. I realize that as I type this, and this is why I’d like to make one recommendation. If you plan on seeing it, don’t pay for it. In our world, the only thing that matters anymore is money. Where you put your dollar is the only vote that means anything anymore. In this world, where, as the filmmakers reminded us, we’re born fucked, live fucked and die fucked, 9 to 5 prostitutes for the great, grinding wheel of human pornography that is the modern economic system, the only thing that matters anymore is where you spend your cash.
That ultimately is the sick joke at the heart of A Serbian Film. Don’t think that its “great message” was lost on me… if anything it drove home that what is so calculating and exploitative is that these filmmakers are selling us our own sad degradation back to us in the form of a misery of cheaply written celluloid. I know what it means to be alive, believe me. It’s not a uniquely Serbian condition. The only thing keeping most people on the wheel and in the grind are those rare moments of beauty, of joy and of freedom, and you won’t find any of that in this oppressive film. Don’t get fucked twice - if curiosity gets the better of you, think again before opening your wallet.
