Whew....
SERBIAN FILM: the gift that keeps on giving to the forum! Let’s see, where to begin….
First things first (and this is something I should address in the Post-Mortem thread as well): I hate the term “torture porn.” Hate it. I get the intention of some who use the term to describe certain films, but it’s one of the biggest misnomers in modern cinema discussion. Pornogrpahy (as defined by the dictionary and the courts) is, in part, intended to titillate, to “arouse sexual excitement in its audience.” Now some flicks that have been tagged as torture porn do seem to fit this definition. I’d be hard pressed not to argue that
Hostel 2 (especially in its Bathory-inspired nude blood draining scene) is, in part, attempting to sexually stimulate its audience. But
Serbian Film?
Irreversible?
Martyrs? Anyone who would be sexually excited by these films has some major problems.
And maybe this gets at the heart (or some section of the heart) of this conversation. But I’ll get back to that in a bit.
As I announced at the Marathon, Bruce and I had not seen
Serbian Film before this past Saturday. But I, for one, knew about the majority of the money shots (it was hard not to find out some of these things over the past year, especially when the film was hanging around as a possible premiere.) And that knowledge didn’t make viewing the film any easier or more palatable. I was genuinely disturbed by the raw brutality of the graphic violence and sexuality. But those traits alone are not what made Serbian Film an unforgettable film experience for me.
It was the pathos that Spasojevic builds for Milos from the opening scenes, his face a mixed mask of regret for his dwindling financial strength and guilt for his sordid past (which his son is now seeing in graphic form.) It was the humanity that Srdjan Todorovic imbues in him as he struggles with the moral and ethical dilemma that come with that devil’s deal of an offer. It was the strong and believable familial bond that has to be built in order for the descent into hell to truly have its horrible power. I was reminded of Darren Aronofsky’s excellent
Requiem for a Dream, which features a final reel as harrowing and emotionally devastating as any I’ve ever seen. The power of that film also lies in characters who you genuinely care for being ultimately annihilated (in that case by their own addictions.) I own this film, but I’ve only watched it a few times because I’m consistently brought to tears by the climax.
I was fairly devastated by
Serbian Film, in part because I didn’t know that so much of its climax was told in flashback, or that the bulk of Milos’s sexual rampage is driven by the bull aphrodisiac that he’s shot up with. It’s a brilliant move by Spasojevic, because he essentially taps into one of the oldest and most resonant horror tropes. In fact, after the Marathon, I almost wished we had also booked
The Wolf Man, because Serbian Film plays with that same concept: one man’s stark fear at his dark side, a shadow self that is brought to life by means beyond his control. All the regret for his past life that Milos expresses in the beginning of the film, all the confusion he feels when his wife begs him to screw her in the demoralizing way that he screwed his co-stars (a neat reversal of a dramatic situation that usually involves a female porn star), all of the horrible, sub-human acts that he’s hinted at having committed in the past come roaring back to life when he’s under the influence of the drugs. I was reminded of some of the latter day Hulk stories in which Banner loses complete control over his green-skinned alter ego, who in turn becomes an uncontrollable vessel of destruction.
Simply put, it’s man’s greatest fear: that no matter how hard we try to be good, no matter how strenuously we set boundaries for ourselves, there’s always the possibility of something deeply repellent lurking inside of us. As Noah Cross tells Jake Gittes in
Chinatown “You see, Mr. Gittes, most people never have to face the fact that at the right time and the right place, they're capable of ANYTHING.” You can have your chainsawed co-eds and popping eyeballs; to me, what takes place in this film is truly terrifying. And THIS is the real
HANGOVER.
Which brings me back to the beginning of this response. Serbian Film is one of the strongest portraits of dehumanization in modern film. But it’s also a harsh indictment of pornography, showcasing its dehumanizing effects and the logical end result of those effects being pushed to their extreme. And it’s perfectly fitting that it would address these issue in such a distasteful manner, because the world we live in is so awash in these matters that we often don’t stop to look them in the face.
As most of you know, I’m no prude. But it disturbs me that we live in a culture that celebrates the increasing sexualization of young women. In many ways, the Britney Spears marketing machine opened this Pandora’s Box; remember that infamous Rolling Stone cover with the 15-year old pop queen splayed on her bed, top wide open and seductive look on her face? Go look at a standard pre-teen clothing catalog some time and see how explicit some of the outifits are. And let’s not stop there, because we’re in a golden age of women being treated as sex objects in the media. It’s not 1970 anymore; pornography is now ingrained in our collective consciousness, and the internet has only accelerated the rate of consumption and desensitization. Want proof? Check out
this New York Magazine article from earlier this year, which details the growing trend of men who aren’t able to achieve orgasm with their lovers because their minds have been so warped by porn.
And violence? Go log onto YouTube and see how many cell phone videos of bloody brawls you see. Watch how numb the crowds cheering on these fights are, all of them holding up their phones for yet another mediated thrill, another last desperate attempt to find something more extreme to jerk off to. One of the critiques that my friends had about the film was that they never experience a full suspension of disbelief throughout its running time. My answer was “that’s the point.” After all, it’s no mistake that there are so many shots of people being filmed by others, or that Milos experiences so much of the dawning horror of his actions through the viewfinder of his video camera.
And it’s not just the internet. Remember Gulf War 1, the first modern television war? When viewers could stare in rapt attention at POV shots of missiles destroying buildings (and whatever or whoever else was inside)? Or the constant violent images that we see on the news? Or the proliferation of no consequences violence that has plagues cinema screens since the ‘80s?
Don’t get me wrong: I’m not on a crusade to end violence and pornography. Violence on film is often a cathartic experience, a part of the thrill ride, or, in the hands of a Sam Peckinpah, a deeply thrilling and disturbing and morally complex experience. Pornography can be a raw and honest expression of human sexuality (see Alan Moore’s
Lost Girls.) But the barrage of images and thoughts that we as modern humans are bombarded with can’t help but have a desensitizing and dehumanizing effect.
And this is why I found Serbian Film to be so powerful. Yes, it’s a primal scream against the oppression of the Serbian government. But it also offers a harsh look at a post-modern world where we are all a bit more used to these dark matters than before, offering an answer to our numbness that is designed to shock us into recognition of the dark side of areas that we too often take for granted. It’s an extreme allegory, but often, extreme times demand such a thing.
To answer some individual concerns, yes, I was well aware of the nasty content of the film. That’s why Bruce and I issued multiple warnings beforehand, both in the press release and at the event. This film has been making its rounds long enough that anyone buying a ticket to this Marathon had every opportunity to see what lied ahead. I find criticisms of my booking this film as evidence of my lack of moral fiber to be insulting. Yes, I realized the effect it might have on members of the audience, hence the multiple warnings. And yes, I think that the child rape featured in the film was absolutely horrifying. But I also found the violence in Irreversible and Martyrs to be absolutely horrifying.
And no, just because we have shown more extreme films (one per Marathon) over the last three years doesn’t mean that they’ll become a permanent part of the Marathon’s film slate. Nor does booking Serbian Film suddenly turn Bruce and I into degenerate smut peddlers or child molesters who can now no longer be trusted with your children and families. We presented one film that was more extreme than anything we’d shown in the past. One film, the message of which should be highly obvious by this point. One film about which we issued stern warnings. One film out of twelve. If there are some of you who now think that the booking of this one film means that we have thrown open the door to booking snuff or non-stop rapefests, or that we’ll suddenly spring extreme porn on your children, then I’m sorry. You’re wrong. And I’m somewhat offended by this slam on the character of Bruce and me. We’ve collectively spent 25 years building our reputation, and to suddenly negate that reputation because of one film is both unfair and ridiculous.
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