The country has produced fewer than twenty films that could be generically classified as horror. The media failed to “address the issue of possible Serb victims”, emphasising instead the “peace-enforcing objective of the NATO involvement”, instigating Western resentment towards Serbia and the Serbian people for their role in the conflict.Ī Serbian Film is arguably one of the most conspicuous films to emerge from Serbia. In order to maintain public support for military action, the UK media portrayed the Serbian people as aggressors and equated Milošević’s quasi-nationalism with the Second World War Nazi-regime. The UK played a pivotal role in a seventy-eight day NATO bombing campaign against Serbian forces in 1999. This impression was reinforced by the British media during the Balkan wars. For Kronja, Yugoslavian directors receiving critical acclaim in the West in the latter half of the 20 th century reflected these Orientalist attitudes and satisfied the Western fascination with, and rejection of, communism, thus bolstering the perception of the region as the “wild and murky fringes of Europe”. Ivana Kronja argues that Western perceptions of the Balkan region are Orientalist and are rooted in the literature of the Ottoman Empire, when the Balkans appeared to be an “extension of the East, towards which Western culture traditionally nourished exotic fantasies and ambivalent feelings”. Perceptions of Serbian national identity in the West are influenced by a number of factors but can partially be attributed to the choices made by film distributors which have implications for the way that Western audiences “interpret and understand”national cinemas and, by extension, entire nations. This will be used to contextualise an analysis of the UK critical reception of A Serbian Film in order to illustrate the ways in which reception, censorship, and the informal digital distribution of the film shaped, and in some cases exacerbated, negative perceptions of Serbia. The article will begin by considering the development of genre cinema in Serbia, with a particular focus on horror. This article argues that despite Spasojević’s endeavour to delineate the plight of the Serbian people, it is evident within the UK critical reception that the film’s heavy reliance on “self-Balkanisation” is antithetical, reiterating Orientalist constructions of the Balkan region.
![a serbian film baby scene a serbian film baby scene](https://i0.wp.com/bloody-disgusting.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Serbian_Film_05.jpg)
Serbian born director Spasojević describes A Serbian Film as a “family drama that descends into hell”, and states that it is a political allegory designed to illustrate the plight of the Serbian people during the disintegration of Yugoslavia. These off-white rooms are clinical and ‘wipe clean’, echoing the disposable nature of the porn film’s cast. The most graphic scenes of the film are located in acentre for abused and orphaned children or in stark, concrete rooms. Rooms are dominated by dark shadows with little gradient jarring against vivid red blood. In contrast, the scenes inside the mansion and the other buildings where the porn film shoot is located are heavily saturated. This is intensified by a soundtrack that alternates between eerie silence and frenetic electronic dubstep. The director over-exposes external scenes making the sequences seem surreal and uses the impossibly bright Serbian sunshine to evoke a sense of disorientation. Shot over sixty-one days on location in Belgrade, director Srđjan Spasojević uses a Red One high definition digital camera to create a distinctive aesthetic finish which is characterised by his use of colour. The film persistently uses excess and taboo in order to push boundaries by juxtaposing images of children with violence and sexualised violence, incorporating snuff, and depicting the rape of a newborn baby.ĭespite the disturbing content, the film is a stylish and accomplished directorial debut. As he becomes increasingly uncomfortable with the director’s requests, Milos attempts to resign but instead finds himself drugged, abused, and duped into committing violent sexual atrocities including rape, necrophilia, paedophilia and incest. Milos agrees to participate in an unscripted reality-porn art-movie, directed in real time through an ear piece. A Serbian Film is a visceral, highly impactive piece of work that tells the story of Milos (Srdjan Todorovic), a porn star lured out of retirement by a large sum of money and the dream of escape from Serbia. Produced in Serbia without the constraint of government interference, it is the first independently funded film to be made in the country. It quickly became the most widely recognised Serbian film in the UK and subsequently the most heavily censored film in sixteen years. Srpski Film / A Serbian Film (Srđjan Spasojević, 2010) generated a remarkable amount of publicity when it was included in the schedule for the London genre festival Frightfest in 2010.