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  • A Serbian Film

    Has anyone else seen this yet?



    It's pretty fucked up. Amazon describes it this way:

    "Milos, a retired adult film star, leads a normal family life with his wife Maria and six-year old son Petar in tumultuous Serbia, trying to make ends meet. A sudden call from his former colleague Layla will change everything. Aware of his financial problems, Layla introduces Milos to Vukmir - a mysterious, menacing and politically powerful figure in the adult film business. A leading role in Vukmir's production will provide financial support to Milos and his family for the rest of their lives. A contract insists on his absolute unawareness of a script they will shoot. From then on, Milos is drawn into a maelstrom of unbelievable cruelty and mayhem devised by his employer, "the director" of his destiny. Vukmir and his cohorts will stop at nothing to complete his vision. In order to escape the living cinematic hell he's put into, and save his family's life, Milos will have to sacrifice everything - his pride, his morality, his sanity, and maybe even his own life."

    That's more or less a pretty accurate decription. There are, of course, a few very sick twists along the way. Watched it last night, it's got more style than I thought it would and some effective elements of what seemed like black humor in and amdist the sex and death that make up a lot of the movie. It's been decscribed as plotless torture porn but there's very definitely a story here and the film makes some interesting allegories in regards to the state of the country where it was made.

    Strong stuff (*and the US Blu-ray I watched is supposedly cut by a little bit too*) and a lot of people just flat out will not like this movie. Can't fault anyone for that. I don't know that I 'enjoyed it' the same way I might enjoy lighter fare but I'm glad to have seen it. It's well acted and possibly a little bit smarter than a lot of its detractors are giving it credit for.
    Rock! Shock! Pop!

  • #2
    I enjoyed it. Can't say I'm a HUGE fan, but it was worth seeing, and is worth some of (but not all of) the hype its getting. Didn't like it enough to buy it, but genre fans should certainly give it a watch. Basically the same way I felt about HUMAN CENTIPEDE.

    Mostly I felt myself saying: "This is a good first movie. I can't wait to see what this director does next."

    Ps: Anyone who calls this film "plotless" is a dolt.
    www.cinemasewer.com

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    • #3
      Right, it's not plotless and I think a lot of people just can't look past the nastier side of the content to see that. The more I thought about it as I was writing it up the more I appreciated what they were doing here even if I know, as someone who doesn't live in Serbia, that I probably missed a fair bit of the allegory.
      Rock! Shock! Pop!

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      • #4
        I thought it was a great film. Well acted and shot. Very effective in it's use of violence. Just an overall black as night experience that sometimes you need to experience. I'd definitely put it up there in the sickest films of all time list. This is how you make a disturbing film for sure, and shit like Murder-Set-Pieces and Chaos is the opposite of this for obvious reasons.

        *The version you may have watched Ian is cut right at the Newborn Porn scene where a guy fucks a baby. We don't see penetration though.
        "Ah! By god's balls what licentiousness!"

        Marquis de Sade, The 120 Days of Sodom.

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        • #5
          Yup, I found that out this morning. That's some pretty messed up stuff.
          Rock! Shock! Pop!

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          • #6
            Fucked up for sure, but brave. Brave in the same way that Aftermath or Man Behind the Sun was brave I think.
            "Ah! By god's balls what licentiousness!"

            Marquis de Sade, The 120 Days of Sodom.

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            • #7
              It also sort of reminded me of Irreversible, just in its hardsh nihilism and of Cannibal Holocaust in certain ways too. These guys really aren't afraid to push things but they did it with some intelligence behind it.
              Rock! Shock! Pop!

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              • #8
                I liked it somewhat, and (lo and behold!!) would have liked it more if it wasn't as graphic, and had a more toned down the nastiness for a bit more believability. Great score and nice setting though.
                "No presh from the Dresh!"

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                • #9
                  Speaking of the score I have the main theme as my Ringtone:

                  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YtOEZl5MLU8
                  "Ah! By god's balls what licentiousness!"

                  Marquis de Sade, The 120 Days of Sodom.

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    Originally posted by The Silly Swede View Post
                    I liked it somewhat, and (lo and behold!!) would have liked it more if it wasn't as graphic, and had a more toned down the nastiness for a bit more believability.
                    I can see where you're coming from here BUT I don't know that what was shown really took the movie out of the realm of believability? It may have been more effective to go Hitchcock-style and maybe let our minds imagine how nasty things might be rather than show as much as they did but nothing really stood out to me, effects wise, as out of the realm of possibility.
                    Rock! Shock! Pop!

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                    • #11
                      I think it is a matter of content, but even moreso a stylistic choice to show all the gore and shocks right front and center (instead of the more Hitchcockian angle that Ian posits), and I think most of the people who dislike the movie on those grounds don't really seem to get that.

                      I mean, no one would say "I would have liked PLATOON more if they hadn't shown so much war. I prefer war movies where the fighting happens off-screen." For what this director was going for, it made all the sense in the world to show everything.
                      www.cinemasewer.com

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                      • #12
                        I have seen it several times now and while I think it's far from perfect, it is definitely one of the most interesting pieces of cinema I have seen for a long time. I was lucky to catch a screening of it here in Copenhagen at a local film festival half a year ago and it has (finally) been released on BD and DVD last week. I believe we and the Swedes are just about the only ones who get a completely uncut version. There haven't even been any fuss about it like there has been so many other places. I know the program director of that film festival, I mentioned, and he was sort of disappointed they did not get a single complaint. And though the distributor postponed the release of the DVD and BD some six months after all the trouble in Sweden, it's out now and even available for rent in Blockbuster (though they have placed a 'warning sticker' on the cover).

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                        • #13
                          Originally posted by Jens Thomsen View Post
                          it's out now and even available for rent in Blockbuster (though they have placed a 'warning sticker' on the cover).
                          That's kind of mind blowing, right there. There's no way in HELL Blockbuster would carry an uncut version of this in the US.
                          Rock! Shock! Pop!

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                          • #14
                            Originally posted by Robin Bougie View Post
                            I think it is a matter of content, but even moreso a stylistic choice to show all the gore and shocks right front and center (instead of the more Hitchcockian angle that Ian posits), and I think most of the people who dislike the movie on those grounds don't really seem to get that.
                            I actually think it's quite restrained in its use of effects. Sure, the situations are gruesome, but much of it is implied by clever use of editing and sound. The gore is often only shown in brief insert shots and instead the camera tends to focus on Milos' reactions. That's why I have a hard time to take people serious who claim (as so many have done) that ASF is nothing but 'mere exploitation'. In my mind the visual strategies employed by the filmmakers are quite different from what one would usually see in exploitation movies.

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                            • #15
                              Originally posted by Ian Jane View Post
                              That's kind of mind blowing, right there. There's no way in HELL Blockbuster would carry an uncut version of this in the US.
                              Haha, yeah, I know. I have been told that the Danish Blockbusters are also the only ones where you can rent porn. Apparently, we like our smut here. :)

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