A Serbian Film, an envelope-pushing (to say the very least) political allegory about Serbian repression and censorship, had a midnight showing on Sunday night/Monday morning night at South by Southwest, reports Speakeasy‘s Eric Kohn.
The film reportedly depicts rape and murder, “unspeakable” perversions, “on-camera sexual acts involving violence and young children,” “newborn porn” and “the unique magic of rigor mortis.” Delightful sounding! I’m truly sorry I missed it.
“After the movie ended, an awkward silence filled the room,” Kohn reports. “Screenwriter Srdjan Spasojevic, fielding questions during a q & a, described the movie as an angry reaction to the country’s rampant censorship laws. ‘This is a diary of our own molestation by the Serbian government,’ he said. ‘We’re giving this back to you.’
“After the screening, some audience members wondered if Spasojevic’s dour tone was actually a ruse — that the filmmakers didn’t take the material all that seriously and the movie was simply intended as exploitation for its own sake.”
Which is precisely what some critics said in 1976 about Pier Paolo Pasolini‘s Salo: The 120 Days of Sodom. Pasolini called it a a political allegory about Italian fascism while others suspected he simply used this as a metaphorical rationale/license to indulge his own sexual/erotic appetites and fantasies.
