Transgressive Edge Play and Srpski Film/A Serbian Film

HOST 5 (1) pp. 107–125 Intellect Limited 2014

Shaun Kimber Bournemouth University

Transgressive edge play and Srpski Film/A Serbian Film

Abstract Keywords Using Srpski Film/A Serbian Film (Spasojevic, 2010) as a case study this transgressive edge play article examines transgressive edge play within contemporary horror film. The production article starts by outlining two main assumptions: that transgression within horror narrative cinema is customary rather than the exception; and that it is productive to study aesthetics horror films holistically as a set of social and industrial practices, as an aesthetic censorship object and as a social and cultural experience. The article then presents four over- reception lapping contentions in relation to the complex ways in which A Serbian Film has engaged in transgressive edge play, in terms of its production contexts, aesthetics and narrative, and also the modes through which regulators, audiences and critics have responded to that boundary testing. An argument is developed, which contends that A Serbian Film, depending upon context and audience, has tested, infringed and also reinforced a gamut of thresholds in relation to what is contempo- raneously tolerable within horror films.

Introduction Srpski Film/A Serbian Film (Spasojevic, 2010) has incensed, alienated and been celebrated by audiences, critics and regulators since its world premier at the American South by Southwest Film Festival on 15 March 2010. These polarized reactions result from complex intersections between textual, intertextual and extratextual factors operating across national and transnational contexts. A Serbian Film offers an intriguing contemporary example of what

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1. For more information is considered transgressive edge play within horror film cultures. Whilst there on this type of approach to the are a number of horror films including Murder Set Pieces (Palumbo, 2004), study of film refer to Gurotesuku/Grotesque (Shiraishi, 2009), The Human Centipede II (Full Sequence) J. Harbord (2002), M. (Six, 2011) and The Bunny Game (Rehmeier, 2010) that exhibit high levels of Jancovich et al. (2003), Kimber (2010, 2011), G. boundary testing, none of them has ignited the level of attention and contro- Turner (1999, 2002). versy that A Serbian Film has. Influenced by the work of Foucault, transgression is considered an inevi- table and desirable impulse that prevents cultural stagnation, through the continuous and simultaneous encroaching, falling short of, breaking and crucially the reinforcing and repairing of boundaries (Jenks 2003). These boundaries and their associated thresholds are often social, cultural, political, economic or aesthetic in nature. Such discursively constructed boarders are continuously wittingly and unwittingly negotiated, institutionalized, policed and contested within ongoing cycles of boundary construction, maintenance and resistance operating across personal, institutional and transnational arenas (Kuhn 1988). Moreover, transgression involves complex, active and productive sets of overlapping processes operating dynamically across textual, intertextual and extratextual contexts (Jenks 2003). Seen in this light A Serbian Film’s transgressive edge play resides in its ability, depending upon context and audience, to impinge, contravene and ultimately restore the fraying ends of what is held to be tolerable within contemporary horror films. This edge play comes into particularly sharp focus when considering borderlines linked to representations of sex, violence, sexual violence and children in violent, sexual and sexually violent contexts. My enquiry into A Serbian Film’s transgressive edge play is developed across four overlapping trajectories: (1) the transgression of industrial practices and generic conventions, explored by locating A Serbian Film’s production within its constitutive national context and also examining the cultural exchange between Serbian and American cinemas; (2) A Serbian Film’s transgression of film conventions linked to content, style, narrative and form, identified through a close textual analysis of the film; (3) A Serbian Film’s transgression of regulatory and legal frameworks linked to national guidelines, perceived risk factors and readings of public acceptability in the United Kingdom; and (4) the transgression of the norms and values of various taste cultures surveyed from an analysis of Internet Movie Database (IMDb) user votes and the critical reception of A Serbian Film in the United Kingdom. This intersecting approach foregrounds the importance of examining horror film as a set of social and industrial practices informed by local, national and global contexts, as an aesthetic object and as a social and cultural experience.1 The overall aim is not to reject or celebrate A Serbian Film but to use it as a case study through which to explore transgressive edge play within contemporary horror film cultures.

Contexts of production, cultural borrowing and narrative reimagining An important element in A Serbian Film’s transgressive edge play derives from its production on the fringes of the Serbian film industry. A Serbian Film was the directorial debut of Srdjan Spasojevic and was co-written with the Serbian horror film critic and writer, Aleksander Radivojevic. The Serbian language horror film was independently financed and produced by Contra Film within an underfunded Serbian film industry. According to co-executive producer Nikola Pantelic;

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A Serbian Film really is an independent movie […] For the past thirty 2. In 2010 A Serbian Film screened at film years the state hasn’t given any money to support the Serbian film festivals in Belgium, industry. So the film was funded privately […] A Serbian Film is our Estonia, Serbia, production answer to all those who said it couldn’t be done, but we American, Canada, South Korea, France, made a true Serbian film without any Serbian Government help at all. Spain, Finland and (Jones 2010: 6) Sweden. During the year it was also withdrawn from A Serbian Film was shot on a RED One HD Digital camera in and around a number of film Belgrade. The shoot lasted 61 days during August–October 2008. The film festivals, including employed Serbian and European cast and crew, including Srdjan Todorovic Frightfest in London. (Underground (Kusturica, 1995)) and Sergej Trifunovic (Karaula/The Boarder Post (Grlic, 2006)) two of Serbia’s biggest actors; rapper Wiklum Sky of the Serbian hip hop trio Bad Company composed the techno score; Nemanja Jovanov, who also worked on The Life and Death of a Porno Gang (Djordjevic, 2009), was cinematographer and colorist; Miroslav Lakrobija, who also worked on The Life and Death of a Porno Gang (2009) and Zone of the Dead (Konjevic and Todorovic, 2009), worked on special effects and make-up; and Darko Simic was the films’ editor. After generating controversy in Germany, when the print was blown up to 35mm, and then in Hungary, America, Belgium and Estonia, A Serbian Film started to generate attention at home. It was released theatrically in Serbia during June 2010 to take advantage of its initial global reception.2 Whilst produced within Serbia, the film-makers openly acknowledge their interest in and adaption of the styles, conventions and political motivations of 1970s American genre and auteur films. So another foundational element of A Serbian Film’s transgressive edge play is its culturally specific borrowing and reworking of American cinema. The outcome is the creation of a film that exhibits complex, ambiguous and contradictory meanings that are resistant to easy analysis and interpretation. As co-writer Radivojevic outlines:

We were big genre fans, especially of American 1970’s cinema. Solely because nothing like the subject matters they dealt with had ever been expressed in Serbian cinema before. So we adopted a genre we loved to say some really important, if brutally harsh, things about our shared experience. (Jones 2010: 6)

Moreover, Spasojevic sites the stylistic influences of David Cronenberg, Roman Polanski, Brian De Palma, Sam Peckinpah and William Friedkin on A Serbian Film. According to Nevena Dakovic (2006) and Ivana Kronja (2006) the evoking of Euro-American cinematic forms and the influence of American action and gangster cinema on contemporary Serbian cinema has occurred for five reasons: (1) as a form of ideological resistance against the repression of Slobodan Milosevic’s post-communist nationalist regime that often saw the West as its enemy; (2) to promote those cinematic forms, for example the use of American film language due to its perceived superiority in the representation of violence; (3) to develop Serbian cinema’s national cinematographic form; (4) to increase the films chances of being success- ful in entertainment markets within which these cinemas are recognized as being accomplished; and (5) to highlight trans-national correspondences and ideologically to align itself with nations that are perceived to be more powerful.

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An outcome of this cultural borrowing and localized reimagining is a narrative that engages in transgressive edge play through a story that focuses on taboo and excess; characters who exhibit challenging values, attitudes and behaviors; and a plot which temporally foregrounds horrific events and actions in institutional and domestic spaces. The narrative of A Serbian Film follows Milos (Srdjan Todorovic), an aging and financially struggling male porn star, lured out of retirement with promises of financial reward for performing in a reality art porn film intended for foreign markets. Milos is persuaded to participate in the film, despite not being allowed to see the script or know any details about the planned production, by the film’s auteur director Vukmir (Sergej Trifunovic), ex-colleague Lejla (Katarina Zutic), and his police officer brother Marco (Slobadan Bestic). Milos sees the film as an opportunity to secure his family’s financial future and enable him, his wife Marija (Jelenda Gavrilovic) and son Petar to leave Belgrade. He finds himself ensnared, duped and increasingly coerced by Vukmir and the film crew to participate in acts of sexual violence and paedophilia. Milos attempts to quit the production but is drugged using animal aphrodisiacs and forced to continue filming what tran- spires to be a snuff movie involving rape, torture, necrophilia, child sex abuse and incest. After killing Vukmir, Marco and the film crew during the filming of one of the production scenes, Milos, Lejla and Petar escape the set and return home. Psychologically devastated, the family commits suicide before it is revealed that even in death the snuff movie has not wrapped. To more fully understand A Serbian Film’s transgressive edge play requires the film to be contextualized historically and in relation to its negotiations with Serbian history, trauma and identity. According to Kronja a key characteristic of contemporary Serbian popular culture is a preoccupation with violence. She suggests ‘Serbian cinema of the 1990s is both a work of and a story about the defeated, horrified, and terrified individual, who does not see any exit from the abyss’ (2006: 21). Kronja cites a range of historical circum- stances taking place during the 1990s as having a particularly significant and lasting impact upon Serbian national identity and Serbian cinema, including (1) the disintegration of the former Yugoslavia and civil wars involving geno- cide and ethnic cleansing in Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo; (2) the oppression of Milosevic’s authoritarian rule leading to social, economic and moral crisis in Serbia and the extreme criminalization of everyday life; and (3) an associated stigmatization of Serbia by the international community leading to economic, political and cultural isolation, and NATO bombing in 1999. According to A. Jones (2010) these experiences have been indelibly etched onto the region’s collective consciousness and it is these un-healed scars rooted within everyday lived experiences rather than in urban legends or supernatural terrors that are at the heart of the horror contained within A Serbian Film. As Spasojevic reinforces,

The break-up of Yugoslavia, Slobadan Milosevic, Kosovo – it’s all been depressing, frightening and completely impossible to function properly within the country. It has been an environment where anything can happen, and usually for the worse. Our destiny has never been in our hands through constant oppression and it’s those feelings we wanted to give voice in A SERBIAN FILM. It’s a literal metaphor about how violated we feel as a nation, how abused we have been by our own government. (Jones 2010: 2–3)

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He is also frequently cited as suggesting of A Serbian Film ‘[This] is a diary of our own molestation by the Serbian government. It’s about the monolithic power of leaders who hypnotize you to do things you don’t want to’ (French 2010: 1). What this reveals is that a key feature of A Serbian Film’s transgressive edge play, from the perspective of the film-makers, and some critics and audiences, is its rage-filled and uncompromising expression of deeply felt national traumas and renegotiated identities. Taking this analysis further, Kronja’s examination of what she calls Serbian local urban cinema of the late 1990s and early 2000s reveals some striking similarities to A Serbian Film. First, the films in her analysis, which include Do Koseke/Rage (Skerlic, 1997), Rane/The Wounds (Dragojevic, 1989) and Normalni Ijudi/Normal People (Novkovic, 2001), were made by young film- makers depicting urban and sub-urban environments and Serbian society’s descent into violence, through a combination of generic elements borrowed from American cinema and specific national social issues. Second, the film’s narratives focus on ordinary people trapped in hopelessness, where over- whelming cruelty leads to psychological frustration for the male hero, which then provokes his own brutal reactions, establishing a never ending cycle of violence. Third, these films see society’s crisis as a crisis of masculinity, employing gender as a powerful metaphor for a decaying Serbian society. As Kronja states when reflecting upon gendered violence within Serbian local urban cinema,

The depiction of violence against helpless women who are raped, beaten, and humiliated has an additional, implicit connotation. It stands as the counterpoint and the mirror of the predicament that men, as bearers of the society, actually experience. (2006: 34)

Kronja’s argument is that men working within a male-dominated Serbian film industry use cinema to foreground their frustrations whilst simultaneously employing representations of women as an extended metaphor for these anxieties. Contextualized in this way, A Serbian Film can be seen not as a unique and stand alone transgressor, but rather as contributing to a broader trend within Serbian film, art and culture that uses representations of violence, sex and sexual violence to work through complex issues linked to national history, traumas and identities. Such a reading does not diminish the likelihood of the film to shock, upset and repel, rather it acknowledges the film’s place within a wider set of explanatory contexts.

Content, form and style A textual analysis of the content, form and style of an uncut version of A Serbian Film reveals a number of ways in which the aesthetics of the film contribute to its transgressive edge play. The film provides audiences, critics and regulators with an uneven map that has to be traversed without a clearly defined textual route. This tricky process of navigation, allied with the viewer’s biography, the context in which the film is seen, and the critical, regulatory and market- ing discourses surrounding the film, coalesce to impact upon the affect of the film for viewers, and their subsequent emotional responses to that affect (Hill 1997). This textual negotiation also helps to shape the types of intellectual, political and ethical questions that the film may generate for viewers, for

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example, the pleasures and anxieties of watching transgressive horror films as entertainment (Horeck and Kendall 2011). This interplay between text, context and consumption makes A Serbian Film an absolute must see for some and totally unwatchable for others. The transgressive edge play of A Serbian Film is amplified through a number of aesthetic choices and excesses that provoke, alienate and challenge viewers. These aesthetic selections and extremes, whilst framing responses to the film, do not determine them. With respect to A Serbian Film’s subject matter and content, the film has the very real capability, in terms of the actions and behaviours represented, to be transgressive as it pushes at the very edges of cinematic acceptability. This is despite the potential containment offered through its generic designation as a horror film. For example, A Serbian Film engages with a wide range of taboos relating to the representation of sex, pornography, drugs, violence, sexual violence, snuff movies, paedophilia, incest, necrophilia, victimization, degradation and children in sexualized and violent contexts. A Serbian Film also engages in transgressive edge play through its formal styling, shape and design. This play with the films form can be linked to K. Boyle’s (2005) view that the analysis of film and media violence lies not only in what is shown, but also in how it is shown. This point is exemplified 35 minutes into the film where there is a scene in which an actress fellates Milos during the filming of the artistic reality porn film, whilst he watches films of Jeca (Andela Nenadovic), a young girl, on two large screens in front of him. Even as the content of the scene, the portrayal of a child within a sexualized context can be viewed as transgressive. This edge play is intensified as a result of the way in which the scene is treated formally. During the scene sexualized images of Milos are directly juxtaposed and intercut with two films of Jeca. Furthermore, during the scene the point of view shifts first from objec- tive to increasingly subjective and from Milos’ point of view watching both films to him focusing on specific aspects of each film as he becomes increasingly aroused. In the first film Jeca is seen eating an ice lolly. After the switch to Milo’s point of view and during his specific focus on this film, she is seen licking and sucking the ice-lolly, and after Milos’ implied ejaculation, Jeca is seen licking the lolly stick, wiping her mouth and smiling before shrugging and continuing to lick the stick. In the second film Jeca is first shown brushing her hair and applying make up. After the switch to Milos’ point of view and during his explicit focus on this film, she is seen licking her lips and applying lipstick. The implication here is that formally we as viewers are invited to view key aspects of the scene subjectively through Milos’ eyes. This reading of the way in which the formal treatment of a scene can amplify its transgressive edge play resonates with the British Board of film classification’s (BBFC) decision to make four cuts totalling twenty seconds to remove the intercutting of images of children with adult sexual activity. Six scenes involving the juxta- posing of sexual and sexually violent material with images of children were cut from the release of A Serbian Film due to this infringement of BBFC policies and classification guidelines. The film also increases its chances of being read as engaging in transgressive edge play by employing aesthetic strategies associated with the construction of a serious tone and modality at specific points in the film. This is connoted through the use of formal procedures linked to directness and immediacy such as employing realist forms, codes and conventions and a stripping away of the kinds of aesthetic stylization that often direct attention

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to themselves (King 2004). For example, A Serbian Film employs handheld video camera footage, actors who may be unfamiliar to audiences outside of the region and high-quality composite physical and CGI effects, which signifi- cantly enhance the constructed and perceived authenticity of the film. It is the use of these aesthetic and performative codes and conventions, along with the use of extended takes focusing on highly sexualized violent content, that helps to make the scene where Lejla is restrained, orally raped and suffocated by Marco, witnessed through watching Milos’ viewing the video playback on a handheld camera screen, one of the most disturbing in the film. It was not surprising, therefore, that this scene required the longest duration of compulsory cuts by the BBFC, 75.5 seconds, due to its contravention of their guidelines linked to sexual violence (Gobbo 2011). A Serbian Film insulates itself against some of the more overt excesses and choices outlined above through a further range of formal and stylistic devices. In terms of narrative structure, the plot of A Serbian Film is organized in such a way that flashbacks, nightmares, films-within-films and rapid montage sequences are employed to develop the story. For example, the first hour of A Serbian Film follows a linear chronology. It is only after Milos is drugged and wakes up several days later, bruised and covered in blood that does not appear to be his own, that the narrative dramatically shifts to be structured around a series of flashbacks, montages and the viewing of pre-recorded video camera footage as Milos tries to piece together the missing events. Once Milos real- izes that he has locked Marija and Petar in the basement of their home, the film returns to a linear narrative until the film’s dénouement. These choices in narrative structure encode within the text the potential to diminish its affect. As a result of indicating to audiences that all of the scenes of violence have occurred in the past and that no matter what happens the film’s protagonist has survived them, this has the potential to remove several layers of tension that could have been engendered by alternative plot structures. A Serbian Film’s self-conscious foregrounding of its mise-en-scène and soundtrack can also militate against its directness and immediacy by open- ing up spaces for visual and auditory pleasures. For example, the highly styl- ized mise-en-scène reflected in the film’s anamorphic aspect ratio (2.35:1), HD filming, sumptuous colour pallet, carefully staged compositions, shadowy lighting and pace of the editing all carefully construct and clearly signify a highly manufactured and extremely polished aesthetic. The film’s soundtrack formally places an emphasis on emotive sounds in the form of its techno score and heightened sound effects over literal sounds such as dialogue and atmos- pherics. This sonic strategy has the potential to encourage audiences to feel something about what they are seeing rather than necessarily believing what they are seeing (Deutsch 2007). As a result, it can encourage listeners to enjoy the film’s soundscape or embrace its affective qualities whilst knowing all the while it is a spectacular simulation. The film’s shifting tone and modality, which tends towards foregrounding spectacle and aesthetic styling over realism and authenticity, also has the ability to soften the film’s transgressive edge play, making the film much more accessible, palatable and entertaining for some audiences, critics and regulators. For example, during a particularly controversial scene involving newborn porn, transgressive content is carefully managed formally in three overlapping ways: (1) narratively structuring the scene as a film within a film; (2) careful blocking so as not to directly show violent detail; and (3) framing the viewing of the film within a film through the appalled eyes of Milos and the hysteria of

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3. Film regulation Vukmir. These formal strategies have the potential to draw further attention is defined as the overarching to the highly constructed nature of the film, enabling knowing viewers the frameworks within opportunity to distance themselves from its content and find pleasure in both which censorship and its formal styling and thematic motivations. It is interesting to note the BBFC classification decisions are made and justified; only made three cuts totalling ten seconds to this scene, making it the second film censorship is least cut of eleven, despite its content and prominence in United Kingdom defined as when films and global media attention and critical reception. are re-edited, cut or banned; and film What this reading of A Serbian Film reveals is that whilst the subject classification and matter, its formal and thematic treatment and at times its tone and modality rating the age and generic designations have the potential to amplify its transgressive edge play, the film’s narrative used to control access structure, ostentatious stylization and oscillating tone and modality, which to films (Kimber leans towards spectacle, help to soften these rough edges for some audiences, 2010: 93). critics and regulators. As G. King (2004: 129) suggests, ‘a balance is usually found between the intense orchestration of violence and legitimating frameworks that make it palatable for both audiences and regulatory authorities’. This position is echoed in some of the film’s critical reception in the United Kingdom:

Of course, Srdan Spasojevic’s adult thriller was always going to set the classifiers’ alarm bells clanging, offering as it does conflated sex and violence, children in a sexual environment, and – now fully excised – the instantly infamous ‘newborn porn’ sequence. None of which is half as distressing as it sounds; scenes are carefully blocked to avoid graphic gore, villains are pantomimic and the tone is closer to Hammer, Dr. Phibes and Hostel 2 than Last House On The Left, Irreversible or, an obvious influence, Pasolini’s Salò. (Graham 2010)

[…] Srdjan Spasojevic gives the film a distinctive widescreen look and an impressive, slightly stylised use of dim lighting and art direction (the snuff sets look more like a Philippe Starck hotel than the usual reclaimed industrial site), which adds a certain distance that means the film isn’t quite the hateful ordeal its synopsis suggests it is. (Newman 2010)

This equilibrium has not necessarily been achieved with some audience members, critics and, as we shall see, regulators who view the film’s edge play as transgressing a range of shared values, regulatory codes and even laws.

Regulation, censorship and classification Turning to questions of film regulation, the global flow of A Serbian Film has been restricted in a number of national contexts due to its contravention of institutional policies and guidelines.3 These breaches have resulted from the film’s transgressive edge play in relation to the representation of sex, violence, sexual violence and children in sexualized and violent contexts. At the time of writing A Serbian Film is available uncut and classified 15 in Denmark and Sweden; in France it is available uncut with an 18 certificate and in Finland it has a self-applied K-18 rating. In Japan the film has a self-rating of R-20 and in Brazil the film is rated 18. In American edited versions are available on NC-17 and Un-rated DVD, Blu-ray and On Demand services. An edited version of the film is also available in South Korea (IMDb 2012a). In Australia the film

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received a cut R18 certificate at the third attempt before being banned again 4. In the same press release the BBFC in 2010 (Melon Farmers 2011). A Serbian Film is also banned in Norway, New announced that they Zealand and Spain (IMDb 2012a). The result of these regulatory responses required seventeen is that multiple versions of the film ranging in length and classification are seconds of compulsory cuts from the remake currently in circulation. of I Spit On Your Grave Within the United Kingdom the BBFC operates as an independent body (Monroe 2010). funded by the fees they charge for the classification of works submitted to them. It classifies films on behalf of local authorities that licence cinemas under the Licensing Act (2003) and video works under the statutory require- ments of the Video Recordings Act (VRA) (1984). The BBFC classify films using classification guidelines that have been devised based upon public consultation, media effects research, law in the United Kingdom and the attitudes of the general public. Guidelines were introduced in 2000 and have been revised in 2005 and again in 2009 (BBFC 2009). According to the BBFC the general principles guiding their activities are that works should be able to reach the widest appropriate audience and as far as possible adults should be free to choose what they see. Qualifications to these principles are that material should not break the law, the material should not cause or risk harm and that material should be acceptable to broad public opinion. These principles and qualifications together with a range of overarching factors (context, tone, impact and release format) main issues (including horror, violence, nudity, language, sex and theme) and classificatory categories (U, PG, 12, 15, 18, R18) provide the framework within which United Kingdom classificatory decisions are both made and justified. Interventions the BBFC may take when classify- ing a film include: offering a classification at an appropriate category; seeking assurances (e.g. about production processes involving children in sexualized contexts); requiring compulsory cuts; calling for changes to be made to achieve a category; or to reject it. Distribution companies can appeal BBFC decisions through their Reconsideration Procedure or the Video Appeals Committee (VAC) (BBFC 2009). On 26 August 2010 the BBFC announced in a press release that they required the United Kingdom Distributor of A Serbian Film, Revolver Entertainment, to make 49 individual cuts, totalling approximately three minutes 48 seconds before they would award an 18 certificate for release in cinemas, on DVD/Blu-ray or via online services (BBFC 2010a).4 It is interesting to note that the classification decisions section of the BBFCs’ website states that the film and then the video and online versions were cut by four minutes and eleven seconds and four minutes twelve seconds, respectively, to achieve 18 certificates (BBFC 2010b). Revolver agreed to the cuts and also substituted alternative footage in place of some of the cuts to avoid drawing attention to where the material had been removed. For example within the two rapid montage flashback sequences that take place shortly after Milos is drugged for trying to quit the film, several frames have been replaced with black frames. Whilst difficult to spot and making no difference to the film’s running time, multiple frames taken from scenes involving newborn porn, Jeca licking a lolly, Jeca’s mother biting Milos’ penis and Milos’ first nightmare, have been excised (Gobbo 2011). The BBFC judged A Serbian Film to have transgressed their guiding prin- ciple that adults should be free to choose their own entertainment. This decision was reached whilst recognizing a number of mitigating factors, including the political motivations of the film-makers, some of the tech- niques used to tone down the treatment of the violence, and the fact that

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the BBFC felt audiences would be repulsed by the film rather than want to copy its contents (BBFC 2010a, 2010b, 2011). This transgression was due to the way in which the material and also its treatment had breached their legal requirement to be mindful of the possible risks of harm to individuals or society as a result of watching the film, their guidelines for acceptability at the 18 certificate and their perception of what is currently acceptable to public opinion in the United Kingdom. That said, the BBFC felt that the film had not contravened the Protection of Children Act (1978), recognizing the care that had been taken by the film-makers working on set with the child actors (BBFC 2010a, 2010b, 2011). The compulsory cuts, which made A Serbian Film the most heavily censored mainstream non-pornographic film in the United Kingdom for sixteen years, were required due to the portrayal of children in sexualized or abusive contexts, and as a result of the use of images of sexual and sexually violent material that, according to the BBFC, have a tendency to eroticize or endorse that behaviour (Bailey 2010; BBFC 2009). The BBFC were also concerned about the film’s juxtaposition of images of children with sexual and sexually violence material (BBFC 2010a, 2010b, 2011). An analysis of the frequency and duration of the 49 cuts totalling 257 seconds (four minutes 28 seconds) made to A Serbian Film – based upon the details found on the Melon Farmers (2011) and movie-censorship (Gobbo 2011) websites – reveals that they are clustered around eleven scenes, with 27 cuts being required as a result of the portrayal of children in sexualized and abusive contexts, and 22 cuts deemed necessary to remove sexualized violence. Of the 49 cuts, seventeen can be linked to the removal of the intercutting of images of children with sexual assault and sexually violent material. Four of those scenes were subject to the highest number and duration of cuts (25 of 49 lasting 149 seconds). Presented chronologically, seven cuts lasting 11.5 seconds were made to the scene involving the filming of Milos beating of Jeca’s mother after she bites his penis, juxtaposed with images of her young daughter sitting in the room watching and encouraging him. Three cuts lasting 30 seconds were made to the scene where Milos is having a nightmare involving Jecas’ naked and bruised mother whilst a camera operator and Petar encourage him to commit further acts of violence against her. Nine cuts lasting 32 seconds were made to the scene where a drug-fuelled Milos violently rapes, beats and decapitates Jeca’s naked, terrified and restrained mother. Six cuts lasting 75.5 seconds were made to the scene involving video playback of the oral rape and suffocation of a restrained Lejla, at the hands of Marco after her teeth have been removed off-screen. Significant cuts were also made to the scenes where: (1) Milos is fellated whilst images of Jeca are shown on monitors (four cuts lasting twenty seconds); (2) Marko is seen watching a home video of Petars’ birthday celebrations whilst being fellated by a woman (four cuts lasting 29 seconds); (3) the flashback where Milos is encouraged to have sex with Jeca by Jeca, her grandmother and Vukmir (two cuts lasting 17.5 seconds); and (4) the flashback to the filming in the warehouse (five cuts lasting 21 seconds). Reflecting on its extensive interventions in A Serbian Film, the BBFC stated in its 2010 Annual Report:

The cuts required […] removed the more explicit moments from these scenes and much of the action is now brief or implied rather than explic- itly depicted. The film’s scenes of very strong sexual violence remain potentially shocking, distressing or offensive to some adult viewers, but

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are also likely to be found repugnant and to be aversive rather than 5. For a more detailed outline of the cuts to credibly likely to encourage imitation. the Revolver United (2011: 48–49) Kingdom release visit Melonfarmers. co.uk and for a visual What this statement reveals is that for the BBFC it is not only the film’s trans- comparison between gressive edge play linked to its content and style that caused them problems the United Kingdom but also the potential impact that this edge play could have upon viewers.5 release and the uncut press release of the film What this reveals is that whilst A Serbian Film was in the judgment of visit movie-censorship. the BBFC transgressive, its contraventions could be brought into their exist- com. ing regulatory frameworks through extensive cutting, rather than banning. 6. Voter demographics Interestingly this situation did not arise with Murder Set Pieces, Grotesque and for all four films share a similar profile, the The Bunny Game, which were all refused a classification by the BBFC and are most votes being cast therefore legally banned in the United Kingdom. The BBFC’s treatment of A by male non-US users Serbian Film reveals four further factors associated with the national control aged 18–29. exerted over the film’s transgressive edge play: (1) the role of national regulators as key gatekeepers of acceptable representation of fictionalized film violence within the flow of contemporary internationally produced horror films intended for distribution to, and exhibition within, mainstream national domestic film cultures; (2) contemporary national boundaries, thresholds and points of possible transgression relating to the representation and narrativi- zation of human monsters and their behaviour within contemporary international horror films; (3) the processes by which national regulators actively intervene through, for example, extensive compulsory cuts when they feel that films have transgressed legal, institutional or perceived public standards of acceptability; (4) the BBFC’s particular concerns linked to potential risk factors caused to individuals and British society through the film’s perceived endorse- ment or eroticization of sexual or sexually violent material associated with violent actions, and the inclusion of children within sexual and or abusive contexts.

Taste cultures, audience responses and critical reception Another significant factor in A Serbian Film’s transgressive edge play can be seen in its challenging of the norms and values of various taste cultures, iden- tifiable within its reception. Whilst A Serbian Film was produced in one particular national context, albeit informed by wider global contexts, it clearly has the capacity to construct, carry and mediate meanings that take on specific national resonances in other territories through its international circulation and consumption. Add to this the complexities and ambiguities of the text, and the way that regulatory decisions help to frame the reception of a film, and it is unsurprising that A Serbian Film has elicited particularly polarized responses. A review of IMDb user votes for A Serbian Film illustrated this division in its reception. As of 16 August 2012, of the 13,353 IMDb users that had rated the film 1998 (15%) rated it 10 and 2381 (17.8%) rated it 1 (IMDb 2012h). When comparing the users’ ratings for A Serbian Film with those of the controversial European films Irreversible (Noé, 2002), Martyrs (Laugier, 2008) and Antichrist (Von Trier, 2009) there is a much less pronounced polarization.6 Of the 49,533 IMDb users that had rated Irreversible – 7833 (15.8%) rated it 10 only 1871 (3.8%) rated it 1 (IMDb 2012e). Of the 27,128 IMDb users votes for Martyrs – 4086 (15.1%) rated it 10 and only 1150 (4.2%) rated it 1 (IMDb 2012f). Of the

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42,811 IMDb users that had rated Antichrist – 5437 (12.7%) rated it 10 and 2805 (6.6%) rated it 1 (IMDb 2012b). Be this as it may, a similar pattern of polarized voting patterns can be found in other recent controversial horror films. Of the 2512 IMDb users that had rated Murder Set Pieces – 340 (13.5%) rated it 10 and 719 (28.6%) rated it 1 (IMDb 2012g). Of the 1948 IMDb users that had rated Grotesque – 176 (9.1%) rated it 10 and 266 (13.7%) rated it 1 (IMDb 2012c), and of the 9742 IMDb users that had rated The Human Centipede II (Full Sequence) – 893 (9.2%) rated it 10 and 2514 (25.9.%) rated it 1 (IMDb 2012d). This analysis demonstrates how films that confront boundaries through their transgressive edge play, and which generate controversy through their circulation and regulation, tend to divide audience’s opinions. Discussions of transgressive edge play take on an additional significance when viewed in the light of local and national fears over the historical influence of popular cultural forms in the United Kingdom. G. Murdock’s (2001) idea of a ‘reservoir of dogma’ is illustrative here. For Murdock there exists a symbolic lagoon of negative assumptions, ideas and arguments linked to the influence of popular cultural forms upon audiences. What Murdock is suggesting is that each time there is a controversy the reservoir is dipped into and drawn upon in trying to explain and understand it. This action concurrently tops up the reservoir as it is drawn from. Whilst not determining responses to films like A Serbian Film, the symbolic lagoon provides a persuasive and constitutive framework within which debates in the United Kingdom tend to take place. This analogy is comparable to what M. Barker (1995) refers to as a ‘discourse of danger’ operating within and framing discussions of film violence. As a result, this analysis of A Serbian Film also draws attention to a range of national fears, anxieties and also pleasures associated with the production, circulation and consumption of contemporary European horror films within the United Kingdom. A Serbian Film had a limited theatrical release in the United Kingdom in December 2010, and was released on DVD/Blu-ray on 3 January 2011. Similarly to IMDb user votes, the reception of A Serbian Film in the United Kingdom reveals that views tended to fall into three camps: (1) those very critical of the film; (2) those generally supportive of it; and (3) those who fell between these two polarized perspectives. The views of critics and supporters tended to cluster around two broad and overlapping themes. The first relates to artistic merit and was framed by the norms and values of a range of overlapping taste cultures, including mainstream journalists and horror film commentators. Critics of A Serbian Film suggest it was boring and poorly made, characterized by inadequate direction, a predictable narrative, limited character development, bad acting, a lack of suspense and crude pop video aesthetics. These views tended to foreground what they saw as the film’s flouting of the key characteristics of ‘good’ film- making. As Peter Bradshaw contends,

Serbian director Srdjan Spasojevic has created a migraine-inducing ‘controversy’ with this badly acted and directed porn-horror nightmare that aspires to be a satire on the dark heart of modern Serbia, with oblique references to the 1990s war. (2010)

Supporters counter, suggesting the film was well made, flagging its strong direction, powerful acting, high production values, strong soundtrack and

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interesting narrative structure. In a response to the film, and the review by Bradshaw previously mentioned, Wonketteer summed up their view:

So it is a considerably flawed film. But it has some strong points and it is a lot less irritating and smug than some other self-conscious post- modern film-about-film movies I’ve seen. I found it mostly well-made. Well-shot, edgy soundtrack, neatly edited. It kept me watching. The comments here have been more illuminating than Peter Bradshaw’s review. And he’s wrong in simply dismissing the acting and direction as awful. (2010)

Supporters of the film tended to view it using a different range of aesthetic criteria, possibly drawn from their engagement with and consumption of horror cinema, and thus read the text very differently from many mainstream film critics. It is worthy of note that commenters who were supportive of the film often offered qualifications, caveats and disclaimers – possibly to manage the imagined responses that views ‘too’ supportive of the film may receive in the public domain. The second theme relates to the perceived legitimacy of the film’s content and its treatment. Critics suggest that A Serbian Film is no more than a catalogue of violent acts and spectacles. An article published in The Sun reported:

A SICK film which features graphic scenes of necrophilia, paedophilia and even the rape of a baby seconds after its birth, is to be screened at a London festival. The movie, called A Serbian Film, has caused outrage with harrowing scenes involving the brutal rape of children and the murder of helpless women whose bodies are then violated […] and many reviews have condemned the movie with one horror site writer comparing watching the movie to ‘having (his) soul raped’. (Smart 2010)

The argument contained in The Sun article is that A Serbian film is only transgressive in so much as it is juvenile and offensive, designed to appeal to the tastes of ‘torture-porn’ enthusiasts. Critics also suggest that the film falls short of its transgressive ambitions as a socio-political allegory or satire and that it is guilty of practicing the kinds of exploitation its seeks to critique. Mark Kermode (YouTube 2010) indicates how for him the film’s supposed allegory gets lost amidst stupid, pompous, portentous and over the top splatter. This position is reinforced by David Cox:

A Serbian Film is itself open to readings other than the one which Spasojevic intends. The film features a film-within-a-film, which, like the film itself, is supposed to convey a profound message through extreme violence and wickedness. Its director, however, is a madman. An allegory could certainly be inferred. A Serbian Film might well be telling us that only someone a bit daft would try to make an allegorical film. (2010)

Critical responses often suggest that whilst the BBFC did the right thing in cutting the film so heavily in the United Kingdom, an unintended consequence was to generate the film too much unwarranted attention. Critical comments

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often adopt an elitist tone informed by a critique of the film’s political ambitions and more insidiously of audience members who support the film. Supporters felt that A Serbian Film was an intellectual exercise offering audiences a socio-political allegory rich in subtext that raised important and transgressive questions. Moreover, enthusiasts of the film often felt that the content was legitimized and justified through its use of the adult entertainment industry as an allegory for the historical exploitation of the Serbian people. Admirers also believed that the film created a meta-textual critique of watching fictional film violence as entertainment. As Berlinrog points out:

Having seen A Serbian Film, I would agree that the purported allegorical meaning is stretching it a bit […] But I still think it’s wrong to dismiss this film as torture porn in the ilk of ‘Hostel’ and ‘Saw’ et al. If anything, it’s surely a critique of that very genre – taking it to its logical and awful conclusion. As one Internet reviewer wrote: ‘This film has not just killed the torture porn genre dead – it’s pissed all over its rotting corpse’. (2010)

Other supporters similarly celebrated the transgressive qualities of the film and the feelings of helplessness it created through its surreal nightmare, proving that cinema is still a powerfully affective medium. Enthusiasts often questioned the cuts made to A Serbian Film and also its bans by some local authorities, suggesting it was an infringement of civil liberties. It is interesting that, as well as using different criteria with which to judge the value of A Serbian Film, supportive views are also framed by, and respond to, the discourse of danger that has been built up in the United Kingdom in relation to horror films (Barker 1995). The third camp of responses occupied a space somewhere between the polarized opinions outlined. Here commentators’ views were characterized by three additional points of view. First, A Serbian Film was seen as flawed and uneven, awkwardly blending commentary, exploitation, narrative and spectacle – though this characteristic was sometimes seen as intriguing. As Anthony Quinn suggests,

Ordeal cinema presents its latest test, and it might be the toughest yet. What annoys about Srdjan Spasojevic’s tale of sadistic torture is that it’s pretty well made, evoking shades of David Lynch at his darkest. (2010)

Moreover, Fiona Bailey cites the following US Reviewer quote:

[…] Scott Weinbery wrote: ‘I think the film is tragic, sickening, disturbing, twisted, absurd, infuriating, and actually quite intelligent […] I admire and detest it at the same time. And I will never watch it again. Ever’. (2010)

Second, whilst there is a lot of debate, controversy and hype surrounding A Serbian Film, many of the claims made for and against it tend to be projected onto the film, rather than as a result of any detailed analysis. One view was that the film is not able to speak for itself; rather its allegorical meaning too often needs to be explained on its behalf. As Cox argues,

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Spasojevic tells us that the baby scene, for example, ‘represents us and everyone else whose innocence and youth have been stolen by those governing our lives for purposes unknown’ […] The film’s metaphors cannot communicate themselves to the audience, and when explained after the event, they seem more comical than instructive. (2010)

Third, reviewers and commentators attempt to contextualize A Serbian Film within the history of transgressive cinema by making comparisons either posi- tively or negatively to a range of other films including; Salo: The 120 days of Sodom (Pasolini, 1975), Nekromantik (Buttgereit, 1987), Funny Games (Haneke, 1997), August Underground (Vogel, 2001), Saw (Wan, 2004) and Hostel (Roth, 2005). As Tom Leins posits,

Too ridiculous to be truly horrifying, A Serbian Film nevertheless deserves its place in the shock cinema pantheon, and automatically brackets novice director Spasojevic with the likes of Gaspar Noe (Irreversible) and Virginie Despentes (Baise-Moi). (2011)

Seen in this light A Serbian Film becomes another contender for the transgressive film of the decade. What this analysis of the reception of A Serbian Film’s transgressive edge play in the United Kingdom reveals is threefold: (1) audiences bring a range of personal values, norms, preferences, dispositions and experiences to their consumption of horror films; (2) the consumption of horror films is informed by the norms and values of the tastes cultures viewers are part of, or with which they identify; (3) audience responses to horror films are shaped by, and also formulated in response to, a number of discursive formations linked to the value and influence of popular cultural forms.

Conclusion This analysis has employed A Serbian Film as a case study to examine transgressive edge play within contemporary horror film cultures. I have contended that transgresson is the norm rather than the exception, and that A Serbian Film through transgressive edge play has genuinely tested, infringed and also reinforced a gamut of social, cultural, political and aesthetic boundaries and thresholds. The enquiry sought to advocate the value of examining the transgressive edge play of horror films holistically through an examination of their production histories, textual construction, circulation, regulation and critical reception. Four main overlapping contentions have been presented in relation to the ways in which A Serbian Film has engaged in transgressive edge play, and also the modes through which regulators, audiences and critics have responded to that boundary testing. First, A Serbian Film’s transgressive edge play originated through its production on the fringes of Serbian film industry. It developed through its reimagining of American cinema and continuation of the trend in Serbian popular culture to use representations of sex and violence to renegotiate Serbian history, traumas and identities. Second, A Serbian Film amplifies its transgressive edge play through its subject matter, formal styling and tone whilst concurrently ameliorating some of these abrasive elements through its narrative structure, self-conscious stylization and oscillating tone. Third, how the global circulation of the film has been managed and restricted

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through interventions by national regulators, often due to the films contraventions of institutional policies and guidelines. Finally, how A Serbian Film has the capacity to transgress the norms and values of taste cultures as a consequence of its edge play, often leading to the polarization of audience and critical responses.

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Newman, K. (2010), ‘A Serbian Film’, http://www.empireonline.com/reviews/ reviewcomplete.asp?FID=137038. Accessed 16 August 2012. Noé, G. (2002), Irreversible, France: 120 Films. Novkovic, O. (2001), Normalni Ijudi/Normal People, Federal Republic of Yugoslavia: Komuna. Palumbo, N. (2004), Murder Set Pieces, USA: Fright Flix Productions. Pasolini, P. P. (1975), Salo/The 120 Days of Sodom, Italy/France: Produzioni Europee Associati (PEA). Quinn, A. (2010), ‘A Serbian Film (18)’, http://www.independent.co.uk/arts- entertainment/films/reviews/a-serbian-film-18-2155506.html. Accessed 16 August 2012. Roth, E. (2005), Hostel, USA: Hostel LLC. —— (2007), Hostel 2, USA: Lionsgate. Rehmeier, A. (2010), The Bunny Game, USA: Death Mountain Productions Shiraishi, K. (2009), Gurotesuku/Grotesque, Japan: Ace Deuce Entertainment. Six, T. (2011), The Human Centipede II (Full Sequence), Netherlands/UK/USA: Six Entertainment Company. Skerlic, S. (1997), Do Koseke/Rage, Federal Republic of Yugoslavia: Avala Film. Smart, G. (2010), ‘Sick Serbian Film Hits London’, http://www.thesun.co.uk/ sol/homepage/showbiz/film/3128497/Sick-Serbian-film-hits-London. html. Accessed 16 August 2012. Spasojevic, S. (2010), A Serbian Film, Serbia: Contra Film. Turner, G. (1999), Film as Social Practice, 3rd ed., London: Routledge. —— (ed.) (2002), The Film Cultures Reader, 3rd ed., London: Routledge. Vogel, F. (2001), August Underground, USA: Toe Tag Pictures. Von Trier, L. (2009), Antichrist, Denmark/Germany/France/Sweden/Italy/ Poland: Zentropa Entertainments. Wan, James (2004), Saw, USA/Australia: Evolution Entertainment. Wonketteer (2010), ‘Comments – A Serbian Film – review’, http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2010/dec/09/a-serbian-film-review. Accessed 16 August 2012. YouTube (2010), ‘Mark Kermode – A Serbian Film’, http://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=KLiwki7-dSE. Accessed 16 August 2012.

Suggested citation Kimber, S. (2014), ‘Transgressive edge play and Srpski Film/A Serbian Film’, Horror Studies 5: 1, pp. 107–125, doi: 10.1386/host.5.1.107_1

Contributor details Dr Shaun Kimber is a Senior Lecturer at Bournemouth University, UK. His interests include horror cinema, film violence and film cultures. He has published the book Controversies: Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer (2011). Recent chapters include, an examination of UK media and film educa- tion using the lexicon of zombiedom, and an investigation of cult celeb- rity and the merging of fact and fiction in film adaptations of the Henry Lee Lucas Story. He is currently working on a co-authored edited collection Snuff: Real Death and Screen Media and co-authoring Writing & Selling Horror Screenplays.

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Contact: The Media School, Bournemouth University, Weymouth House, Talbot Campus, Poole, Dorset, BH12 5BB, UK. E-mail: [email protected]

Shaun Kimber has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work in the format that was submitted to Intellect Ltd.

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