A Serbian Film..NEVER WATCH THIS FILM!! EVER.

David Jimerson said:
I wish I could UNsee Requiem for a Dream.

I just don't understand the attraction of films about deep, deepening, and deepest misery. Then add in vast amounts of violence, too -- just don't get it.
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Actually this is a more interesting discussion than the film lol. True, I think most people's lives have had enough down points in them that they would rather be moved by uplifting emotions and seek out those movies which don't depress.

However, if you've been forced to watch crap TV for a week and shows like 'x-factor' and 'sing and dance on ice with spears in my eyes' (or whatever) - a strictly family affair, it can actually be a huge relief to see something that explores the darker side of humanity. Especially if it's done in a meaningful way which I don't think A Serbian Film did at all.
 
Darkline said:
However, if you've been forced to watch crap TV for a week and shows like 'x-factor' and 'sing and dance on ice with spears in my eyes' (or whatever) - a strictly family affair, it can actually be a huge relief to see something that explores the darker side of humanity. Especially if it's done in a meaningful way which I don't think A Serbian Film did at all.
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IMHO, "shows like 'x-factor' and 'sing and dance on ice with spears in my eyes'" = "the darker side of humanity".
 
We are so immunized today that nothing shocking. Seeing sick stuff like "three guys and a hammer" and all the graphic junk that is everywhere a serbian film has some crude scenes, and some did get me laughing because of its absurdity..... but its not that bad.
Martyrs was worse IMO.
 
Jawa Ex Machina said:
IMHO, "shows like 'x-factor' and 'sing and dance on ice with spears in my eyes'" = "the darker side of humanity".
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LOL...well maybe not dark, just mind numbingly boring! However, if they really did dance with spears in their eyes, I'd watch it for the comedy value :-)
 
I read the Wiki description... I'm surprised they got this made.

It's one thing for one or two people to imagine such horrible garbage and I believe it is their right to make it, should they want.

However, to find a crew to make a film like this, requires many many people to either a) be equally disturbed or b) willing to excessively violate or suspend their personal morals. I guess money can sway anyone to work on a project they despise or don't believe in... but I can't imagine an entire production being assembled for this purpose. Think of the cinematographer, camera dept, lighting, grip, AD's, sound, crafty, wardrobe, make-up, etc. It's a good way to get unofficially black-listed or to mar an early and possibly promising career.

I personally don't work on anything I even slightly disagree with. One day, when I am old and I look back on my career, I will proudly know that I never shot anything I would be ashamed of. Everything won't be American Beauty and Schindler's List, but it will be respectable.

Like Vitorrio Storaro, ASC, AIC said in his Cinematographer's Style interview,
"I was always Vitorrio Storaro, even in my beginning. When I started nobody knew me... I think you should always be yourself. From when you start, from when you are in the journey, or when you think you reach one specific place. That's part of your personality, part of your way of thinking, part of your way of doing. Many times, yes, the young cinematographer telling me you can do that, or maybe refuse a project or maybe do one selection in your life because now you are now this kind of person (successful)... I always did that. I remember on the first film, I was doing tests for actors, and we were like more or less your crew, (addressing the interview crew)... we were a small crew working in a very simple way and just trying to understand what the movie was supposed to look like. And so now I find myself uncomfortable for what the director was asking me to do, and i was forced to do it... and at the end of the day, I was 28, I say to him, 'Goodbye, I don't think I'll come back tomorrow because I don't know if you need me. If you just need someone to just put one light there, to just let you see whatever is in front of you, not in a particular way that you want to see this person... so I don't think I can come back tomorrow.' I was married at the time, two years before, I already had one daughter and my wife was expecting a child and we only had $50 in the bank... And I say 'no'... and it was wonderful. I was Vitorrio Storaro then, on my first film."
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We can't all be like Vittorio... but perhaps this cinematographer should. I'd rather die a starving artist than feed myself from the paycheck from such a film as the one we are discussing in this thread.
 
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That's a good stance Ryan, there are some lines that SHOULD be drawn. As far as the film goes...I don't think I'll want to even investigate watching it. For me there has to be a redeeming quality in a film to endure the violent stuff, if there's violence. vcassel mentioned IRREVERSIBLE earlier, as one of his favorites. It is a good film....very hard to watch though in the first part (I almost turned it off) but the MEMENTO like stucture kind of led me to believe - They're actually going to say something here, not just shock people. In fact, I believe when characters and scripts are really good the violent parts are that much more difficult to see,,,because we the viewer gives a damn about what happens. When it's just one explosion and dead guy after the other, we become de-sensitized to it. That kind of film is terrible...I'd rather be unsettled a bit, than to sit through a meaningless body count!
 
pulpfiction007 said:
That's a good stance Ryan, there are some lines that SHOULD be drawn.
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I would have to strongly disagree with this.
Either everything is okay, or nothing is.

Once you start drawing lines and making distinctions, there's really nothing that can be said anymore.

The fact that this film is kicking up a storm shows its effectiveness.
You want watered down PG13 studio crap or something that will actually affect you emotionally?

This is especially important for us independent filmmakers that are working on low-to-microbudgets.
We might not have the ability to always go out and get A-list talent, or create super budget SFX, but the one thing we CAN do to sepparate ourselves from any established studio or mainstream system is content. We can do ANYTHING contentwise because our budgets and our production workflow gives us that freedom.

So when it comes to violent films and horror films, any independent filmmaker HAS to break the rules of what's proper and decent.
 
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You would think self censorship would take care of a film like this but there are plenty of people who will stop traffic and stare at a horrible traffic accident. I don't get it?
 
Jawa Ex Machina said:
The fact that this film is kicking up a storm shows its effectiveness.
You want watered down PG13 studio crap or something that will actually affect you emotionally?
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Yes! I have laughed, cried, screamed, gasped, and cheered at dozens of films PG-13/R.

Just as an interesting person doesn't have to scream to get my attention, I don't need blatant shock-value to feel emotion, distress, or disgust. I can watch Schindler's List by Steven Speilberg, and feel the horrors of the Holocaust. I can watch A Clock-Work Orange by Stanely Kubrick and feel the reckless ultra-violent state of man. I will always cry when the Emperor Returns to his throne at the end of The Last Emperor, by Berdardo Bertolucci. I will always squirm in my seat when Blacky makes Steak choose between killing two children in City Of God by Fernando Meirelles and Katia Lund. I still get anxiety watching the inhumane and sick game of russian roulette forced upon American GI's by Cambodian prison guards in The Deer Hunter, by Michael Cimino. Or how after I've been exhausted by a long and exciting movie filled with the most horrific crimes, my heart sinks when Brad Pitt's character screams over and over "What's in the box?!" from the movie Se7en by David Fincher.

I'm not saying horrific material should not exist, nor do I argue one's right to make it. I do argue that a talented story teller can make you feel the very heights of emotion without having to resort to shock-value filmmaking.

You want to see a movie that deals with incest? Watch Chinatown, The War Game, Old Boy, etc. You want to see a movie that will shatter your soul? Schindler's List. Want to see rape and death? Dead Man Walking. Hate and Violence? Watch American History X. Modern films rated pg-13 and R cover the darkest material imaginable. Film has always portrayed the best and worst of humanity. All that a film like A Serbian Film seems to do is nothing more than try to turn heads toward a film that couldn't stand on it's own.

Of course it is kicking up a storm... that was it's only purpose from the start. Ride the shock-value rocket to the top. I watched human centipede, and it was by far the worst movie ever. It's success is purely on its excess. It's a cheap formula, and it works. Sadly you've got to be worse than the person before you, so I doubt we've seen the last of it.
 
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About torture-porn films, I think Hostel was the only one that ever really excited me enough to consider it one of my favorite films of all time. I consider it one of the most well-directed, aesthetically admiring, most realistically sickening, deeply overwhelming horror films in this decade, and I don't think that any film will ever beat it for a very long time. As an entire package, there has been no film completely as whole as Hostel since the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre or the like, Hostel simply was not campy nor missing any single elements of a classic, multi-million budget film: It was written and directed by Eli Roth, who's productions are absolute genius, it was produced by Quentin Tarantino, which explains the standard of the movie, and what's more than being one of the most sickingly twisted films of the decade (the plot is centered around millionaires who torture tourists just to have fun - and the torture scenes involve drills being drilled into nipples, eyes being blow-torched out, toes being cut off, ect ect), it actually is also such an action adventure with all the classic Euro scenes of what seems to be influenced by spy films and Stanely Kubrick scenes - there's florescent, trippy Clockwork Orange inspired brothel scenes, there's Harold & Kumar inspired drug humor, and lastely, there's no shortage of the main characters exploring a grungy city in Slovakia, with torture history and education tied in with the form of a torture museum scene. The influence just does not end and it's as amazing of a film as it is sickening, it was one of the few I'm so glad I saw in theaters and it's one of the few that's ever made me scared to see what torture I'd see next.

And while Hostel 2 was awful despite being written and directed again by Roth, even Hostel 2 had it's share of what made the first film unique; beautiful artistic scenes filled with culture and ellaberate detail, the sense of conspiracy, ect ect. But that film really brung on the cheese, all the horrific torture scenes were replaced by black comedy torture scenes that almost poked fun at the first film, the plot was stupidly centered on the whimsical characters and felt more like a soap opera, and quite simply, the film didn't need a sequel and/or should have continued with the plot of the main character of the first film, not killing him off seconds into the sequel. It's almost like they wouldn't pay him enough to return, so they filmed 5 minutes of him and had to make up the rest with no-name actors.
 
Ryan Patrick O'Hara said:
Yes! I have laughed, cried, screamed, gasped, and cheered at dozens of films PG-13/R.

Of course it is kicking up a storm... that was it's only purpose from the start. Ride the shock-value rocket to the top. I watched human centipede, and it was by far the worst movie ever. It's success is purely on its excess. It's a cheap formula, and it works. Sadly you've got to be worse than the person before you, so I doubt we've seen the last of it.
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I'm talking about horror films and violent action films from studios like Platinum Dunes and Ghost House Pictures.
They don't work because their rating keeps them from being scary and edgy, and with those budgets they can't afford to offend anybody.
Like really good humor, really good horror has to offend somebody.

As for The Human Centipede... If you don't like the film, that's fine. It's not for everyone. Not even The Empire Strikes Back is for everyone.
But to say it's a bad film is just plain wrong. It's won several awards including best actor and best picture. It's already got a big fanbase and an upcoming sequel. It's well acted, well directed and well written. It also gave us the best mad scientest villain we've had in a very long time. I can't even remember last time we had a mad scientest villain who was that good.

It might have been the movie you most dislike, but in no way is it "the worst movie ever". There's a difference.
 
^ Hahaha, if you take the phrase 'the worst movie ever' literally... then you're right, it wasn't the worst movie ever... that might be Birdemic: Shock and Terror. Human centipede was by far the worst movie I've ever seen with that level of large word-of-mouth hype behind it. Hype generated from it's shock value content, not it's story. You might reply, "well that is the story". And then you've missed the point completely. Do you think the movie 'Jaws' was just about a killer shark? Almost all good films including sci-fi, horror and fantasy have plots outside of the main idea. This one did not.

If going to see a good movie is an equivalent of the theater in the old days, going to one of these movies is like going to the circus to see a bearded woman or the elephant man. Cheap thrill. You'd have never, ever heard of this movie if it wasn't for the shock value surgical ass-to-mouth idea. Watching that film I had no desire to root for any of the characters, care about anyone or anything, and was very bored how they stretched what was a short film concept into a full length feature.

If you went to see 'Star Wars' on the premise of simply seeing visual effects 'space-movie', you were in for a nice-treat because it had a wonderful story, flushed out characters, and an emotional ride. If you went to see 'Human Centipede' for the disgusting promise of an ass-to-mouth torture sequence... well you got that and a bunch of drawn out and story-less scenes to sit through waiting for it. The scientist was an interesting character... appropriate for the story but lacking depth. We love Vader, we don't give a crap about what's his face. He just looks and acts the part... a very two dimensional part.

Horror is a hard genre, I'll give them that. Maybe that is why they rely so heavily on gore and cheap tricks. Horror doesn't necessarily = gore. I don't mind if there is gore, I just always want one thing... a good story.

I guess I'm not a traditional 'horror fan' by any means.

So I guess I should apologize. Just because I like well developed and intelligent story structure, doesn't mean all movies should have it. I have to remember that sometimes films need to be pure mindless entertainment... some people like it... and if you find such entertainment by watching girls get their mouths sewn into another girl's anus... Well god bless America.
:)
But seriously, I guess this is just a little niche of the film world. I guess it is people like me who create the word of mouth buzz by talking about it, albeit negatively. So I'm just going to make this my last post.
 
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Jawa Ex Machina said:
I would have to strongly disagree with this.
Either everything is okay, or nothing is.

Once you start drawing lines and making distinctions, there's really nothing that can be said anymore.

The fact that this film is kicking up a storm shows its effectiveness.
You want watered down PG13 studio crap or something that will actually affect you emotionally?

This is especially important for us independent filmmakers that are working on low-to-microbudgets.
We might not have the ability to always go out and get A-list talent, or create super budget SFX, but the one thing we CAN do to sepparate ourselves from any established studio or mainstream system is content. We can do ANYTHING contentwise because our budgets and our production workflow gives us that freedom.

So when it comes to violent films and horror films, any independent filmmaker HAS to break the rules of what's proper and decent.
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Absolutely Correct!!! :thumbsup:
 
Ryan Patrick O'Hara said:
Yes! I have laughed, cried, screamed, gasped, and cheered at dozens of films PG-13/R.

Just as an interesting person doesn't have to scream to get my attention, I don't need blatant shock-value to feel emotion, distress, or disgust. I can watch Schindler's List by Steven Speilberg, and feel the horrors of the Holocaust. I can watch A Clock-Work Orange by Stanely Kubrick and feel the reckless ultra-violent state of man. I will always cry when the Emperor Returns to his throne at the end of The Last Emperor, by Berdardo Bertolucci. I will always squirm in my seat when Blacky makes Steak choose between killing two children in City Of God by Fernando Meirelles and Katia Lund. I still get anxiety watching the inhumane and sick game of russian roulette forced upon American GI's by Cambodian prison guards in The Deer Hunter, by Michael Cimino. Or how after I've been exhausted by a long and exciting movie filled with the most horrific crimes, my heart sinks when Brad Pitt's character screams over and over "What's in the box?!" from the movie Se7en by David Fincher.

I'm not saying horrific material should not exist, nor do I argue one's right to make it. I do argue that a talented story teller can make you feel the very heights of emotion without having to resort to shock-value filmmaking.

You want to see a movie that deals with incest? Watch Chinatown, The War Game, Old Boy, etc. You want to see a movie that will shatter your soul? Schindler's List. Want to see rape and death? Dead Man Walking. Hate and Violence? Watch American History X. Modern films rated pg-13 and R cover the darkest material imaginable. Film has always portrayed the best and worst of humanity. All that a film like A Serbian Film seems to do is nothing more than try to turn heads toward a film that couldn't stand on it's own.

Of course it is kicking up a storm... that was it's only purpose from the start. Ride the shock-value rocket to the top. I watched human centipede, and it was by far the worst movie ever. It's success is purely on its excess. It's a cheap formula, and it works. Sadly you've got to be worse than the person before you, so I doubt we've seen the last of it.
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You sound soooooooo politically correct....

(running for governor or something?)
 
Ryan Patrick O'Hara said:
^ Hahaha, if you take the phrase 'the worst movie ever' literally... then you're right, it wasn't the worst movie ever... that might be Birdemic: Shock and Terror. Human centipede was by far the worst movie I've ever seen with that level of large word-of-mouth hype behind it. Hype generated from it's shock value content, not it's story. You might reply, "well that is the story". And then you've missed the point completely. Do you think the movie 'Jaws' was just about a killer shark? Almost all good films including sci-fi, horror and fantasy have plots outside of the main idea. This one did not.

If going to see a good movie is an equivalent of the theater in the old days, going to one of these movies is like going to the circus to see a bearded woman or the elephant man. Cheap thrill. You'd have never, ever heard of this movie if it wasn't for the shock value surgical ass-to-mouth idea. Watching that film I had no desire to root for any of the characters, care about anyone or anything, and was very bored how they stretched what was a short film concept into a full length feature.

If you went to see 'Star Wars' on the premise of simply seeing visual effects 'space-movie', you were in for a nice-treat because it had a wonderful story, flushed out characters, and an emotional ride. If you went to see 'Human Centipede' for the disgusting promise of an ass-to-mouth torture sequence... well you got that and a bunch of drawn out and story-less scenes to sit through waiting for it. The scientist was an interesting character... appropriate for the story but lacking depth. We love Vader, we don't give a crap about what's his face. He just looks and acts the part... a very two dimensional part.

Horror is a hard genre, I'll give them that. Maybe that is why they rely so heavily on gore and cheap tricks. Horror doesn't necessarily = gore. I don't mind if there is gore, I just always want one thing... a good story.

I guess I'm not a traditional 'horror fan' by any means.

So I guess I should apologize. Just because I like well developed and intelligent story structure, doesn't mean all movies should have it. I have to remember that sometimes films need to be pure mindless entertainment... some people like it... and if you find such entertainment by watching girls get their mouths sewn into another girl's anus... Well god bless America.
:)
But seriously, I guess this is just a little niche of the film world. I guess it is people like me who create the word of mouth buzz by talking about it, albeit negatively. So I'm just going to make this my last post.
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yeah....he want to be Senator... ; )
 
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