Newborn Porn: A Retrospective

by Kelly Gredner

INTRODUCTION

A Serbian Film. What comes to your mind when you hear this? For some, it probably doesn't register much, but for others, it’s a movie they have been warned not to watch.  A Serbian Film falls into the extreme horror genre and has been described as one of the most disturbing, shocking, sickening, and controversial movies ever made. It’s said it can only be watched once, and never again, if that. A Serbian Film is often villainized due to the lack of understanding of the political context in which the film was made. It's shocking, but with purpose. 

Extreme horror gets a staggering amount of flak from movie fans, labelling it to be nothing more than “torture porn”. This is a term that was coined in 2006 by film critic David Edelstein to describe a certain sub-genre of horror that showcases excessive amounts of violence and gore (Edelstein, 2006).  It is a maligned adjective given to a film that dares to push the boundaries of social constructs and takes viewers into very real and unsettling places.  Arguably, many films that have even an ounce of social commentary are overlooked due to this prejudice. Yet these films can be so confronting in their depictions of real-world events that they are ridiculed because of people’s discomfort. A Serbian Film demands your attention and forces you to reconsider your preconceived notions about it, and about the extreme horror genre as a whole. 

“We just wanted to express our deepest and honest feelings towards our region and also the world in general — a world that is sugar coated in political correctness, but also very rotten under that façade — with a movie style we liked.” (Srđan Spasojević, 2011)

THE INFAMOUS SCENE

There are many graphic, violent, and unimaginable scenes in A Serbian Film, but the one that will forever remain in our collective consciousness is the scene involving a newborn baby. It arrives at the 56-minute mark of the film and occurs after our protagonist, Milos (played by Srdjan 'Zika' Todorovic), has already entered into his contract for this secretive pornographic film, one that will provide him with the wealth he requires to take care of his wife and son. People who have heard about this particular scene refuse to watch the movie because of it. Inquisitive people will want to hear or read about it, because their morbid (but natural) curiosity gets the best of them, but believe that by not witnessing this film’s heinous act, it keeps their morality intact (source no longer available). Only the brave (or perverse) take the plunge to watch it.  

The sequence of events leading up to the infamous scene is relatively unremarkable, involving acts of fellatio, penile harm, and ejaculation. Though explicit, this is nothing new for fans of extreme horror. At this point in A Serbian Film, Milos begins to refuse work as he no longer feels comfortable with the violence, and he is skeptical about the project. The director, Vukmir (played by Sergej Trifunovic), pontificates about the struggles of Serbian life and how his film will “show you the power of a real victim.” He then turns on the TV monitors, and we see a childbirth in progress - in all of its visceral, vaginal glory. Yet once the newborn is free from the womb, she is immediately raped in what the director calls a new genre, “Newborn Porn”.

Milos watches in disgust. As he storms out of the room, Vukmir shouts, “Could it be that you don’t get it?” And with this statement, director Srđan Spasojević not only confronts Milos’ repulsion, but ours as well. We don’t understand it, at least not yet. The trauma of this bombshell is hard to bypass, and for the next hour of the total 110-minute runtime, Milos spirals out of control while Vukmir propels him into the most sexually depraved places he has ever been. However, this violation of an innocent baby refuses to leave our minds. It lingers heavily, even after the movie ends.

“Extreme scenes, such as the one with the baby, are absolute literal images of how we feel. I never thought, let’s make a shocking film, let’s make it controversial, let’s break the world record. That was never on our mind. We just wanted to express ourselves in the most honest and direct way possible. You’re raped from birth and it doesn’t even stop after your death: that was the point of the ending.” (Srđan Spasojević, 2010)

REACTIONS

A Serbian Film played the festival circuit for its 2010/2011 release, and reactions were so strong that festival director Angel Sala at the Stiges Film Festival in Barcelona, Spain, was charged with screening child pornography (Evans, 2011). These charges cited both the newborn scene and the rape of Milos’ son Stefan (played by Luka Mijatovic) as scenes of violent pornography, conflicting with the rights of a child. 

It’s not surprising these charges were dismissed once an investigation proved that no one was in any legitimate danger. The depicted newborn was indeed a prop, and the filmmakers had inserted a shot of the child’s face in post-production as he was filmed at a completely different location for the scene in question (Pape, 2011). These were only fictional depictions of pedophilia, incest, and rape. The film had not broken any laws or committed any of these very real crimes. Yet it is the juxtaposition of children as victims of such illicit subject matter that enrages and deeply upsets viewers. So, despite its reputation, no children were harmed in the making of A Serbian Film. 

Since the restoration of Spain's democracy in 1977, the charges brought against A Serbian Film are the first example of a film being the subject of a criminal case over fictional sexual content (Pape, 2011). Though the filmmaker didn’t engage in criminal activity, the obscene nature of the scenes is unprecedented in its horror. However, it is in his use of satirical child porn that director Srđan Spasojević makes a bleak and stark political commentary about life in Serbia. The film’s underlying premise is predicated on this disturbing scene, though it is lost to most people when they view the film. 

Understandably, it’s hard to think of any kind of political stance when we are watching a man assault a baby. However, this central image is an example of how the fictional director Vukmir wants to monetize and bring child pornography to the mainstream. Though highly controversial, this scene symbolically represents how the Serbian people, through the perspective of the filmmakers, are still treated by their government. 

“We wanted to talk about all the problems we experience. We wanted to face the demons of our time, including violence against women and children. Unfortunately, many people who say they are fighting against those problems and claim to represent women and children find this film too offensive.” (Srđan Spasojević, 2010)

THE MEANING/CULTURAL EXTREMISM

The premise of A Serbian Film is about the victimization of a nation’s people from the cradle to the grave. It starts at birth and ends with death; death of our hopes, dreams, sanctity, freedom (of liberty and art), and personhood. We are plucked from the wombs of our mothers to be thrown into an uncaring, dispassionate world. 

Serbia has a troubled past filled with pain, war, and death. The Balkan, or Yugoslav, Wars between 1991 and 1999 left a stain and state of remorse for the citizens of Serbia. Massacres of ethnic cleansing, concentration camps, rape and torture, which left over 100,000 people dead and missing, were perpetrated by Serbian armies (Canga, 2011). The uncomfortable truth about the war crimes of General Mladic and the rule of Slobodan Milosevic hasn’t been fully purged. The government controlled the general populace via manipulation through classism, racism, and sadism. 

Gen. Ratko Mladić aka The Butcher or Bosnia

In Eastern Europe, the genre of horror as we know it in North America doesn’t exist. Films aren’t categorized or advertised as “horror,” but are released as art films (Ognjanović, 2017). And when you get into smaller countries such as Yugoslavia or Serbia, this is particularly accurate. Horror as a medium wasn’t a part of the local history, wasn't popular, and was branded as being inappropriate for their people. They were also seen as an inferior product, and were equated as ”boogey tales”, dirty/pornographic, or threatening/corrupting (Ognjanović, 2017). Any films that could be considered “horror” were not recognized as such. 

Yet in the aftermath of the Balkan Wars, young filmmakers started to embrace what the horror genre could provide, and even paid homage to Italian and American releases they enjoyed as children (Ognjanović, 2017). There are limited examples of horror films originating from Serbia (and surrounding countries), but the few that do exist are prone to using and exposing humanity for its frailty - mind, body, and soul (Ognjanović, 2017). Like A Serbian Film, the overarching themes are that the world is a desolate, dark place full of desperation and hopelessness. The blending of horror and sex is common, and people are encased in a cyclical void of no return - there is no chance of escaping this trap; insanity (and death) are inevitable. 

In A Serbian Film, Vukmir, our “artist”, wants to profit off the suffering of those in his film, since Serbia, the country, and the art industry are all failing. His salacious genre of “newborn porn” is the projection of a victimized nation, one that he will further exploit for his gain.  Vukmir wants to market and sell his victims, and who is considered the most devastatingly powerless creature? A newborn. The very symbol of purity, life, and new beginnings is violated so intimately that we can’t help but be heartbroken to witness their demise in the very brief seconds of freedom that they experience.

Over the years, A Serbian Film has transitioned from being termed “torture porn” to “suffer porn” or “misery porn”. “Suffer porn” is a niche group of foreign films where their central themes surround a person (often female) in distress because of a malignant culture or government (Kassendorf, 2014). The protagonist either has to conquer and destroy their enemy or become a casualty. These films are often a means to educate the viewer about the culture and society it’s developed. From the newborn scene and onwards, viewers endure the film’s depictions of intense suffering and death at the hands of the producer/director, or in the grand scheme of it all, the Serbian government.

Horror films parallel the atrocities, fear, and despair of those from which the country of origin is derived. They are allegorical to the events of the past, present, and future. Many Serbians live in shame or anger based on these horrific past events, never knowing what happened to their loved ones, or feeling the satisfaction of justice (Canga, 2011). The economy is poor, and the people put on a brave face, but underneath the facade remains the darkness of the past. A Serbian Film, though hard to watch, shows us the difficult truths that women, men, and children are exploited and harmed regularly in the name of power and money. They are victims of their culture and of a struggling economy, therefore pushing people to extremes to do what needs to be done to support their family. Desperate people are easily taken advantage of, and Vukmir is ecstatic to exploit this fact. He can sense the commercial value of it since “victims sell,” and he wants the profits just as much as the Serbian government does. For economic gain, death and suffering are valuable. Snuff is payback.

A Serbian Film takes this to an all-encompassing, dangerous level, roughly guiding us to a voyeuristic, consumer-driven place, perhaps paying debt for our complicity in the tragedies of the world. We are confronted with the hard-to-swallow truths of not only a country, but of humanity as a whole. A Serbian Film is a fantasy about the illusion of escape; Milos attempts to escape poverty, and then the wretched porn film, but realizes that there is truly no escaping his fate. He realizes that you are doomed from birth - you are fucked once you are born into this Serbian world. 

“The murder of the youth in this country. That was the point. We were trying to show the idea in the flesh, in the explicit terms of the skin flick, something politically threatening. To cinematically reshape our reality by treating it as violent pornography, because that's what it's actually turned into" (Screenwriter Aleksandar Radivojević, 2015)

REMINDER

In 2018, the film world was given a harsh reminder of the existence of A Serbian Film when the newborn baby prop was put up on eBay for auction, starting at USD 6,000 (Squires, 2018). It also came with a Certificate of Authenticity from Contra Films and Unearthed Films. However, it was removed shortly after, being banned from eBay (Squires, 2018). The company refused to even sell costumes and other props from the film. Eventually, Unearthed Films was able to get it back on eBay, though independently, fighting against censorship. It didn’t sell during the initial auction, so it is currently available for USD 7,000 over at the Unearthed Films website. 

Thank you, Unearthed Films

This reignited the flames of war against extreme horror, and A Serbian Film has come to epitomize the stigma against the genre. It is still being discussed today, and continues to rank amongst the most disturbing films ever made. Yet what Spasojević attempted to create was a multi-layered parable that comes from a place of frustration and rage, within himself (and the writer, Aleksander Radivojevic) for the historical events of their country and the aftermath on its people. With resorting to pornography over sensuality, abrasive imagery over subtlety, and exploitation over arthouse, some find the narrative falls short, and it’s challenging to see the subtext. Viewers are unable to move past their disgust to see the underlying cultural meaning in A Serbian Film.

“It was accumulating inside of us. It’s all about expressing some recessed emotions about our region and the world also. If you scratch the perfect surface of society in today’s world, you will of course find bad things down there. You will find the living hell down there. I’m talking about Serbia, about Serbian problems.” (Srdjan Spasojevic, 2011)

Conclusion

Would the casual onlooker or purveyor of extreme horror know the ins and outs of Serbian culture and history? Probably not. Which is why I think A Serbian Film cannot be broken up into individual scenes; it is a sum of all its parts and requires to be viewed with its full context in mind. Without this, A Serbian Film will continue to be seen as appalling trash, not for its transgressive attitude and audacious representation of the history of a country known for its exploits in the human condition.

Extreme horror is hyperbole and is essential to the film world as it takes unimaginable, twisted turns and dissects disturbing subject matter. These films are considered immoral, indecent, and offensive. They are ugly films that few people talk about and even fewer dare to watch. However, these are the films that will stay with you long after the credits roll and infest your nightmares. Often, these films are international and inspired by that country's culture or horrific history; thus, it’s crucial to view these films objectively and not personally. Horror films are to be viewed from their cultural context, not with our Westernized lens, which can skew our perception or prevent us from fully understanding where these filmmakers are coming from. If we continue to do this, we are narrowing our view of the world and minimizing the experience of others. 

A Serbian Film has something to say, and although some might feel like it failed to be meaningful, its cultural impact is undeniable. It reminds me of a Serbian quote I read: Iz ove se kože ne može, which means "You can't escape from your own skin".  And you can't escape the power of transgressive cinema.  

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Resources:

1. https://nymag.com/movies/features/15622/ - Now Playing at your local Multiplex: Torture Porn by David Edelstein (2006)

2. https://www.screendaily.com/festivals/sitges-director-faces-pornography-complaint-over-a-serbian-film/5024651.article - Sitges director faces pornography complaint over A Serbian Film by Chris Evans (2011)

3. A Serbian Film: Kiddie Porn? Historical Satire? Both? By Eric Pape (2011) https://www.laweekly.com/a-serbian-film-kiddie-porn-historical-satire-both/ 

4. A SERBIAN FILM is a temper tantrum posing as cultural critique by Julius Kassendorf, 2014 https://www.the-solute.com/a-serbian-film-is-a-temper-tantrum-posing-as-cultural-critique/ 

5. https://balkaninsight.com/2011/11/16/uncomfortable-truths-war-crimes-in-the-balkans/ - Uncomfortable Truths: War Crimes in the Balkans by Elira Canga, 2011 

6. No Escape from the Body: Bleak Landscapes of Serbian horror film by Dejan Ognjanović, 2017

7. https://bloody-disgusting.com/movie/3500001/infamous-baby-prop-serbian-film-just-crawled-onto-ebay/ - The Infamous Baby Prop from ‘A Serbian Film’ Just Crawled Onto eBay by John Squires, 2018

8. https://bloody-disgusting.com/movie/3504623/banned-ebay-infamous-baby-prop-serbian-film-returns-auction/ - Banned from eBay, the Infamous Baby Prop from ‘A Serbian Film’ Returns to Auction by John Squires, 2018