The Life and Death of a Porno Gang, 2009

The Life and Death of a Porno Gang, 2009
Director: Mladen Djordjević
Cast: Mihajlo Jovanović, Ana Ačimović, Predrag Damnjanović



Stage: Local theatre for art movies KinoDvor

The Life and Death in short: Young director Marko, after several unsuccessful attempts to shoot his first feature film, makes an acquaintance with a porn director Cane and starts making films with him, showing his anger towards the society he lives in. After the conflict with Cane he starts his own porn cabaret club in which the socio-political shows are frequently performed. He gathers porn stars around himself. Gay couple Johnny and Max, a transvestite Ceca, junkies Rade and Darinka and others. However, Cane's brother who is a policeman interrupts a premiere, the press destroys them as well, and Marko decides he should leave Belgrade and have a tour around Serbia with his crew. Shortly after, series of conflicts happen with the viewers from the villages they visited. On the way, they meet a German journalist Franc, who is fascinated with Balkan. Franc suggests Marko to make films with the authentic scenes of sex and violence for him.


Preps: none in perticular. After seeing Serbian movie, I am a bit hungry for more of those movies that are awkward, in perticular the ones that show up to what level human nature can go. In this genre, for instance, comes the movie The Human Centipede - one that I still keep seeing in my dreams.. So what is in this one that provoked that much of critics and audience to shout about what should or shouldn't be filmed at all - the curiosity drives me to a late night show.

Reality: I stagger and fall and die of opening my mouth so wide during this piece. An imaginative and creativeness-full movie with a genuine business idea. The beginning is somehow classical, because you can easily relate to a lost young director that has only one desire in life - make movies. As the piece progresses, we enter the world of porno movies, with the main protagonist (menthor) in serbian world for this. Is there any art in this? I suppose not really. Nevertheless, to create art porno movies nowadays means going beyond borders. This piece may start as a funny comedy, but soon enough it escalates into something extremely hard to swallow. The Amsterdam idea, to have a live porno show, is a brilliant one. Is the audience in villages the right one? Am not sure, but in this case, it seemed a better economics perspective than making the same thing in the centre of culture, Belgrade.
To upgrade the experience even more, soon the gang is approached by a challenge most people wouldn't accept and yet alone, wouldn't want to be a part of it, even if only watching. Making a snuff movie - the mere sound of it makes most people vomit, but in this case, represented as a way to differentiate the young director from all the others, and making a new era in serbian porno movie.
I hardly believe this would be real for the mere reason that this cannot be the only person making snuff in Serbia, although it's presented this way. More importantly, the drama the director is faced within his soul and his own beliefs, is surprisingly enough, quickly over. Can you swallow an idea like that (or even more important, you are the one that needs to make it) so fast? Or in another words, how crooked must the society be for you to be able to see this as acceptable? A lot of moral dilemmas facing the porno crowd here. Poor people, drug addicts, old actors that needed to succeed somewhere, left on this roadtrip to make some money because they were desperate enough to say yes to the leader, the director. Is this the picture of the modern serbian society? Maybe. The division between extremely poor and desperate, and on the other hand, extremely wealthy, making everything fall to their knees, this great divide is truly escalating. Not only in Serbia, also in other countries around the globe. Nevertheless, in what deep sh.. must you be to accept this deal?
Up to some point, you could see this as a separate world the gang created for them and in this world everything is possible, everything is allowed, noone could blame you. Some paradigmas like "What happens in the porno truck, stays there".. was going on. However, the price of this is extremely high. Does the movie imply that if you kill anything living, you will not only lose the virginity, but also your soul? The softer side of you, the emotions will dissappear and the soldier like soul will appear and conquer everything you are. Apathy that is shown within the main characters, as the movie develops, is extreme. It rocks my heart and makes me cry within my body. No money in the world and no experience could pay up for such puppets these people turned out to be. And as the roadtrip proceeds, less and less actors are there in the scene to make the movie. They die, are killed by others or themselves. The ending begins somewhere in the middle. The average viewer could have enough. OK, you proved your point, now go home.. somewhere in my subconscious also this thought appeared. But the other side of me, wanted to see the ending badly. The killings are a disastrous for a sensitive mind. The creative idea behind them is evil and brilliant at the same time. As opposed to the "Serbian movie", a lot of this is filmed when people have sane mind and are not under the influence of the drugs. That piece, reminding me of Memento up to some point, made it clear that you shouldn't take stuff you don't know. How about this one? Is the message to follow your heart no matter what it does to you (in sense, follow the director's dreams or at least some guy with a vision and disregard everything else)? Or would it be, don't fall in love with making porno movies, as you are entering the snake pit. In a sense, as in Matrix, if you take the pill, you cannot turn back. There is no way you can stop filming snuff once you begin. And noone will survive if you try to do so.


My personal rate: 8,0 (it made me shake my head long time after the screen shut down. A good piece in philosophical sense, a brainer and a mortitian at the same time).


The Life and Death on IMDB