The Sitges Festival And Director Angel Sala Charged With Exhibition Of Child Pornography For Screening A SERBIAN FILM
Some disturbing news out of Barcelona today with word that the Sitges Film Festival - one of the oldest, largest and most respected genre film events in the world - and its director, Angel Sala, have been charged with the exhibition of child pornography in connection with a screening of A Serbian Film at the 2010 edition of the festival.
Now, don't get me wrong, A Serbian Film is shocking and extreme cinema and designed to be so. But child porn? That is absolutely ridiculous - the scene that tends to get people worked up occurring entirely offscreen with the violence implied and not actually depicted - and I can only hope that the courts recognize it as such and throw the case out.
There have been rumblings that something was coming down the line after subsequent screenings of the film were banned in Spain but this is excessive in the extreme. Sala and the festival could be facing jail time and / or a fine if convicted.
Now, don't get me wrong, A Serbian Film is shocking and extreme cinema and designed to be so. But child porn? That is absolutely ridiculous - the scene that tends to get people worked up occurring entirely offscreen with the violence implied and not actually depicted - and I can only hope that the courts recognize it as such and throw the case out.
There have been rumblings that something was coming down the line after subsequent screenings of the film were banned in Spain but this is excessive in the extreme. Sala and the festival could be facing jail time and / or a fine if convicted.
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of course you know already how completely fucking ridiculous this whole thing is, but whatever. Regardless of how you feel about this film (and i know most of you despise it with near-violent virulence, in some cases without having seen the fucking thing, but i digress), this is just a complete insult to all involved.
Spoiler; NO CHILDREN OR INFANTS WERE RAPED DURING THE MAKING OF THIS FILM. IT'S A MOVIE, ASSHOLES.
i know every child, real or theoretical, is a puppy-kissed angel cloud of unbridled dreaming innocence who should never under any circumstances be faced with any sort of truth about life and death, but this is not a movie for children, nor is it aimed at children, nor are children the center of its thesis. this isn't about wall-to-wall kid-fucking. the children are more-or-less a metaphor for the destruction of purity... all the bodies in this film represent that. it's similar to Passolini's Salo or Cannibal Holocaust in that regard. it's not about entertainment. you're not meant to be aroused or excited by what's happening in front of you. It's not a celebration of violence but an indictment of humanity.
i know whenever an artform actually attempts to comment on something, it's written off by the blank-voiced void-junkies as being "pretentious" or "in love with itself", but that's more a problem with today's film viewer than with films themselves. we're so accustomed to everything being entertainment for entertainment's sake that whenever something comes out that stirs up some sort of actual reaction in us, we're shocked to see that we haven't completely anesthetized ourselves to the point of full body nerve damage, and we don't like it, so we lash out at these things for daring to be effective rather than conceding to be thoughtless.
I'm not suggesting that A Serbian Film is anything more than a really strong horror film... it's those who hate it that think it's something it isn't.
but most of you are genuinely excited for Scream 4 or Scre4m or whatever bullshit Craven is limping to the barn with, so what's the use of all this passion when you've already made up your simple minds?
grow the fuck up.
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