Ever since Srdjan Spasojevic’s morally dubious and artistically debatable shock fest A Serbian Film exploded for good or ill across the Balkan silver screens, simulated or unsimulated explicit sexual content and/or digital video has become synonymous with modern Serbian cinema. While many still harbor justifiable anger about the damage it did to the public image of the Serbian film industry, it opened many doors to other like-minded filmmakers pushing the boundaries of what’s acceptable to tell a conventional narrative story.
Among
those to come in as the floodgates of provocative or even transgressive sexual
freedom in the Serbian cinematic landscape was the debut of writer-director
Maja Milos and her daring, dark and occasionally disturbing coming-of-age drama
Clip.
Starring a then-14 year old Isidora Simojonivic in the role of Jasna, a
precocious teenager on the cusp of her own sexual awakening, Clip follows the youngster through her
humdrum daily existence of time at her shabby home with her dying father and
family relatives encroaching on her personal space.
Angry
and rebellious, Jasna spends much of her time drowning in booze amid partying
at the club with her friends when she isn’t taping the troublemaking with her
cellular phone. Along the way she meets Djole
(Vukasin Jasnic), a young punk she falls madly in love with and is quick to
satisfy any and every sexual demand he makes, fostering an increasingly
degrading and physically abusive relationship between the two which becomes all
encompassing.
While
being openly sexually explicit and frequently unpleasant, first and foremost
this is a coming-of-age drama about how abusive relationships and domestic
violence can form under a specific environment and how slippery of a slope it
can become. Though graphic and quick to
generate controversy within and outside of its homeland, much like A Serbian Film all of the sexual content
is simulated through a variety of techniques, prosthetic effects, doubles and
blocking.
Mostly
however, the film derives its sharp edges not so much from the sex as the strength
of Simojonivic who won the Best Actress Award at the Vilnius International Film
Festival. The character of Jasna is a
difficult one to sympathize with as she grows increasingly cold and nasty to
her siblings yet Simojonivic makes her oddly relatable even her behavior grows
more self-destructive with time. Tasked
with carrying the entire weight of the picture herself including but not
limited to a number of difficult scenes throughout, she plays the role
fearlessly and establishes herself in her first big screen role as a natural
talent.
Visually
the film, shot in 2.10:1 widescreen by Vladimir Simic, has that
rough-around-the-edges shaky camerawork characteristic of the Dardennes and
Lars Von Trier with frequent jump cuts piecing it all together. Narratively it unfolds as an episodic day in
the life of Jasna as she saunters intoxicated from one scenario to the next in
between debauched sexual encounters with her boyfriend. Taking the name from the cellular phone video
format which Jasna records many of, Clip also
often incorporates rough digital videos taken by our protagonist though
admittedly the film has fewer clips in it than the flashbacks in All About Lily Chou-Chou, making the
film’s title somewhat misleading.
Clip from the outset was
a surefire lightning rod for controversy.
Explicit sexual content, particularly involving teenagers, is always
going to raise more than a few eyebrows. Just ask Larry Clark whose graphic 2002 film Ken Park to this day remains without
distribution in either the US or the UK.
Curiously, while Clark’s film did finally come out on DVD in Russia, Clip on the other hand which doesn’t
contain any actual unsimulated sex comparatively is currently banned in the
country.
What’s
more, the dark and heavy coming-of-age drama isn’t exactly a new genre with
more than a few examples of youth movies that highlight the uphill battles of being
a teenager in a harsh and unforgiving world.
Still, Clip does hold value
for the adventurous filmgoers not easily deterred by graphic sex or the
undiluted unpleasantness of a dysfunctional and abusive romantic pairing. If nothing else, see it for the powerful
performance by Isidora Simojonivic who makes this character as believably real
and relatable as possible. A bumpy ride
for the uninitiated but most rewarding for those who like their coming-of-age
dramas a little spicier than usual.
Score:
- Andrew Kotwicki