Zivot i smrt porno bande

i was quite excited about watching this with a lot of reviewers saying it was better than a Serbian film which came out at the same sort of time. so i watched both in the same week and this one just doesn't cut it.

i wasn't engaged by the characters, their choices seemed stupid and the bad things that happen towards the end didn't shock or ram home any sort of point that hasn't been done better elsewhere.

there was just no interest in watching a gang of poor serbians wander the country in a van having sex in front of farmers.

the acting is below standard, the script rambles and the last hope of sex and violence is a waste of time.

watch 'a Serbian film' (uncut) instead.

I heard a lot about Life and Death of a Porno Gang. Being compared to A Serbian Film, saying it was equally disturbing and thought provoking and that it set the standard for extreme cinema in the future.

Personally i rate this film much higher than A Serbian Film. Both films tried to symbolize the difficulties of life in Serbia, but i felt with A Serbian Film, they tried way too hard to be provocative and the symbolism was lost in translation. However, Life and Death manages to create that sheer depression and desperation perfectly!

We have a group of people, put on the outer of society for the lifestyles they have chosen. They decide, to make money, to form a traveling show that features extreme sex acts. As they tour through the rural areas of Serbia, they are continually being hounded from the secluded communities, which ultimately leads them to even more desperate measures, involving making snuff films.

I am not aware of the situation of Serbia, but from what I hear, it is a pretty hard lifestyle. Survival of the fittest. I thought the movie really captured the cold, dark, dreary and depressing atmosphere of people facing desperation, and how far we will go to get ourselves out of the hole we just dug ourselves. I felt sorry for each character, as they regret all the terrible things they do, but facing starvation, they have little choice, which ultimately paints a VERY disturbing and depressing situation.

The film depicts extreme acts of sexuality and violence, so its definitely not for everyone. But if you want to test yourself and open your eyes to situations facing the less privileged, Life and Death of a Porno Gang comes highly recommended!

This is a quite disturbing movie on post-war Serbia in the early 90's of last century. The main character is a young movie director eager to make his first movie. The only opportunity he has to start his career, is making a pornographic picture. Being partially successful, he begins with his cast a pornographic vaudeville roadshow in rural parts of formerly Yugoslavia. Not surprisingly, the locals disapprove of the explicit content of the sex shows. But than there is a businessman in the audience who wants to have snuff movies produced by the 'porno bande'...... Rise and Fall of a Porno Band is a very interesting movie on how things are today in Serbia. It deals with the poverty and struggle for survival in an European country. The non-professional actors do an excellent job and are convincing in showing the hard times Serbia has to go through. Not for the ones amongst us with weak stomachs.

Paul Algra

I've just watched it...and I've never been so close to being stunned by a movie. So forgive me if I'm being incoherent. There are many movies that try to be deep, smart...They mostly end up being pretentious. Or you're left with something you're sure not even the filmmaker knows what's it about. They try to be philosophical, but get tangled in it. This movie is simple, very simple. Others want to trick you. They play with your senses for their gain, to achieve their goal. They try to impress you, shock you, make you cry...More often than not, it comes off cheap. This movie uses no tricks. This movie is...what it is. You have to deal with it. You can't discard it, or laugh it off and ignore it, it's too sincere. It enters you and you believe it. You become part of it. You're one of them. You're there, with the gang, standing around the victim, behind Vanja who is filming it all with his camera. And you're scared. Of yourself.

The main thing the movie greatly succeeds in is being as seedy as possible. Like many underground extreme films, Porno Gang has a no-budget, shot-on-video type of feel to it that adds an immense amount of jarring realism to all of its raw content.

Porno Gang offers a whole gaggle of characters, and while none of them stand out enough to be that memorable, there is still enough dynamic amongst the group as a whole that it carries the film and keeps it entertaining. There are some scenes in the first half of the film before things go even bleaker, that portray a very unique type of cringe camaraderie. Putting on odd sex shows with the lads for small villages of geriatric people...

Without a doubt, the effectiveness of the sex and gore is where Porno Gang excels. The sex is always grimy and gratuitous and plentiful - never pleasant - always cringe-inducing. Special thanks to context, the gore is especially effective - all the cuts, wounds, and blood look entirely realistic, and feel more real than anything else in the film, so when they hit, they are truly quite disturbing. The first "snuff" scene was definitely the strongest scene in the entire movie - not only does the gore and the man goring himself come off as entirely believable, but so does the entire film crew as they watch in horror, accepting they've just taken a step into one of the most depraved realms of human possibility. This is a scene that will stick with me, and has the power to be traumatizing on a visceral level for those are seeking that sort of experience.

I do think that the experience peaked with that first major gore sequence. After that, everything happens kind of quick and is quite a bit more predictable and a little redundant. The ending was probably the most cliche part, but I'm not sure how else you could end a movie like this.

A Serbian Film certainly offers more in the technical department. It takes this concept and makes it a lot weirder, and then takes it further, and does it all with glossy production and a really cool music score. Porno Gang feels like it was edited to hell - there are cuts all over this thing that follow no cohesive style or structure, but hey, maybe that's how they wanted it to feel. It's a mess, but I think it's supposed to be.

As far as extreme movies go, this one does have quite a bit more versatility and value than your average offering. I wouldn't say it has any artistic merit or anything like that, but it does have just enough personality to stand out in the pack. I don't know what I'm supposed to think of Serbia now that the only media I've seen come out of it are two extreme movies about snuff...