Son's Will

A post-apocalyptic epic coming to the world from Serbia no less! A lot of motifs from the old Serbian heroic poetry, re-imagined in a new world that came out of nuclear war.

The main problem with the movie is that it isn't a movie at all. In Serbian cinematography they have this practice of creating a mini-series and also cutting it down into a movie for release in the cinemas. The Son's Will series is 8 episodes, 40 minutes long each. They had to cut it into 150 minutes movie that now simultaneously feels both too long and too short, as too much is crammed in with not enough exposure to explain all.

The scenes are very competently made and acted. A big issue is that the movie is very Americanized, not in the spirit of Serbian cinematography, so some dialogs and actions feel very cringey for domestic viewers, while I don't know how much it will appeal to international audience that has no idea what "gusle" is.

This movie is the first of its kind of these kinds of movies in Serbia. It has a great pace; the background lore is given in moderation; the characters are believable and you easily love the and cheer for the heroes, and hate and boo the villains, without anyone coming off as comical; character motivations are there, and every reaction makes sense from an internal logic standpoint.

The movie tells a classic hero's journey tale: a farm guy leaves his home behind to embark on a quest to save the ones he love, gets the girl, fights the bad guy minions to have an epic showdown with the main bad guy at the end, and returning to the starting places, having changed in the process.

The movie blends Serbian culture, style, and folklore elements with modern and more "Western" style, resulting in a very unique blend. It might be wrongully called "Serbian Mad Max" or "Serbian Fallout", but the comparison is only superficial: a post-apocalyptic setting. This is where the similarities end. It's a thing of its own, with its own identity, and a possibility of a wider story with future installments.

If this is the first of these kinds of modern epics to come, then it is a bright future for sure!

Like sword ... like the same? Well no pun intended, though that is more for my summary headline. This is a postapocalyptic movie - from Serbia! It is quite violent, but nothing can shock anyone who may have seen a different kind of movie from Serbia (from 2010 that is).

There is also one actor who played in that movie and is back again for this one. He played a terrific villain back then - and he still got it. This builds quite the fantasy and mythology around itself and a certain sword. Mixing eastern tradition with western authoritarian and societal structures. Well you could do worse than watching this - especially considering how good it looks (and I don't necessarily refer to the actors, though they are a fine bunch of people too).

First and foremost, I can't express how proud and grateful I am to everyone involved in making this film. This is a huge step for Serbian, and I dare say ex-Yugoslav, cinema, and it fully deserves praise in that regard.

I absolutely disagree with other reviews that mention bad acting. On the contrary, the casting was fantastic, and most of the actors did an excellent job. This film also showed me how many "cinematic" actors we have, those whom the camera truly loves (the Bencina brothers for example). Let's be clear, this isn't a movie where anyone's acting is supposed to stand out, and it doesn't need to. Yes, there were a few lines of dialogue that made me raise an eyebrow in dismay, but that's negligible. What was truly irritating, loud, and downright ridiculous was: "OBJAVA KULE, OBJAVA KULE" repeated every 10 minutes by a Santa Claus figure holding a vacuum cleaner pipe.

The special effects in this film are either a hit or a major miss. For example, some fight scenes with lots of blood look incredibly professional and have the aesthetic this film should aim for-it doesn't look cheap, which is very important. However, some basic scenes, which have been done countless times in both high-budget and low-budget films, look like a cartoon here. Specifically, I'm referring to the machine gun shooting scene, for instance.

The sound is good, and the music is excellent. My only small criticism regarding the music is that the gusle (a traditional Serbian instrument) weren't incorporated more throughout the entire film, as it is precisely the instrument through which the storyteller narrates the tale.

Where this film earns my biggest criticism-and hence the lower rating-is in its editing, or more precisely the reason behind it: a trend in our cinema, present since the release of "Montevideo, Bog te video", of turning films into series. This film, however, seems to have done the opposite. A 2.5-hour film is paced so quickly that I fear the average shot length would be alarmingly short if analyzed thoroughly. An epic story like this, with a solid concept or at least the ambition to compare itself to films like "Mad Max" or "Dune", should never have allowed itself to be butchered by such rapid cuts, especially since this type of film is appearing on our screens for the first time.

The title of this review, a line spoken by one of the characters to the storyteller, "Tell him to speed up a bit, we don't need to know everything," is the very irony this film has suffered. Quite the opposite-I was drawn into the story and wanted to know everything, slowly and at my own pace, rather than watch a 2.5-hour trailer that feels like a setup for a series. I'd much rather watch this film split into multiple parts than a butchered version made to resemble a series.

Finally, I have just one question for the creators: Fidget spinner... really?

For the past couple of years, we've been served mostly similar (read: the same) genres from Serbian cinematography-crime dramas, war stories, or rural comedies. This show, however, brings something fresh to the table. It introduces a new narrative approach and a more nuanced storytelling style that's definitely worth your time. My advice is to watch the full 8-episode series, as it broadens the scope of the story, develops characters more deeply, and fills in important details that really bring the plot together. A refreshing change and a must-watch for post-apocaliptic, Sci-Fi genre fans (myself!)!