Mladen Djordjevic brings a troop of 'clumsy Satanists' to hell and back in his latest film

A Montreal film festival selector once wrote that Mladen Djordjevic's 2009 movie, The Life and Death of a Porno Gang, was the "Clockwork Orange of our generation." Another film critic wrote that the film made him vomit because it was so gruesome. 

The Serbian writer and director clearly makes polarizing films. But Djordjevic (also spelled Đorđević) revels in the space in between absurdity, disgust and politics. And that doesn't change much in his newest film, Working Class Goes to Hell, where in one scene a character eats what looks like a human heart during a Satanic sex ritual. 

The movie follows a sad bunch of mainly middle-aged former factory workers trying to get justice for their coworkers and loved ones, who died in a factory fire. Their small Balkan town is now also economically depressed without the factory to provide jobs, prompting them to look for help.

The workers protest at the old factory and try to speak with local officials. But the government is in the pocket of a businessman who wants to build a hotel at the site of the factory, so nothing gets done. As the factory workers' hope wanes, a new member turns them on to Satanism to help their cause. Their dark arts rituals start working — but to what end?

The absurd yet creepy Satanic rituals combined with the group's bleak reality makes Working Class Goes to Hell a jarring but impactful watch. The movie premiered at TIFF's famous Midnight Madness programme. 

What inspired Working Class Goes to Hell?

My idea was to make a movie about contemporary Balkan society and the rule of the corrupted oligarchy. After the bloody wars during the 90s, we have corruption in privatization. And that privatization of factories was very, very corrupted and very against the law.

Transition from a socialist to a capitalist society is a common subject in Eastern European society after the fall of the Berlin Wall. But my idea was to approach it in a different way by combining a social, politically engaged movie with a horror-thriller, dark comedy.

There is a lot of darkness and Satanism in the movie. What made you want to bring that into the film?

My main characters are not serious Satanists. They are clumsy Satanists. I wanted to criticize Christianity, but I didn't want to make propaganda for Satanism. That's why it's clumsy Satanism.

In my opinion, contemporary religions are corrupted. Mainstream religions are in connection with the interest of large capital. I'm talking about the top of the church, not about the common priest. The church supports the [Serbian] oligarchy and government, and they also take money from the state. And when they take the money, they are quiet and they are not fighting for ordinary people.

I made a movie about a group of people who are abandoned by society and abandoned by the church. Because of that, they are going to the dark side to find light at the end of that dark tunnel and to find their strength, which is lost. At the end of that road, they will know that their power is not in God or Satan, but inside of them. 

I like the idea of making the connection with all the paganism and all the gods, who are outsiders, as my main characters are.

That's a common theme in your other movies as well, like in Life and Death of a Porno Gang. What makes you fascinated by outsiders?

I constantly make stories about people from the edge of society. There is something beautiful in the world of outsiders and in that edge of society. You can find some freedom there because you are not in the mainstream system. 

Do you feel like an outsider?

Oh, yes. I am an outsider in Serbian cinematography because it is very difficult for me to get the money for shooting movies. My movies are very edgy and provocative, especially by Balkan standards. 

You can see that provocativeness in Working Class. There's a scene in the film where a teenage girl dies in a fridge. She has been put there to chill her body temperature enough to become a "human fridge," where food lies on top of her naked body. This all happens at a sex party for the town's rich and corrupt government officials and businessmen. 

How did you even think to do that?

That is not my idea — that is from a newspaper. In a small town in Serbia, they had that kind of orgy party for the local government officials and it was a big, big scandal.

The treatment of women in Serbia is very tough. That's why I wanted to use that scene from that article, to show the position of women in Serbia.

Did the girl in the article die, like the character?

I don't think she died, but almost. She was in the hospital, for sure. 

What do you want people to feel after watching?

For me, this is a dystopian movie because I think I made a picture of the near future. And that is a picture of the whole world, not just the Balkans. 

I think in the near future, the majority of humanity will be abandoned by owners of large capital and they will be pushed into the dark. But I think they will find hope and power in the dark, and the owners of large capital will not expect that.