With Karmadonna, screenwriter Aleksandar Radivojević (who co-wrote A Serbian Film) steps into the director’s chair for the first time, and the result is as incendiary and confrontational as you might expect. While comparisons to his earlier work are inevitable, this isn’t just provocation for provocation’s sake. Instead, Karmadonna is an audacious, unflinching dive into moral decay, corporate cruelty, and spiritual disillusionment — one that hits uncomfortably close to home, even if it doesn’t always find a fully confident rhythm.
Jelena (a riveting Jelena Djokić), heavily pregnant and clearly at the end of her tether, receives a phone call from a voice claiming to be a deity — or, in his own warped words “the creator of content.” After unleashing a disturbing display of his omniscient power, he issues an ultimatum: murder a carefully selected list of targets or lose her unborn child. Her targets — a rogue’s gallery of corrupt cops, lecherous executives, and vapid influencers — form a brutal cross-section of a society on the edge of collapse.
Radivojević isn’t interested in metaphors. Karmadonna isn’t an allegory but an outright indictment — raw, unfiltered, and unapologetically direct. The anger that seethes through the film is relentless and palpable; its targets don’t stand in for ideas but embody them in flesh and blood, each confrontation a pointed accusation hurled at a rotting world. If subtlety exists here, it lies in the details — in the meticulously stylized mise-en-scène, Aleksandar Jakonić’s hypnotic, near-psychedelic cinematography, and Djokić’s complex, resonant journey.
That said, the film takes its time to build momentum, and some of the early scenes are stretched out by lingering stylistic shots. While these sequences are visually striking, they don’t always do much beyond creating atmosphere, and their length can slow the pace before the story really gets going.
At first, Jelena is understandably frozen by fear. But the toxic cocktail of hate, grief, and social marginalization she’s kept bottled up finally ignites when she comes face to face with the sneering misogyny, cruel jabs, and casual violence of those she’s been ordered to kill. Once uncorked, this rage unleashes a grimly satisfying spree of violence. While not as confrontational as A Serbian Film, the carnage here is no less visceral. The practical effects—worthy of genre veterans like Clyde “Tom” Mazzetti and Sergio Stivaletti—are deployed not just for shock value but to create a tangible sense of pain and consequence in the film.
As Jelena works through her list, the film digs into the ghosts of religion and the hollow idols of pop culture, folding in warped Buddhist philosophy, nihilistic cosmology, and sharp critiques of our media-saturated age. Her journey culminates in a grotesque reality TV spectacle set in a sanitarium, ruled over by a target who stands as the film’s most distilled embodiment of cultural rot.
What makes Karmadonna more than just another nihilistic genre exercise is its conviction. It believes fiercely in its anger and in its refusal to pretend that systems of power can be dismantled politely. As visceral and gut-punching as it is charged with savage social commentary, the film tears into our cultural rot with a wink and a snarl: if this is the world we’ve created, who could blame someone for wanting to burn it all down?
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