I think it really warrants defending. It is not a great film and is not something I have any desire to see again, but it is getting attention for all of the wrong reasons. Did people hype up Schindler's List because there were fully nude people being mass murdered? Of course not. I'm certainly not trying to compare A Serbian Film to that as they're entirely different, but you can probably see what I'm getting it. I personally found all of the film's "extreme" material to be necessary. I can't imagine it being effective at all without it there, it just never felt gratuitous to me and a lot of the press surrounding it makes it seem that way. It just lumps it into the same category as The Human Centipede or Hostel-esque torture porn, which it is far from. Truth be told, it is more of a drama than anything. Any scenes of violence or graphic sexual content are spaced pretty far apart, so anyone watching it for "kicks" is more than likely going to be pretty bored early on.
Also, while on the subject, the other title to come out of Serbia last year that got some attention, Life and Death of a Porno Gang, is a vastly superior film to this one in my opinion. It is also quite graphic but it is actually fun and enjoyable to watch. It basically plays very similar to Lars von Trier's The Idiots but with the added element of it being about snuff rather than actors pretending to be mentally chalenged.
Thanks for your reply, zummy.