Serbian film Warriors of the Wasteland from director Nemanja Ceranic and writer Strahinja Madzarevic opens as if in a dream. Two men walk a dead landscape of endless dust clouds ripped from the earth beneath their feet. One is swaddled and blind, led through the storm by his companion. 

They stop at a grim tavern. The swaddled one is ‘soaked’. We don’t know at first what this means, but when a patron seeks to inspect him, the quiet warning ‘better not’ suggests it is not pretty. The plot proper then kicks off when the bar is serenaded by the stranger on his lute, telling them the legend of ‘The Will of the Son.’  

The song in question relates the story of Jovan (a gritty, taciturn Igor Bencina), a survivor in this broken world and on a quest to rescue his kidnapped sister. But he is instead constantly snared and waylaid by the warped feudalism and schemes that have soaked into the anarchy of what remains of a post apocalyptic society.

“Jovan…on a quest to rescue his kidnapped sister.”

The title Warriors of the Wasteland makes this sound like an exploitation movie. In fact, there is another film with the same title out this very year which is pure exploitation, presumably (it features chainsaws and psychos and bunny outfits?) And then there was the 1983 Enzo Castellari Mad Max rip-off with the same title. There’s also even a bad song by Frankie Goes to Hollywood. So, it’s not a bad title.

But this is not an exploitation film, unless it is somehow invisibly exploiting brainy people who crave brilliantly realized myth-making. This film originally came out in its native Serbia in 2024 under the far more sober title ‘Son’s Will’ (Voља sinovljeva) and is only now belatedly making its way to streaming with a new name.

Serbia has in its living memory a nightmarish war, and perhaps this sets this film apart from other fantasy works of a similar stripe. Yes, it handles the punk rock Mad Max-style gang wars with style and elan, pissing all over the CGI balloon animal bullshit Hollywood seems to think qualifies for thrills these days, but there is a far deeper seam of story within.