Mandragora

This isn't one of those movies you can pop in your DVD player or VCR anytime of the day and enjoy it. This isn't a movie you rent with your girlfriend to make out too. It's not a movie you would recommend to your friends, and it's not a movie you get a bag of popcorn and sit down with your family and enjoy. This movie will disturb you. This movie will make your stomach feel awful, hours and possibly days after you watch it.

Marek is a troubled teenager who is having trouble at home and at school and he realizes he's much different than they are. His father finds out Marek has stopped going to school and tries to talk some sense into him. Talking turns into yelling and this pushes Marek further and further away and decides to runaway from home, which takes him into the dark underworld and streets of Prague. In Prague, Marek is drugged, raped and forced into a life of hustling for money, where AIDS is always a threat.

It twists and turns down dark roads without a light and by the time the movie ends, you feel a little sick to your stomach. It's a side of life we're not used to seeing, we know it's there, but either we don't care or we realize we can't do anything to help make matters worse. Wiktor Grodecki makes you care. He shoves it right in your face in plain view. You have no choice but to look. Wiktor Grodecki pulls at your heartstrings and breaks your heart over and over throughout the movie.

NOTE: According to the dictionary: Mandragora is 1) a plant of nightshade family: a plant with a forked root resembling a human body that was formerly believed to have magical powers and was made into a drug and 2) a 14th century alteration of medieval Latin mandragora, influenced by man, drake "dragon" (from its emetic and narcotic properties).

MANDRAGORA, the astonishing film from the Czech Republic written by Wiktor Grodecki (who also directs) and David Svec (who also acts in the film), is aptly named: mandragora is the world of male prostitution that seduces young lads with promises of money and ultimately poisons them with the burning disease of loss of self respect and ultimately of life.Marek (Miroslav Caslavka in a stunning performance) is a beautiful 15-year-old kid from a little village in the Czech Republic who has aligned himself with petty criminals to have better things such as classy clothing, a lad whose single father (Jirí Kodes) demands he stay in school (yet is always in the background to salvage Marek's errant life situations) and who seems to be prepping his son for a better life. Marek hates school, which he sees as merely a path to be a welder like his father. The father and son collide after another crime spree and Marek leaves home for the big city promises of Prague.

Once in Prague Marek is observed by the pimp Honza (Pavel Skripal) who follows Marek, knowing that Marek's future in the city is doomed without Honza's 'protection'. Within a day's time Marek's luck with the slot machines dries up and Honza convinces him to be his 'rabbit' - a male prostitute. Marek's first encounter with an American 'john' ends disastrously and the beaten Marek returns to the streets where he encounters a fellow hustler David (David Svec). Together they forge an alliance to escape Honza's compound and begin a life of successful prostitution. They are bonded (the probability of Marek's actually being gay and physically attracted to David is strong) and together they encounter all manner of unseemly characters involved in the underbelly of Prague's male prostitution life.

Characters weave in and out of Marek's and David's life, each time leaving scars that grow more visible as does the threat of drug problems and AIDS. They eventually consent to embrace the lowest level of making gay porn where the cruel director forces Marek to be sodomized by David. They are raided by the police and Honza reappears as Marek's nemesis. Through a series of drug-induced hallucinations and dreams Marek envisions what his future holds and his descent is stamped. Yet at this point Marek's father journeys to Prague in search of his son, discovers his life style, is terrified and angry and tangentially passes Marek in a critical final scene that is devastatingly sad.

This film is dark, frank, cruel, realistic, and sweats with the evil of the belly of the beast that is Prague's underworld. Yet the direction is so fine and, equally important, the acting by Miroslav Caslavka so sensitive that we as the audience are swept into an overwhelming compassion for these unfortunate lads whose seemingly only hope for a better life is one of humiliating degradation. MANDRAGORA is a no holds barred examination of a dark life that maintains a precarious balance between caricature and character development. Yes, it is lengthy at 126 minutes, in need of editing in areas, has faulty subtitles, and a strange musical score by Wolfgang Hammerschmid who extrapolates Puccini's 'Nessun dorma' and Bach's 'Erbarme dich' and 'Ruhe sanft' from the St Matthew Passion for heavy effects, and very dark cinematography by Vladimír Holomek, but despite these sidebar problems, they only slightly mar the overall impact of a very important film.

Grady Harp

In response to a previous reviewer's guess that certain characters like the porn director are caricatures: Those who have seen "Body Without Soul" (a powerful documentary by the same director which was clearly the basis for Mandragora's script and the blueprint for its characters) no doubt recognized many lines and scenes. The same can be said about a few characters, the director being one. (David being another - there's even physical resemblance between the actor and the real David.) They both exist in real life, the actor playing the porn director also looks like the original and most of his lines have been taken (word for word) from the documentary where the prototype is being interviewed in GREAT (often sickening) depth plus filmed in action, as he's interviewing a few newboys and prepping them for the next shoot. I'm afraid that unlike everything else he does and says in Mandraghora, the scene of his arrest is fiction, something Grodecki desperately wants to happen. The rest, however, is real.

Mandragora itself, although erratic until a certain point (there are also a few lines that sound forced, it's as though the writer was trying too hard to condense "the point" and jam it down our throats), eventually becomes coldly honest in the realistic depiction of its characters' degradation and despair. It's also unique in that it doesn't try to explain anything. We never understand the father's insensitive behavior to Marek; we don't get a "valid" reason why the boy runs away from home. Nothing is rationalized like it no doubt would have been if this were mainstream cinema (for example: "The father is a drunk and Marek left home because he was being beaten or sexually molested").

The point to this approach is quite clear - that in real life, most things can't be explained and others just happen. That there doesn't necessarily need to be a specific, profound reason for a child to run, get lost and spiral down into Hell. Mandragora doesn't look for such excuses because they're not relevant. What is is that most of the time kids run away for no good reason which doesn't make the consequences any different. For life to slip through a child's fingers really could be this accidental and this easy which is exactly where the tragedy is.

Despite its flaws, I highly recommend this movie. However, you'll get the most accurate idea of the subject matter and Grodecki's perspective if you watch it along with the much better "Body Without Soul".

When I first heard of this film, I was *slightly apprehensive* to say the least. Opinions seemed to be split, some loved it, some hated it, but I had it on good recommendations, so I bought it on the off chance.

Normally when films are dubbed 'disturbing' it puts me off - they rarely are, this just seems to be a catch all for not very good films. But I sat and watched this, and I am totally in love. The acting is very good, they portray the emotions you would expect from someone in that situation beautifully. I never usually cry at films, but the raw desperation in their eyes made me sob several times.

There is one reason that this film didn't get full marks from me, and it's a totally foolish Angil reason. There isn't enough of David Svec. I immediately fell in love with him, and remained so throughout the film. But too much of his screen time involves him beaten and bloody, although thinking now I guess that's just what his character's destined for. And he does wear it very well. So yeah, maybe it should have full marks... WATCH THIS FILM> <3 <3

This movie seemed really harsh to me. I guess one of the reasons for that is that the main character Marek looks alike a person I used to know – someone I have lost actually – I won't get into many details. There were quite a few moments of this movie which were astonishing with their way of showing the reality out there. Reality which exists, but many are not ready to accept this fact.

To me Marek is a normal teen-aged boy, who needs his own space – he is tired to hear from people who think that they know what is best for him. Unfortunately he should have listened to his dad – a person, who surely loves him, trough somehow the link between them was lost. There is emptiness in the heart of the boy – caused by the missing of his mother – I did not get if she died before or just left them, but somehow the fact she was not there was affecting Marek in a way which make me to think that he was more close to her than to his father.

I can not blame him for running away , I myself have considered this opportunity several times and even seeing movies like that , seeing that it could be hard to survive couldn't quite affect my troughs that someday I may do it. The differences between me and Marek – he is more brave than me – he took his decision and acted on it. It is another question if his decision was silly or not … The first sexual scene is very disturbing – I felt sorry for the boy. I was watching the screen thinking "Now you have to go back ", but at the same time realizing that for him this was not an option. The scene at the bar – when he announced for a very first time his new profession is where you see the way he deals with it. I could hardly forget the way he spoke, as he approached the American tourist, the way he looked him – it seemed oddly professional – I don't really know what term to use to describe it.

At the same time we see the other types of characters – the pimps, the boys, the clients – they are portrayed in greater details. Somehow even their face expression talked about their personality or at least it did to me.

I passed trough a very similar place to this bar in which Marek was approached by the pimp for a first time. And you know as I looked into it – it seemed unbelievable how many were the similarities to what was shown in the movie. The only difference – the prostitutes were girls – but nothing more. When school as over I have to pass that places again (and 8 pm doesn't seem like the right time to do it – but I have no choice) – after seeing the movie it freaks me out a bit.

But on to the movie – it is a masterpiece of Wiktor Grodecki, there is no doubt in this. I highly recommend that you watch it at least ones. And may be someday you will be able to make the difference for a boy like the ones shown in this movie – to take him out of his own hell he is living it. Even trough it is hard – as the boys seemed doomed to their destiny.