Mandragora

The director of this film (Wiktor Grodecki) also did the documentary exposé "Body Without Soul" just one year earlier in 1996. Before you read further (or order this film), I suggest you go and rent/buy that DVD first. "Mandragora" attempts to dramatize 97% of the content in "Body..."The story is simple (and almost cliché for cinema, but not for real life). Teenage boy (Marek) is fed up with school and his single father; who, incidently, obviously only wants his boy to have a better life than he. Marek becomes a local punk/hoodlum and, in fact, the movie begins with his breaking into a store display window. Still, the father even takes extra measures to deal with authority figures after his son's mischieviousness.Regardless, Marek runs away on a train to Prague and, upon leaving the train, is targeted for induction into the seedy underworld of prostitution in Prague. He's drugged, molested, paid...and in with the game. He soon befriends David, who has high business hopes, but little experience to see them to fruition. David helps free him of the pimp that found him at the train station. Oh...and it should be mentioned that the drama includes no actual prostitution or [simulated] sex. In fact, they soon have 30,000 czech crowns[],and you literally have to assume they got it through prostitution.All along, we see their adventures through Marek's eyes. The bars, the prostitution, understanding the pimps and the johns...all of these things are matters of course. They move from being initial 'rabbits' (newcomers/fresh) to professionals, to entrepreneurs and ultimately into pornography.The movie is often slow. It actually takes 35 minutes for Marek to realize that he's becoming a prostitute...the actual point of the movie. On top of that, the images are generally dark and the translations are poorly done. In many cases, you often wonder what the heck they meant by certain statemtents. Also, the continuity is horrible. You never really know when and/or where they are in the story. Then, suddenly they are sick with AIDS...after what seems like days or a few short weeks. (While AIDS takes months to physically effect the body)Most unfortunate is that this movie is almost Plageuristic (?) of Wictor Grodecki's own earlier work "Body Without Soul." He simply added actors acting out some of the scenes from the documentary...The only truly GOOD part of the movie was played by the father. He showed true emotion, longing, etc. that indicated that 'this is a man who is desperately seeking his son.' He learns what his son has become and goes after the boy. And, one of the few really great scenes in the movie involves him (toward the very end).I suggest you RENT this one and buy "Body Without Soul." It's more honest and true...and you'll appreciate the story and the concept more.

This film is a very well developed picture of some of the depravity involved when runaway boys become male prostitutes in order to survive on the streets. They are subject to extremely violent criminal adult pimps that inflict violence upon them, pair them with dangerous sadistic customers, take their money, give them only enough money to barely survive, and generally terrorize them into submission and compliance. Drugs play a role as underground currency as well as an emotional escape. Because these kids are trying to survive, they are thieves and take advantage of their tricks if at all possible.The film depicts this hell on earth world in a frightening constant flow of crisis after crisis for 15 year old Marek. He pairs up with an older male prostitute, David, who is his mentor in crime, drugs, and sex. He also emotionally attaches to David but David has little to give and is a runaway addict himself. The violence depicted against children was horrific, possibly the worst thing i have ever seen on film.The scenes where the boys are making porno films was incredible chaos. The film-maker is violent and threatening to the rent boys as he demands they become erect. This is a most telling scene about the relationship between sexual orientation, sexual behavior, and the need for some form of human intimacy to remain sane.The film is not about gay entertainment and escapism, it is anything but a gay fantasy. It is however a horrific picture of man's cruelty and explotation to those who are more vulnerable.

In case you have not seen "Body Without Soul" it is a documentary about the world of young male prostitutes in Prague which Wiktor Grodecki made the year before he made this drama.This drama follows 15-year-old Marek, beginning when he steals a jacket from a store front and catches a train to Prague. Later a scene is shown which gives a hint at the family life he was running away from, which did not seem that bad. In Prague Marek is quickly picked up by a local pimp who drugs him and allows a customer to break him in. From there Marek's life is a downward spiral of sex, drugs and violence.My main problem with this film is that it takes a lifestyle that is bad and seems to set out to make it seem even worse. I saw the documentary with the real male prostitutes in Prague. Their life is bad, but they are performing sex acts for their customers, getting paid, and going on with their lives. In this film I don't think Marek ever performed a sex act he had agreed to, collected his money and left. He was tricked, drugged, raped, doubled crossed, abused, tortured, and disfigured. The truth for these young men is bad enough, they did not need to go overboard with it. This film also has more nudity than the documentary, and is more graphic with its sex.

Quatrefoil, a non-profit LGBTQ library in Minneapolis, sells overstock items on Amazon. Most of the used DVDs I purchased from Quatrefoil are very rare. When they are available online, the cost is much more than the library's asking price. My shipment arrived 2 days after I ordered, with a nice thank you note. Quatrefoil: Your first stop for rare, out of print LGBTQ books and movies! Visit them when in Minneapolis....and don't forget the donation box. Well done Quatrefoil!

Tragic tale of young Czech lad running away from home, ending up as a male prostitute

One of the best films ever. Heart breaking.

This is the motion picture version of the same director's earlier documentary `Body Without Soul', already reviewed by me on Amazon. (A `mandragora' in English appears to refer to the root vegetable `mandrake', which has - through its shape - both erotic and occult connotations. I wonder, though, whether in Czech the word might mean something along the lines of `mother-city', since towards the film's opening we see our young tragic hero Marek arriving at the Czech capital's railway station with the camera focussing prominently on a baroque plaque that declares Prague to be `mater urbium'.)The film tells the story of fifteen-year-old Marek walking out of home and coming to Prague, where, as `fresh rabbit', he soon becomes embroiled in the seedy underworld of the city male prostitutes. He is soon taken under the wing of sixteen-year-old David. They start to make good money, but when Marek proposes investing it in a restaurant for their future, David invests their takings instead in buying out a pimp's coterie of young boys. Different pimps in the city dress their boys in different colours, a bit like different soccer teams.Things do not go as planned for David and Marek and at one point they leave Prague and head home to their roots, but here too there are no easy answers amongst the grey drabness of the provinces. They blow their earnings and head back to the bright lights of Prague, David proclaiming, "There is no love without money." Older now, but no wiser, they are soon lured into the murky world of porn and drugs, as we see played out on the screen the acts portrayed in the director's previous documentary.This is not a judgmental film. It shows the boys enjoying themselves with the money they have earned, but ultimately it demonstrates the ultimate emptiness of their lives, leading to theft, violence, alcoholism, drugs, and disease. The movie ends with yet another new and naive `fresh rabbit' from the provinces arriving at Prague's railway station.This is a professional production in every way with many convincing performances from the young actors, especially from Miroslav Caslavka playing the lead role. I note that the actor who plays Marek's `partner', David Svec, also co-wrote the script with the director, Wiktor Grodecki.Alas, there are no extras worthy of the name.

excellent

edizione pessima di un film non interessante altamente sconsigliato.formato assurdo,immagini e riversamento da bootleg,arrivato dopo un'infinità di tempo,io sconsiglio in primis questa edizione,ma anche il film stesso si resta amareggiati da una realtà tristissima,resa ancora peggiore da una cifra stilistica pressochè nulla.