Telo bez duse

Wiktor Grodecki's " Body Without Soul " invites the courageous to the prequel of his sensationally dark film, Mandragora. This graphic film depicts the appalling process by which young prepubescence and teen age boys in Prague are so skillfully lured into the eviscerated life of a male prostitute. Candid interviews with both predators and victims alike allow the visitor to observe how deftly and skillfully an unsympathetic pimp/promoter/and oftentimes executioner, can entice, convince and then blackmail his victims into becoming porn stars. Systemic of a life of poverty, the boys recall how easily they and their peers became street hustlers. Converging at a well-known swimming pool in the city, unsuspecting victims are attracted by the promise of money, and too often find themselves defending the tragic lifestyle of the walking dead. This film is not for the faint-hearted, but rather for those wishing to obtain the remnants of humanity on the verge of self-destruction.

Aside from the jaw dropping sensationalism of this film making, which left me speechless at several points......Once i came back to earth i feel it has to be said that this is "auteur" film masquerading as documentary. As documentary film, it remains irresponsible. The film maker went on to make three films about this subject, and it's more about the film makers own obsessions than anything else. Was it a film about a period in a drug crazed pornographer's monstrous life and how he moved from beyond horror and into the absurdly grotesque.(dark, dark,black comedy) ?? As documentary, i thought this was it's most successful subject. To say it is a film about under age male prostitution in Praha is incorrect. Only part of that reality is ever revealed, so much of what ought to have been explored simply remains absent.To have done all these boys honour & justice, he would have had to expand the true context of their lives and humanised them as much as possible. In the very least abandon a sensationalist and mythologising approach in favour of level headed factual survey. He did not. To say it is a film about pornography in Praha is also incorrect. Again only a small part of that reality is seen, and most left out. No other geographical or social context was explored, no interviews with police or other pornographers. No context of what life is like now in the city of Praha, concerning these matters. To this extent you can charge the director with exploitation of these boys as much as anybody else. This film is a pornographic documentary about sex, drugs and death which happens to be set in Praha . The audience manipulation is phenomenal. I really had to re-check in myself a number of realities after it had finished. Be critical and don't just take this highly disturbing film at face value.

Keeping in mind that this was made in 1996 or so...the documentary is difficult to watch. I actually was able to only get through about 15 or 20 minutes before I stopped it.

The filmmaker seem to have a very open connection with the young men that were interviewed for this documentary - however - what make it difficult was not the candidness of the lifestyle and exploitation of these children. But it is almost a documentary skewed toward titillation for a certain audience, almost like it would have been shown in a back alley theater or something. Not sure why the movie interviewed the young men in provocative.....stances or positions.... rather than something more straight forward like an informative documentary. That really makes someone question what was truly behind the documentary.

Wiktor Grodecki is a brave filmmaker, one who is unafraid to address a controversial subject, yet one who is able to make a powerful sociological statement by creating a metaphorical art film that demands respect.

Grodecki interviews young boys (ages 14 - 17) who are male hustlers in Prague: he wisely removes (for the most part) the interviewer questions allowing the individual boys to make spontaneous, searing comments. These young lads discuss why they became male prostitutes, how they deal with selling their bodies, where they find their business (the train station, the swimming pools, etc), how they feel about the johns and about their fellow hustlers, the manner in which they do business including the way in which the financial aspects come to play - all in a way that burns the faces of these young lads into our psyches.

About half way through this film Grodecki introduces Pavel Rousek, a man who by day is a pathologist performing autopsies in the Prague morgue and in his off hours (using the pseudonym Hans Miller) creates, casts and directs gay porno videos in his home. Rousek is shown at the autopsy table gowning, gloving, and grotesquely performing an autopsy on a real cadaver while discussing both professions. There are moments while he is gloving that he explains why he doesn't allow his boys to wear condoms (the buyers of his videos don't want to see condoms), and the contrast between his self protection vs the enforcement of prevention of sexual protection of his actors is devastating.

Rousek as Miller is then shown filming the boys in his home, explaining the details of achieving the visual effects of pornography: simultaneously we again hear the boys views of that aspect of their 'careers', creating a pitiful tension. There is almost no total nudity in this film and when it does occur the lighting is so dark as to obscure it - making the overall effect even more dense and effectively tense. Under all of this lurid talk Grodecki uses classical music - Albinoni, Mahler, Mozart - which again provides a contradiction that makes the topic digestible.

The final question Grodecki poses to his subjects involves the boys perception of 'soul' and while there is a variety of responses, the overall message is that these lads sell their bodies as a career, but the soul is 'what you think', something that cannot be taken from you. Several of these boys have screen presence and faces that, were they noticed by regular film makers, would probably give them legitimate careers. But the power of the film comes from the words of these boys, knowing completely their choice of life, and therein lies the sorrow.

This is a tough but very fine piece of film-making. Interestingly, Grodecki absorbed this material and used it to create his subsequent feature film MANDRAGORA (reviewed under that title). This film is the more powerful of the two. Not a movie for everyone, but certainly an important document about a way of life few know and fewer understand. Grady Harp

Some are ugly, some are attractive; some use drugs, some do not; some are stupid, some are average, some are smart. And all of them are teenage male prostitutes working the streets of Prague. Their clients consist largely of German, Swiss, and Dutch tourists in search of cheap sex--and for additional income they make pornos on the side. And along the way they are ripped off, abused, and degraded until they simply wear out.

Wiktor Grodecki's documentary BODY WITHOUT SOUL is a dark and disturbing look at life on the streets of Prague. The film consists of interviews with a dozen or so teenagers describing how they first began on the streets, how they drifted into prostitution and pornography. Some of the subjects seemed drugged; others are surprisingly articulate. The centerpiece of the film, however, is an extended interview with a pornographic film director who at first attempts to gloss over the unsavory aspects of his work--and who ends by unintentionally revealing just how vicious he actually is. The pornographer is also a pathologist, and the camera follows him into the autopsy room and films him at work. Grodecki then intercuts these scenes with scenes of him directing his latest film, thus making the point that these boys are no more to those who use them than so much meat.

Although it is exceptionally well done, I would hesitate to recommend BODY WITHOUT SOUL to a casual viewer. It is a moving film, a powerful testament re the old, old story of man's inhumanity to man... But many will find the autopsy scenes repulsive beyond their toleration, and I cannot imagine that many will watch the film more than once. Recommended, but as a rental rather than a purchase.

Gary F. Taylor, aka GFT, Amazon Reviewer