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.

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

Following the short life of runaway-turned-rent-boy Marek and his new found friend David, Mandragora achieves what many other movies skirt corners in their attempts to achieve. An honest, no-holds-barred look at exactly what can happen when one bad decision leads to another...and another. This movie is brutal. No horrific scene cut short (including images of rape, suicide, sadism, self mutilation, etc.). Both in their early teens, these two boys go from bright-eyed innocents to drug addicted, aids infected felons in a matter of weeks...and by the end of this movie, you'll feel quite the same. I had a hard time getting through this movie in one sitting and by the end I felt as though I'd really achieved something. But, regardless of how bad I've made it sound, this movie truly affected me. It made me want to run to the streets, locate the closest underage prostitute, throw my arms around him/her and tell them, "I understand what you've been through."

Wiktor Grodecki's masterful film entitled "Mandragora" is by any standard, a stirring and gut wrenching example of poverty gone amok. The torrid film depicts the story of Marek, superbly played by Miroslav Caslavka, a troubled boy of fifteen who, bored with the juvenile pranks and idle antics in an average town, seeks the glitz and glitter of the city of Prague. Once there, he quickly realizes the needs of life in the big city come with a price, one which he cannot afford and thus succumbs to the hungry appetite of the predatory elements surrounding him. Beginning with the alluring promise of quick cash for services rendered, Marek, quickly realizes this means his 'innocence' which is taken after being drugged and raped. Escaping the inattentive and uncaring pimp, he descends into the depths of sexual perversions when he encounters and befriends a more 'experienced' partner who trades him to a dark, sadistic pair, leaving him broken and violated. The decent into the perverted practices continues when, after a brief respite, he finds himself beaten, left for dead and in the hands of a vicious pornographer. With his father searching for him, the boy having survived an appalling apprenticeship, delves into the illusionary and dead end world of drugs where father and son unfortunately miss each other by inches. All in all, a truly revealing film for anyone wishing to have a worm's eye view in the slow death of male prostitutes. *****

Mandragora is a very rough, uncompromising film dealing with runaway teen boys from Prauge that end up selling their bodies to immoral, creepy old men that frequently abuse them. This is presented in a brutally honest and realistic fashion. Mandragora is taken from the point of view of our main character Marek. Marek is a lost wayward boy that runs away from home that was very vulnerable and easy prey for the various unsavory characters that hang out at the train station. He ends up working the streets and is exploited and poorly treated from the very beginning. Marek ends up befreinding the slighty more street smart David and together get in a lot of trouble. Things progress from bad to worst as the film goes on. Marek is a sympathetic character and the consciousness of the film. While he may be incredibly naive, he truly is not an inherently bad person. While his decisions are horrendous at best, he is victimized and brutalized by the human compost that occupies the nefarious underworld of Prauge. Marek is on a downward spiral path of self destruction and this film pulls no punches in its presentation. Mandragora is an extremely depressing film, but is very well done in capturing what these lost souls must endure. This may be the bleakest, most depressing film I have ever seen. While this absolutely is a strong film, it is not one I wish to rewatch and I am no lightweight. This may be the most bleak and hopeless film I have ever watched. I found this to be more disturbing than even Life Is Hot In Cracktown and A Serbian Film. This is truly rough stuff, definitely not for the squeamish.