It is very sad and depressing, and I found it to be too over-the-top for me to be too personally emotionally invested. The director/producers were just high-lighting the exploitation and sensationalistic scenes without going deeper into Marek's psyche. They story got lost and so did the audience. Is Marek gay? If not, how does he feel about sex with guys (even if its just for money). It is pretty clear he falls in love with David, but was it just out of desperation, would they have had sex with each other if they had not been paid? I liked they way the Father character was used to highlight the horrors of male prostitution when he went looking for Marek at the end, but I thought he was "too" verbally abusive and threatening physically at the beginning, to then be used in a sympathetic role later. He should have been portrayed as stern, but fair, to Marek in the beginning. Instead, he was just a huge jerk. He was like two totally different fathers and I did not buy it.
I also thought there were two many weirdo clients. That type of life is tough enough with "normal" gay men as clients doing "normal" non-violent sexual activities, but to be drugged and raped on his first night out and then have to cater to this bunch of over-the-top S&M, rapists, sadists, fetishists, etc... was too much for me to believe.
I would have liked them to explore the police side of things more. Were they getting paid off? Did they care or not care? If they did not care, why? Why was Marek released from custody after being beaten and arrested toward the end of the movie (still a minor) after his father had filed a missing person report and he was still wanted on so many other crimes? I understand he was a victim and cooperated with the police in shutting down the porno guy, but they still would not have just released him back to the streets, would they? Never explained. He had no money or power or influence, so he was not buying anyone off. They did not keep the big hairy guy behind bars or the men from picking up the boys or the boys from picking up the men. Why? It looked like the big hairy guy was making his money from the boys, so without the boys, how did he have any money?
I also thought the scene were David and Marek went back to David's family home was poorly done. I think they were trying to get across that David (at least) was really straight, and wanted to be loved by his girlfriend and respected by his father, but the scenes were badly written and left the viewer wondering what was going on. I am guessing that David was too ashamed to even look at his father and that is why he left without knocking, but that is never said or explained. Did his Father know what he was doing? How? The village men's views of the boys added to the boys' already destroyed sense of self-esteem, why pile on one more beating (emotional and physical)?
I liked Marek's horrified reaction to having to steal the bag from the old lady contrasted with David's who just did not care anymore.
I thought the actor playing Marek did a fantastic job. I believed all of his emotions, and dialogue, just not all of his circumstances. The film makers were trying too hard to go for so much sensationalistic violence, sex and abuse, that they left out what could have been a more compelling story. I think that is why is the movie is not getting more blog. I felt numb at the end, not outrage, or anger, or sadness, just nothingness. Your word “depressed” says it well.
It was too long. It needed less sensationalistic violence, a more compelling focus on Marek's story (love for David or lack thereof) and much better editing. I would have much preferred that Marek's father have found him in that stall, either before or after it was too late, but at least bring some closure to that sequence. It was also lacking one other character that was needed, a cop, a showgirl/transvestite, a priest, a neighbor, any caring adult who (maybe) had also been a street kid once, (who the viewers, who want to rescue these boys, could relate to) while not able to stop the chaos, at least was someone the boys could count on not to hurt them and where they could go for temporary refuge or hope for a possible way out if that was their choice. In any story, the reader/viewer tries to relate to the characters he or she is reading about. If that does not happen, it is a badly written story. We sympathized with Marek and where he was coming from (but we don’t relate to him – most of us not having come from unloving families, broken into stores, robbed old ladies, prostituted ourselves, done serious drugs, mutilated ourselves, or had sex with strangers who we did not find attractive and who we did not trust) we related to the father at the end looking for his son in this hell hole, but not the one at the beginning who threatened to kill him, and otherwise, there was nobody. The movie ended on a note of complete hopelessness and the re-start of the cycle with a new 15 year-old boy arriving naively off the train. Realistic, yes, but hopeless. Numb/depressed is not a good emotional state in which to leave your audience if you want a successful story or movie. We were not compelled with strong emotions into action, we were just left numb and depressed. This, unfortunately, is a good movie with a badly written story.
reply
share
Bobstreet123
18 years ago
To jchristie1...
Whereas I broadly agree with some of your comments, I think anyone approaching this movie needs to understand the Director's sense of mission in making it. The DVD package's sleeve notes (in the version I have) makes reference to this in that: "Mandragora is Wiktor Grodecki's compelling dramatisation of his documentaries 'Not Angels But Angels' and 'Body Without Soul'". Having seen both of these on British TV prior to watching Mandragora (in fact, it was BECAUSE I'd seen them that I watched and bought Mandragora), I feel that Mandragora is his attempt at bringing the very difficult subject matter to a wider audience than would normally be expected to see his documentaries, ie through the more dramatic medium. As a Czech citizen and film-maker, Grodecki is both dismayed and appalled at the trafficking of vulnerable youngsters into the sex trade, not only in Prague itself but throughout Eastern Europe. It is his personal crusade to try to bring this reality to as wide an audience as possible.
In doing so, Grodecki does not want to offer any "easy-fix" solutions such as a repentant parent arriving in the nick of time to rescue their runaway child. For so many of the real-life victims his story is based on, there are no such fairy-tale endings. And he should know: during the making of his earlier documentaries, he met and interviewed so many of them. And more than one just disappeared apparently without trace during the filming. This is not speculation, as I said I have seen both those documentaries.
Nor does he want to show any of the punters who pay for the boy's "services" in anything other than an unfavorable light. "Normal" gay men doing "normal" non-violent sexual activities (as you put it) would have tended to validate the teenage sex trade to some extent, or at least to have suggested that it is not all doom and gloom, that some "clients" are OK or worth putting up with just for the money. These kids are taking incredible risks with their own health, their physical safety and their psychological well-being every time they step behind a closing door with a complete stranger. Grodecki wants us to see the humiliation, the degradation and the violence these boys experience and expose themselves to in all its raw detail. Not for gratification, but in order to make us feel the same sense of disgust and moral outrage at what is really happening to these young boys as he himself feels. For only by opening our eyes to the truth and invoking these emotions is there any chance at all of making a difference, of making a start at making it stop.
I believe that, in writing Mandragora (he is also credited as script writer), Grodecki was intending to make a film which was more a "drama documentary" than a straighforward fictional drama. As such, each of the principal characters (Marek & David) are composites of those tragic kids he met whilst making his documentaries, rather than clear-cut, well-defined individuals. Thus, their own particular story-lines, the episodes and experiences we see them moving through are also composites of the various stories he has heard from the true-life teenage street boys he has met, rather than "one boy's story". Similarly, the more peripheral characters such as the pimps, the pornographers, and the punters are also composites of the real-life, low-life scum who in their various ways prey on these young boys. As regards Marek's father, isn't he a stereotypical dad trying to bring up a disaffected teenage son on his own? At one point angry or frustrated, the next regretting having been so harsh? And as for the police, with the exception of the raid on the pornographer's house, they seem to be portrayed as being or feeling powerless. And can we be surprised? With every pimp or prostitute they take off the streets another one appears, or they are simply released some time later to take up where they left off.
This is a movie which I don't think should be seen or approached as "entertainment". Rather it throws a small light into a very dark corner of Eastern European urban life, and doesn't want to leave us feeling happy about it. Whether any of us can actually do anything constructive about it - or whether we believe can - is another matter. Maybe it should be compulsive viewing for every member of the European Parliament.
Can you think of it...? Just imagine...
reply
share
THESTARCHILD_90
18 years ago
This movie is amazing and important. Brutally realistic. Exceptionally well-acted, written and directed.
reply
share
JhonenV
18 years ago
Well said, Bobstreet.
reply
share
iofbeholder
18 years ago
Personally, I'm very pleased that this form of slavery is being recognized by the public, and hopefully action will now be persuaded in stopping this vile means of livelihood. As for the movie's realism and showing of Marek's first struggle with moral difficulty in the beginning, I was rather aghast. I truly feel sorrow for those wrought in sexual slavery and have no where else to go and no education to use in futhering themselves in any other way. I am so glad this is being brought to peoples attention, because as an American, people in America are always gleaming at our country's past slavery actions, that most are ignornant that such slavery and slavery of a sexual nature is still being done in this country and throughout the world. In fact, there is more known counts of slavery in the world today that it overlaps and overlaps the slavery issue that was faced in America in the 19th Century and before. This was an extremely well done flick, and recommend it and will recommend it many times more.
An Angel Doesn't Make Love, An Angel IS Love!
"OH, CAPTAIN, MY CAPTAIN!"-keating
reply
share
fl1
13 years ago
I am guessing that David was too ashamed to even look at his father and that is why he left without knocking, but that is never said or explained.
Actually, David says that to Marek at some point (when they're drunk on the bridge, if I remember correctly).
reply
share