Mandragora
Picture: C+
Sound: C+ Extras: D Film: B-
Wiktor Grodecki’s project as a director is to document the
exploitation of young boys across Europe and in Prague in particular. Besides his documentary look at this
underworld in Body Without Soul (1994), he gives us a dramatic look with
Mandragora (1997), which offers the tale of Marek (Mirek Caslavka). He is yet another bored small town boy who
runs away from home, then lands up being taken in by the wrong people,
especially here with a none-too-nice pimp.
Fellow victim David (David Svec) who has been around the
block eventually convinces him to run away, but trouble and the dark world for
unprotected underage boys is all over like a disease. Without a father figure to guide him, every pedophile, rapist and
sex business exploiter is out to get him and every other boy they can use and
get away with doing so. Marek is
sixteen and even if he were from the United States, that would not really have
prevented this from happening. If
anything, this goes on everywhere all the time, it is just more underground in
the U.S., no matter what you think otherwise.
Give or take the actual rent boys used, the actual actors
are not bad and their victimization is convincing enough. The film does not wallow in its subject
matter, which would have been very easy to do, but I wanted to know more about
the kids and how exactly they allowed themselves to land up in this awful
situation. Body Without Soul
(reviewed elsewhere on this site) does cover some of that. There is also enough ironic distance and
actual story (co-written by Grodecki and David Svec, who co-stars as his friend
and was 1st assistant film editor) here to make this work enough,
with the sad twist towards the end of the father searching for Marek after too
much damage has occurred. Paul
Schrader’s Hardcore (1978) this is not, but it sheds light in a place
that has remained dark too long.
The 1.78 X 1 letterboxed image is not bad, but would have
benefited from an anamorphic transfer.
Vladimir Holomek’s cinematography is effective in capturing the dark
side of Prague without overdoing it. It
looks like Prague at night is lending itself to such tales, though any town
that old is bound to hold many dark secrets.
Though this is a recent recording and Dolby Digital release (even with a
credit about its SR mix), the Dolby Digital 2.0 here is barely stereo and
offers no surround information whatsoever.
Except for a few other trailers, including one for this film that does
not do it justice, there are no extras.
It could be said that Grodecki is picking up where
Pasolini left off in his concern about young boys and their exploitation,
though he is being more critical of it.
I thought of Salo (1975) as I watched and considered that it does
not take a Fascist group to do such dehumanizing things to the next
generation. Despite its R-rated nature,
more young adults should see this film and really ask themselves some hard
questions about their worth. It is much
higher than the fate these characters suffer, who all should have had a better
chance. The mind and body is a terrible
thing to waste.
- Nicholas Sheffo
