Jiji-3
In response to a previous reviewer's guess that certain characters like the porn director are caricatures: Those who have seen "Body Without Soul" (a powerful documentary by the same director which was clearly the basis for Mandragora's script and the blueprint for its characters) no doubt recognized many lines and scenes. The same can be said about a few characters, the director being one. (David being another - there's even physical resemblance between the actor and the real David.) They both exist in real life, the actor playing the porn director also looks like the original and most of his lines have been taken (word for word) from the documentary where the prototype is being interviewed in GREAT (often sickening) depth plus filmed in action, as he's interviewing a few newboys and prepping them for the next shoot. I'm afraid that unlike everything else he does and says in Mandraghora, the scene of his arrest is fiction, something Grodecki desperately wants to happen. The rest, however, is real.Mandragora itself, although erratic until a certain point (there are also a few lines that sound forced, it's as though the writer was trying too hard to condense "the point" and jam it down our throats), eventually becomes coldly honest in the realistic depiction of its characters' degradation and despair. It's also unique in that it doesn't try to explain anything. We never understand the father's insensitive behavior to Marek; we don't get a "valid" reason why the boy runs away from home. Nothing is rationalized like it no doubt would have been if this were mainstream cinema (for example: "The father is a drunk and Marek left home because he was being beaten or sexually molested").The point to this approach is quite clear - that in real life, most things can't be explained and others just happen. That there doesn't necessarily need to be a specific, profound reason for a child to run, get lost and spiral down into Hell. Mandragora doesn't look for such excuses because they're not relevant. What is is that most of the time kids run away for no good reason which doesn't make the consequences any different. For life to slip through a child's fingers really could be this accidental and this easy which is exactly where the tragedy is.Despite its flaws, I highly recommend this movie. However, you'll get the most accurate idea of the subject matter and Grodecki's perspective if you watch it along with the much better "Body Without Soul".
charvana
Warning: could be spoiler (?).This was quite possibly one of the most depressing movies I have ever seen. Although I wasn't expecting "Pretty Woman"-like pablum, I certainly wasn't expecting to have the scenes from, and emotions wreaked by, this film haunt me for days afterward. Everything from the scene with the teen girl prostitutes ("everyone has it") to the statue scene, to the movie scene, to the final shots in the train station platform & bathroom, as well as the loneliness, desperation, fear, resoluteness, madness, cocksuredness, apathy, greed, predation, depravity, futility/ inescapability and helplessness...
This movie reminded me of Dawn: Portrait of a teenage runaway and Alexander: the other side of Dawn, and the companion movie, Sarah T.: portrait of a teenage alcoholic (Yay, the movies I remember from childhood...), but was much more graphic and brutal. Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on your take on it), none of the characters seems to learn anything from his (or her) experiences, and thus none are redeemed/ redeemable in any way.There wasn't a single completely sympathetic character in the whole film, although some of the main characters (David, Marek, the father) were fairly multi-dimensional: neither all good nor all bad. The father comes close to being a sympathetic character, but even his character is flawed; I particularly note his insensitivity to his son's pain, and his refusal to deal with the child's emotions regarding the absent (dead? run away?). Sure, his two bathroom scenes are touching, but one can only think of the kitchen scene (in his home), and how he dealt with his son in the flesh rather than as an abstract idea or through a surrogate-Marek.Marek and David are tragic products of their society, young men of little skill in a depressed economy, trading on their one marketable talent-- their smooth-skinned baby faces (and other body parts), yet they are likewise unsympathetic. Marek is a runaway, but from what, exactly? Sure, his father is cold and insensitive, but the home life doesn't come across as completely untenable. His feeling about his dad seems more like typical adolescent reaction to parental insensitivity, but certainly not something to resort to such desperate measures over. David's character is probably the most interesting; while he is self-seeking, he seems to be a friend to Marek in the best way he knows how (but still keeps his own needs forefront: if they conflict with Marek's best interest, "oh well"). David is the evolution of Marek, as Marek is the inevitable evolution of the final boy on the train platform.Some of the characters are caricatures, such as Krysa (and his family & home), Honza, the bar patrons in David's hometown, and the johns. They are overblown, noting particularly Krysa's arrest scene. This does not detract from the film, however, as the characters are more like amalgamations of characters than truly single persons.I felt incredibly drained after this film, part of this was not because of the characters portrayed in the film, but rather for the millions of unseen kids worldwide whose story this could be. From the runaways in the Haight and NYC and Seattle (and everywhere else) to the children (boys and girls) whose bodies are sold in the sex tour industry, from the people who sell their bodies to try to support their families in post-colonial, post-industrial, capitalist third world nations to those who sell their children to support their other children, this is their story in one way or another.The tragedy of this story is that it is true. Maybe not all of it for everyone, but it is true.
redpony5
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."
