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      Mandragora

      1997 2h 9m Drama List
      Reviews 71% 500+ Ratings Audience Score Marek (Miroslav Caslavka), a failing high school student, leaves his abusive father and moves to Prague, where he falls into the clutches of Sascha (Karel Polisensky), a pimp who peddles young boys. Marek and David (David Svec), another of Sasha's sex workers, become friends and decide to begin their own prostitution business so they can make enough money to leave the city. Although they enjoy initial successes, surrounding dangers like AIDS and drugs could destroy their chance to escape. Read More Read Less

      Audience Reviews

      View All (27) audience reviews
      Nana G Sick film, super sad that this could be someone's life out there. 🙁 Rated 3 out of 5 stars 05/11/24 Full Review Audience Member I was strongly affected as this is someone's reality. Sickening, saddening and sour. Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars 02/10/23 Full Review Audience Member "Mandragora" refers to a plant and could refer to Marek (Mirek Caslavka) who leaves his home with this strict father to pursue a fun life in Prague. Within minutes, he's robbed, loses his winnings at a slot machine, and finds himself, unwillingly, in prostitution. Director Grodecki maintains a consistent judgmental tone throughout the movie about what a terrible life these underage male prostitutes face. A life that denigrades into drugs, violence and AIDS (death). I assume some viewers will have enough after a few minutes since you get the point early and there's no redemption to the story. Those who stay to watch like me, will get the lessons of lives lost, how ineffective the cops are, and despite the fact Prague is supposed to be a beautiful city, that's it's an immoral city since the violence is so persuasive. It's more of a documentary drama with actors who look like they live on the streets and are improvising the script. Although, the movie is well done and a respectable effort as shedding light on a social problem, it does so with a sledgehammer. Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars 01/20/23 Full Review Audience Member 2 hours and 15 minutes of horribly depressing cinema. when a character says "let's add some sex to this cruxifiction!"...welp, that's basically sums it up. Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars 02/15/23 Full Review Audience Member Harrowing, strong, emotional, this is a tragic story with no happy ending. It pained me to see it due to its harsh reality that it is based on but it should be seen so people know how hard these kids have got it and the people who take advantage of them. Sad Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars 02/03/23 Full Review Audience Member Very dark tale of a young male-prostitute. This is no Hollywood-movie, often very dark and sad... Rated 4 out of 5 stars 02/05/23 Full Review Read all reviews Post a rating

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      Mandragora

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      Movie Info

      Synopsis Marek (Miroslav Caslavka), a failing high school student, leaves his abusive father and moves to Prague, where he falls into the clutches of Sascha (Karel Polisensky), a pimp who peddles young boys. Marek and David (David Svec), another of Sasha's sex workers, become friends and decide to begin their own prostitution business so they can make enough money to leave the city. Although they enjoy initial successes, surrounding dangers like AIDS and drugs could destroy their chance to escape.
      Director
      Wiktor Grodecki
      Screenwriter
      Wiktor Grodecki, David Svec
      Genre
      Drama
      Original Language
      Czech
      Release Date (Streaming)
      Apr 17, 2020
      Runtime
      2h 9m
      Sound Mix
      Surround