Grodecki's recent fascination with the Prague teen rent boy scene translates better as fantasy fiction than documentary. First of all, it protects Grodecki from accusations of gross exploitation of his subjects and secondly it allows for greater transparency of the film maker's obsessions and the way he uses his craft. His themes come through - innocents, childhood, corruption. Morality and excess. Crime and punishment. His perspective is naive - everything is black and white, dark and light, the good and the bad; the fairy tale aesthetic which has a history both in Czech sensibility and Czech cinema. It's an odd combination of children's television meets xxx hard core gay porn. (Grodecki is Polish, so he could stand accused of Romantizing Czechs with a cliché image.) He gets closer to the boys' story through fiction, a story he betrayed in Body Without Soul. The monstrous film pornographer is interestingly no less a caricature as a fictional person as he was as himself (see Body Without Soul) Some of the surface of the present day Czech republic (2005) is etched away so we see what ordinary life is really like and this is actually more interesting than the whole street hustler drama which we've all seen a thousand times. The portrayal of gay people as demonic corrupting monsters or as victims is depressingly prevalent. An outrage, considering recent developments. Admittedly, a lot broods in Czech society, and a lot is wrong. But there is a healthy and vibrant gay culture in the Czech republic. There is also a healthy, celebrated and established gay porn industry which is not dangerous, illegal or questionable. Recently Prague gay porn stars passed through London book stores on a world tour ! This is a good thing when you take into account the regressive gender attitudes prevailing in Poland, Belarus & the Ukraine. We see none of this perspective. Again, so much missing.....
Review of Mandragora
