In the mournful tunes of sustained notes, Wiktor Grodecki’s Mandragora begins with a long tracking shot of an average town before dawn. Under the violet-blue sky and a smattering of streetlights, a handful of run-down houses are barely distinguishable amidst the uneven twigs. A supposedly ordinary setting becomes an estranged view, a long-buried reality contrary to everything positive. Unsettling is not just the landscape, but the characters. Three boys run across an open field, their figures barely discernible from the darkness in the extreme long shot. And the camera does not track their path: as if an omniscient God well acquainted with human sinfulness, it knows its destination, passing the field and the crumbling stone houses, and resting at a shop window, ironically the brightest spot in the town. Through the window, twinkling lights and shimmering ornaments adorn Western clothing and shoes on display, with an image of the Manhattan skyline in the background, reminiscent of the holiday window displays on Fifth Avenue, an American dream that hardly fits into the town. Yet this grandeur is transient: a black shadow appears at the center of the frame, smashing the glass. The other boys quickly join, seizing whatever attracts them.
Manhattan Skyline Colors. Flickr, by Manu H (2008).
One of the boys is the 15-year-old protagonist, Marek, who with a one-way ticket to Prague, runs away from the small town, from the technical school, from his neglectful single father. Passing the barren grasslands, the train approaches the city. Marek, a tag still attached to the jacket he just steals, stares at the leaden sky. A close-up shot shows his attentive gaze at the foreign view—the organized buildings, the steel structures, the Vltava River—his lips slightly parted, reflecting the just realized freedom. Yet the next second, he frowns a bit, unprepared for the upcoming journey. An innocent boy versus a sinful world. His pursuit of freedom is destined to fail. On the first night, he loses all his money at the casinos and goes home with a pimp where he gets drugged and raped. From then on, only tragedy besets him. He becomes a male prostitute, abused by pimps, clients, and other prostitutes.
Perhaps what is miserable is the human inborn ability to swiftly dismantle the most uplifting. Finally saving some money with his prostitute best friend David, Marek dreams of buying a restaurant and traveling to Egypt. However, the more practical David decides to invest their shared money in the business of the exploitative pimp Sacha, who then introduces Marek to an English client. The man leads Marek to a splendid room with high ceilings and golden walls carved with intricate patterns. A collection of silver vessels is on display in a wood cabinet. “Make yourself at home,” the man says. But this is a high-end palace to be admired, not the world Marek is familiar with. Marek looks around the opulent house, plays with the CD rack, and from the table, carefully picks up a cigarette, only to come across an open photo album that shows genitals in tormented poses. Within the refined mask lies the darkness of the soul. The man brings out a candelabra. “We’ll make classic light for your classical body.” The meticulous pursuit of perfection and beauty tracing back to antiquity reduced to mere imitation in form, all those in between—the creativity, the revolutionary spirit, and more importantly, the reverence and love of the people and the world—denied.
Caravaggio Rest During the Flight From Egypt. Flickr, by Carulmare (2008).
“Chiaroscuro,” the man says. “Do you know Caravaggio?” Marek has no idea; the man is elated. “Sweet unconsciousness,” he says. When artists still imitated ancient sculptures, Caravaggio preferred the vulgar, modeling religious figures after street prostitutes, because the divinities were divine only if they understood human emotions. The man imagines himself as the great artist studying this innocent boy, lamenting how impossible it is to copy God’s proudest creation. But the man is not Caravaggio: he does not elevate Marek but reduces him to an object for his own pleasure. In his order, Marek takes off his clothes, stands on a rotating pedestal, and holds a sword, mimicking Donatello’s David. The man sits on the sofa, pours a drink, and expresses his appreciation of this live sculpture in front. The scene cuts between the excited man and the baffled Marek, with the camera moving toward the man as he slowly reaches orgasm while pulling away from Marek. Clearly, the man sees Marek exclusively as an object of sexual interest with no interiority. And Marek bears no resemblance to David who after defeating Goliath becomes a hero well-loved by the people. Disempowered, Marek turns into a mere victim of this consuming gaze which with almost no physical contact, already subverts the sanctity of beauty, courage, art, and the human body created in the image of God.
Donatellos David in the Bargello Museum. Flickr, by Peter Visser (2009).
In the end, Marek overdoses in a stall in the train station where his journey begins, hallucinating worms crawling on his body and slitting his leg with a knife. His father, after searching for his son in vain, also arrives at the station to take the train home. In the toilet, the camera slowly rises up, once again transforming into an all-knowing God. The father walks in, leans against the stall partition, and smokes, not knowing that his son is now free and pure as the blood drains. In this unforgiving world, only the omniscient camera indicates a sense of redemption, uniting the remorseful father and the anguished son. After all, he is just an innocent boy looking for freedom, if only the world could treat him kindly.
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