leazes69 Great Movie with some great gay interest scenesThis story is about sexual exploitation and drugs with the vicious circle that the two often involve.The DVD cover and description make it quite clear what the film is about, so you are unlikely to watch it thinking it is a family movie or one for a romantic evening with your girlfriend, unless you are both very broadminded. It's sole purpose is not in my opinion to shock people into saying I must go and do whatever I can to help help those poor boys. If that it's sole purpose there would not be scenes of sex and full frontal nudity, there would be careful editing and avoidance of scenes that might upset some viewers. Whilst the storyline portrays under age boys in prostitution, those actors that you see nude or engaged in sex are clearly of legal age.The storyline has similarities to Christiane F, which was a film about a young teenage girl who also has to resort to selling herself for sex to get money for her increasing drug addiction. I think the sole intention of that film (based on the book) was to make people aware of the problem of drug addiction allegedly in the former east Germany at that timeIn this film the interests and sex varies from client to client from vanilla to quite extreme, the film would lack entertainment value and the viewer would loose interest without that in my opinion.As a gay interest film there some scenes which could be viewed by some as quite erotic, one example where the main actor Marek is nude on a rotating pedestal and a game of pool with strip poker like rules.Clearly exploitation of anyone is wrong and I don't condone the storyline to be acceptable, but sex, murder and crime attracts viewers and sells movies and books. The film is very brave in portraying the subject matter that it does and deserves a watch, perhaps more than once.

zkapil Its a true story. Story is really the most depressing of all the movies i have seen. And its a beautifully made movie.See how human beings can become beasts. I thought there is no God in the world where this can happen.What should i say more u have to see it urself. I saw the movie 3-4 months back but its still very fresh on my mind.Marek (protagnist), age 16, goes to Prague (a big city) where he and so many of his age group from smaller towns end up being prostitutes. People from richer countries of europe and US come there and exploit these poor boys.

benc7ca A cautionary tale, a morality fable, "The Perils of Pauline", "Justine" for the modern age: Madragora is all of these and...less. The sexual exploitation of the young is epidemic in the most economically depressed areas of the world: this we know. It's a pity that an important subject is reduced to set scenes straight out of a silent movie. Really, all that is missing are a few moustache twirls from the villains. The descent of Marek from poverty to absolute misery is cliché and handled with all the subtlety of a jack-hammer. It was the director's duty to find a new way, a more subtle way, of illustrating the all too real plight of so many young people. He fails completely.

Greg Goodsell A friend pressed the DVD to this film in my hands and said, "laugh it up! This is an old-time exploitation movie, like 'Reefer Madness.'" Slogging through the relentlessly depressing story, I have to agree. Blonde boy protagonist leaves his small Czechoslovakian town to become a boy prostitute. Nothing goes right, and he winds up a drug-addled, AIDS-infected suicide in a matter of days! Like the exploitation films of yore, it graphically depicts the Wages of Sin while simultaneously filling the screen with Sin, glorious Sin. It's too bad it's such a downer, best viewed in 20-minute increments.