BODY WITHOUT SOUL is equally manipulative and usesthe same loud Requiem. Of course few of them are reallygay, and there are intercut shots of scary old Germans and Prague fountainswith uplifting music. In that film we learned all about the tragic fate of the youngboys who are forced to sell their bodies. This film was billed as a sequel to Grodecki's incredibly manipulative filmabout Prague rent boys, Not Angels but Angels (1994, availableon video). Rather they speak oftheir lives in often gruesome and stripped-bare details, leaving us chilledby their short and fragile lives in grasp of the oldest trade on earth.(from the official blurb). The young hustlers' disarming frankness and need to talk become the compellingengine that drives the film. Young men trying to live up to the standards of Western consumerismreadily fall prey to quick, easy money from hustling. The economic boom andthe recently won political freedom have turned that beautiful, gracefulcity into a new mecca for both Eastern and Western tourists in search ofsex. My article on these: "Who's Renting These Boys?"Ī documentary about boy prostitution in Prague. WIKTOR GRODECKI'S CZECH HUSTLER DOCUMENTARIES: It obviously struck a chord, becoming the audience favorite at the Pula festival in '02 as well as Croatia's nominee for an Oscar the following year. The film takes aim at the brutality and amorality of contemporary Croatian society, targeting patriarchy, nationalism, and the Catholic Church, as well as homophobia. In Fine Dead Girls Iva and Marija move into an apartment building that is home to a rogues' gallery of characters: a war veteran suffering from post-traumatic stress, a prostitute paid to break up the couple by a priest who is one girl's father, a homophobic gorgon of an apartment manager, and her son, a slacker mama's boy who rapes one of the pair to prove his masculinity.
The sole woman among the leads is the cause of all conflict, while Milan's father and best friend accept his gay affair with equanimity.įine mrtve djevojke (Fine Dead Girls) 2002
Though firmly anti-Serb and anti-war, the film reads as ultimately misogynistic. Ranka eventually outs the gay men to Milan's father, while Milan is drafted into the Serbian army and killed. These two men barely kiss onscreen, though Kenan, who is bisexual, is shown having sex at least twice with Ranka, the village prostitute.
The pair escape to Milan's village, where the disguise is maintained through a traditional wedding. A gay male couple in Sarajevo, Kenan, a Bosnian, and Milan, a Serb, plan to emigrate to the gay-friendly Netherlands, but the war strands them in Serb-controlled territory, and Kenan adopts female drag to avoid being found out as a circumcised Muslim.