Men from Germany, UK, USA, Czech Republic, politicians, doctors, businessmen, theater people, club owners, TV presenters, but no famous actor: this is how a Czech pimp defines the clientele that buys the sexual services of boys, between 14 and 19 years, in Prague, in the documentary "Not Angels But Angels". The film is from 1994 and makes an (involuntary) account of one of the regrettable consequences of "economic globalization" in the Czech Republic, a fraction of the former socialist state of Czechoslovakia.
Homosexual male prostitution is not new in any corner of the world, so the subject does not give any novelty value to this documentary that moves at a snail's pace. On the other side, it surely was original to portray the recrudescence of pedophilia, because of the socio-political and economic effects of the entrance of the former socialist bloc to "savage capitalism". However, director Wiktor Grodecki missed the opportunity and the result is an endless parade of heads talking about various topics without utterance, direction or deduction, as a flow of reflections that leads us without knowing where. The boys talk about the first time they had a client, their rates, their overt gerontophilia, approved or rejected sexual acts, AIDS, the future, their fears, their loves (several with girlfriends and one who is a father). Grodecki leaves out, for example, a profile of a typical boy's family, the opinion of social workers' opinions or the measures taken or not by the Czech state. Nothing.
Instead, the filmmaker is sensationalist to the extreme, with apocalyptic sound effects, the manipulative use of fragments of dramatic compositions by Bach, Mozart, Villa-Lobos, rock metal and Tibetan music; close-ups of supposed sweet-toothed customers of old age, a strange striptease by a beggar, shots of statues from Prague that witness the acts, and photos of homosexual pornography (pixelated by the DVD editor who, by the way, also pixelated the subtitles!)
The only merit I found in this distressing portrait of youth is the courage of the boys to tell their drama on camera (without any desire to achieve notoriety): there is everything, from the boy who grew up between New York and Prague and wants to be a gangster, to the so-called "Miss Jackson" (for Michael, but who, in reality, looked more like Diana Ross), going through young men who are obviously mistreated by the trade and a kind of "bathtub divo" who gave his interview wrapped in bubbles. First part of a trilogy, followed by «Body Without Soul», dedicated to the business of adolescent pornography in Prague.