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.