Director:Malachi Bogdanov Country: UK Year: 2008 Length: 75 minutes
The Mandrake Root is a bawdy Renaissance tale, adapted from the comedy La Mandragola written in 1518 by Niccolò Machiavelli. Shot entirely on location in HD on the Mediterranean island of Sardinia. Set in Italy in 1504, the action takes place over a period of 24 hours. A hilarious tale of cunning and desire and the comedy’s main theme is the use of deceit and the plot revolves around each character who thinks they are shrewder than the next.
The story tells of Callimaco, a young Sardinian is overcome by the beauty of Lucrezia, the virtuous and beautiful wife of the rich and foolish lawyer Nicia. In his desire to bed her, he convinces the husband that the surest way for his wife to conceive is by taking a potion made from the Mandrake Root, with the dire warning that the first man to sleep with her will die within eight days. He agrees to a plan to kidnap an unsuspecting man to sleep with his wife and thereby draw out the poison, but of course it is the disguised Callimaco who is kidnapped. Ultimately Callimaco succeeds in sleeping with Lucrezia and confesses all. She decides that due to the stupidity of her husband and deception of her mother and confessor, she will continue to be his lover and ‘what her husband wanted for her to have for one night, she now wants him to have forever’. The story concludes with everyone getting what they want and believing that each has outwitted the other.
CAST Geoffrey Bateman,
Chara Jackson
Den Woods,
Jason Nicoli
Craig Painting,
Mike Rogers
Jonathan Owen,
Emanuela Di Biase
Mario Olivieri,
Andrea Foddai
