Anita Rocha da Silveira’s genre-bending tale of masked religious vigilantes is a genre film with something to say
With its squishy synth soundtrack, candy-coloured teen environs and role-playing girl-gang violence, this second feature from Brazilian writer-director Anita Rocha da Silveira feels like a time-warped precursor to Heathers, Clueless and The Neon Demon. It’s a satirical nightmare inspired by the giallo of Dario Argento, fired by the rise of former president Jair Bolsonaro’s reactionary populism and campily refracted through the televangelising aesthetic of The Eyes of Tammy Faye. Having racked up a string of international festival prizes (Miami, Tromsø, Sitges, San Sebastián) since premiering at Cannes in 2021, Medusa builds on the promise of Da Silveira’s genre-subverting 2015 feature debut, Kill Me Please, confirming its creator as a killer talent to watch.
We open with a video of spider-walking strangeness; a writhing dance watched on a phone by a black-fingernailed figure who is promptly set upon by masked female assailants. “Jezebel! We’ll nail you to the cross,” they cry, before beating their victim into promising to “accept Jesus… [and] become a devoted, virtuous woman”, then posting her bloodied submission online. These are the “Treasures”, a cheesy evangelical vocal group with a sideline in biblical violence, whose male counterparts the “Watchmen” train for morality-police duties with peacocking capoeira routines. While news reports about blackouts and rationing burble away in the background, these soldiers of God (who echo real-life Brazilian vigilantes, male and female) fight the good fight against progressive society with a twisted fervour reminiscent of the frothing QAnon insurrectionists who stormed the US Capitol on 6 January in 2021.
