Medusa

Brazilian genre-bending horror MEDUSA out 14th July 

Writer-director Anita Rocha de Silveira second feature film is a mind melt of genres that follows 21 year old Marianna who is a member of a repressive patriarchal Christian sect. By day, she is all sweetness and Christ and yet at night she is a member of a vigilante gang of women who scare the women of the city they deem to be sinners in God's eyes. This film tackles the question of vanity and feminism in an increasingly smaller world due to the ubiquity of social media.

The Brazil we see her is similar to ones we are familiar with in this watered down social media where beauty is only skin deep, vanity is paramount and the need to be rich is at odds with own religious beliefs.

As Marianna, Mari Oliviera evokes a lot of connection and subtext into her role as a women questioning her beliefs and scared of the ramifications her actions within the vigilante group may have.

At times the style outdoes the substance of this film, and yet it remains highly engaging and watchable with its satirical take on the marriage of instagram and Christianity in one character who teaches followers how to take the perfect Christian selfie. In this film everyone is always looking at and gazing, a feast for the Laura Mulvey fans out there.

A film that could easily have been labelled provocative is in fact something a little bit more perscient than that and violence upon women by women - often as form of control - is apparent to this day; this form of control with the perpetrators seeking the victims to be like them is worrying as a whole and an indictment of the power of social media especially upon impressionable young women.

Her collaboration with her cinematographer Joao Atala creates a world that is both hypnotic and foreboding, a visual style and language of De Silveria's own coming together with excellent production design by art director Dina Salem Levy and the ominous soundtrack created by the director and Bernardo Uzeda.

A feast for the senses embodying the works of David Lynch in terms of melting of genres such as drama and horror; Dario Argento's out and out horror but also Brian De Palma's paranoid thrillers and twisty narratives.

Medusa is out from 14th July via Peccadillo Pictures. It shall be on streaming services from August.

Ginga

Released in time for the 2014 World Cup in Brazil this summer, the new documentary from Mr. Bongo films Ginga: The Soul of Brazilian Football tells the story of the ongoing love affair between Brazil and the most popular sport in the world.

Ginga follows seven young footballers from a diverse range of ethnic and social backgrounds which helps explain the passion for the sport.

Through the exploits of these youngsters we can see how such stars like Pele, Socrates, the original Ronaldo and now Neymar are created.  The argument may be made that great sportsmen are born, however, the argument of nature over nurture has a closing argument in Brazil.  Men and women are born into this exuberant nation, and nurtured to play football from a young age in favelas, in streets and on the beach even.

Startling photography adds a travelogue portrayal to the film, yet the spirit of football and the magic of the sport we hope that will come across during the month long tournament in June and
July of this year, is fittingly in the home of Ginga football.

As Ronaldo says, 'Ginga, it's in our blood, it's a gift given by God especially to Brazilians who play football and learn to dance from an early age.'

Ginga is out on DVD from Monday 12th May at £12.99rrp

www.ginga2014.com

Boca

Flavio Federico directs the visceral and intense dramatic depiction of Hiroito, the infamous King of Boca de Lixo, starring Daniel de Oliveira in the title role.

Following on from the cinematic appeal and acclaim of Elite Squad: The Enemy Within, it seems Brazil much like British film in the late 1990s and early 21st century has found a niche by going to the dark past of its recent social history for dramatic intent.

Boca follows Hiroito from the violent murder of his father, which the young boy witnessed as he was stabbed over 40 times with a razor.  Oddly, the young boy was arrested and accussed of the crime, ultimately he was acquited.  Then two months later, aged just 21 he moved to Boca de Lixo (an area of downtown Sao Paolo in the 1950s renowned for nightclubs, prostitution, bars and drugs), purchased two guns and grew to become one of the most successful criminals in Brazil. 

The film richly depicts his violence against fellow criminals, the glamour of the girls, the viscerality of the guns as Hiroito becomes the legendary gangster figure in Brazil.

Gangsters remain glamourous figures in cinema, due to the intense nature of their upbringing - as young men who really want attention and yet end up on the wrong side of the law.

De Oliveira portrays Hiroito as a man with a big chip on his shoulder who backs up his words with lots of actions, whilst never hamming up or chewing up too much scenery.

The film is cleverly filmed with a lot of hand-held camerawork to make you feel a part of the action, making the experience a worthwhile one on the small screen.

Boca is released on DVD by Universal Pictures from Monday 13th February

Elite Squad: The Enemy Within

An intense and gripping picture from Brazil which is heavy on social conscience and political satire, Jose Padilha (who also wrote the script) directs with a definite panache and visceral quality akin to fellow films of Brazilian cinema lately.

After a prison riot that goes wrong under his watch, Nascimento (Wagner Moura) is swept into a political dispute concerning government officials and paramilitary groups - the situation is not helped by the family matters as his ex-wife (Maria Ribeiro) is engaged to a fool, Fraga (Irandhir Santos) who is running for political office, which could endanger his position if elected.

There is plenty of violence and gunplay on a level with that employed by Michael Mann in his seminal Heat and any Tony Scott film.  Padilha is very clever, he has pretty much directed a typical B-class script involving political shenanigans and backstabbing which would be also ran fare if released by Hollywood, but the sheer thrill seeking of the piece, helped by great production values and a suitably entertaining cast elevates the film to a respectable spectacle.

It is all here - bent cops, cops that are good but have trouble on the inside, cops that are bad, cops that cannot control emotions, bent political officials, serpentine plotting and strands that all come together in that great Latin American tradition of Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu (21 Grams, Babel) - fans of City of God and The Wire will feel right at home in this mesh and mess of law and order and chaos.

Padilha directed the respected documentary Bus 174 (2002) which had a close-camerawork and MTV editing; the conviction with which he directs this sequel to 2007's Elite Squad puts it in that rare pantheon of films that are better than the original.

Elite Squad: The Enemy Within is released on DVD from Aim Publicity on 26th December (Boxing Day)

Watch the trailer here