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.