Mariana (Mari Oliveira) is part of a gang of seemingly virtuous young women who spend their days singing in a Christian choir and their nights masked and wandering the streets, attacking women they believe aren’t behaving in the way a woman should. Believing that they are carrying out God’s work, the women experience a set-back when Mariana is left with a nasty gash across her face when a would-be victim fights back. Leaving Mariana scarred, the incident costs her the job she has at a plastic surgery clinic and she decides to take a job in a hospital where all of the patients are in comas. As Mariana begins to take a look at the life she leads and her choices, her strongly held beliefs are questioned.
‘Medusa’, from writer and director Anita Rocha da Silveira, is set in an unnamed town in Brazil and is a comment on the rise of women-on-women violence in the country. Taking strong visual cues from Dario Argento, the film is a satire with elements of horror but it never quite manages to strike the right tone between the two. There is some commentary around religion and the fanatical way that it can take hold of people, and there’s an interesting juxtaposition between the beliefs of the young women and the horrendous acts they are willingly committing. Silveira also introduces an all-male gang, also affiliated with the same church, who commit similar attacks albeit on other men and without masks. There’s also plenty of symbolism around the legend of ‘Medusa’ and the parallels that draws with Mariana.
The two main characters – Mariana and Michele (Lara Tremouroux) – are sufficiently fleshed out but they are the only ones. All of the supporting players could quite honestly be anybody and they wouldn’t make any difference to the story. I was expecting the film to dig into the reasons behind the actions of the women but it doesn’t really. Instead, it switches to following Mariana who is obsessed with finding out what happened to a young woman who was left so physically scarred by an attack that she set fire to her own face. Believing the woman may have been a victim of the gang she’s now a part of, Mariana’s storyline veers off into investigating that.
The biggest problem with ‘Medusa’ is its run time. The film clocks in at over two hours and honestly it really didn’t need to. There’s about 30 minutes of bloat that could easily have been taken out without having much of an impact on the story that Silveira is trying to tell. Due to that bloat, the film is sluggish at time and misses the opportunity to be a zippy social commentary. There is also a bit too much going on at times and the concentration on less interesting sub-plots bogs the main plot down.
‘Medusa’ is a well-made film with solid performances but it doesn’t quite hit all of its marks. With an uneven tone, the film never truly decides what it wants to be. There’s much to admire, especially from the film-making side, but I couldn’t help wishing that the film had leaned further into the horror elements. Instead, ‘Medusa’ plays its story more like a moral drama and while there’s some fun to be had in that, I can’t help but feel that it is somewhat a missed opportunity.
Cast: Mari Oliveira, Lara Tremouroux, Joana Medeiros, Felipe Frazão Director: Anita Rocha da Silveira Writer: Anita Rocha da Silveira Certificate: 15 Duration: 127 mins Released by: Peccadillo Pictures Release date: 14th July 2023
