Mark Reviews Movies: MEDUSA (2022)

Medusa, Music Box Films

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Review by Mark Dujsik | July 28, 2022

Writer/director Anita Rocha da Silveira's Medusa is far more effective when it's grounded in reality than when it makes a turn toward modern-day fable. This is a story of religious fanaticism and social authoritarianism, set in a contemporary Brazil that's currently under the leadership of a man who possesses both of those characteristics. Rocha da Silveira's screenplay isn't specific about politics here, but that's beside the point. The general idea—that a group like the one at the center of this tale could and would feel emboldened by such a leader—is a potent and frightening one.

The group is a fundamentalist Christian sect that operates internally as a cult and externally as a kind of religious police force. We first meet a gang of young women, called "the Treasures" and wearing blank white masks, from the group, as they chase a woman in the streets of an unnamed city, tackle and beat her, and force her to record a message of repentance for her sexual transgressions.

Mari (Mari Oliveira) is among the gang, and when she's attacked by one of the vigilante group's targets on a subsequent patrol, she's left with a scar across her cheek. That gets her fired from the plastic surgery clinic where she works, while gang leader Michele (Lara Tremouroux) prays that her "ugliness" will go away. In the meantime, Mari had better learn to hide the scar, lest she be unable to fulfill her Christian duty to be pretty for a future husband.

Rocha da Silveira's movie digs into the pernicious and all-consuming ways of this line of thinking. That's both in terms of how the group views society—mostly to do with women's perceived role within it—and in how these women's obsession with their religious beliefs turns them judgmental—not only against others but also against themselves (Michele's fixation on and expectations of physical perfection are given context in a particularly affecting moment).

As for the plot, it has Mari taking a job at a clinic for coma patients, where she believes the victim of an attack that inspired the Treasures' mission and tactics is currently hospitalized. That character, a former model and actress (played by Bruna Linazmeyer) whose face was burned by an assailant, is the impetus the movie's shift into myth-making. She's an enigma and a supernatural figure, whose scream when Mari goes looking for her awakens something within our protagonist (moving on her feelings for a co-worker, played by Felipe Frazão, for example).

From there, the movie loses some of its thematic strength and much of its narrative focus, as the mystery and effect of the character akin to the figure of myth of the title overwhelm the story's realistic and probing portrayal of the cult. Medusa moves toward some simplified answers and a straightforward message, even though the bigger psychological, political, and social questions it raises are far more complicated.

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