How ‘Medusa’ Director Unmasked Sexism in Ultra-Right Churches in Her Horror-Satire FIlm

thewrap.com:

felt paralyzed by the rise of conservatism and the ultra-right advance in her native country of Brazil, she transformed this paralysis into a fantastical metaphor of a comatose house, which serves the setting for her new horror-satire film, “Medusa.”“Medusa,” which opens in select theaters in New York and Los Angeles July 29, follows Mari, who preaches purity and perfection through evangelical songs with her friends while harboring a deep rage.

By night, the young women form a masked, vigilante girl gang who condemn sinners through violence and humiliation. After an attack goes wrong and Mari is fired from working at a plastic surgery center due to a scar on her face, she gets a job as nurse at an institution for comatose patients in hope of encountering Melissa — a beloved celebrity figure who went into hiding after becoming one of the vigilante’s victims.For Silveira, the absurd elements of the comatose house is what is furthest from reality, reflecting Mari’s shifting perception as she encounters people she is not used to who are “more in touch with their bodies [and] with their sexuality”Mari also undergoes a transformation as she transitions from the appearance-focused beauty clinic to the comatose house where when she meets someone who thinks she is beautiful the way that she is, and doesn’t care about her scar. “Everything makes her feel [differently] about herself…” Silveira told TheWrap. “She does not have the patience to put her makeup on, to do her hair straight.

She starts to feel much more comfortable in her body and not wasting so [many] hours on things that she was supposed to [do].”Mari’s journey runs parallel to Clarissa, a younger teen who Mari mentors and inducts into the vigilante group.