All the Fakes Are Snakes

Medusa is proof that we need more Anita Rocha da Silveira, not less

A friend of mine once told me that I like “movies that announce themselves as movies,” a turn of phrase I wish I’d coined myself. 2015’s Kill Me Please announced itself as a movie, just as its writer/director, Anita Rocha da Silveira, announced herself as a filmmaker worth watching. Her sophomore feature does likewise by quickly introducing us to a roving band of masked teenagers who chase down and beat supposed sinners before recording them as they vow to live a pure life; after their first attack, the girl-boss crusaders walk down an empty street Reservoir Dogs–style as Siouxsie and the Banshees’ “Cities in Dust” summons the neon opening credits. When they aren’t moonlighting as vigilantes, they perform in a girl group called Michele and the Treasures of the Lord whose lyrics include lines like “I will be a pretty and modest housewife.” They see these activities as complementary rather than contradictory, two sides of the same righteous coin. As in Kill Me Please, da Silveira is as attuned to the growing pains of troubled adolescents as she is to the troubling undercurrents in her native Brazil, where young women only exist in relation to patriarchal — and, in this case, Christo-fascist — mores.

Appearance is of the utmost appearance in this cult-like world, with the girls singing of their desire to be pure and untouched when Jesus returns to them, making it near-cataclysmic when Mari (Mariana Oliviera) is scarred after one of the Treasures’ would-be victims fights back. Zealots aren’t known to question their worldview until being treated with the same cruelty they’ve treated others, and so it is here. Da Silveira remains a gifted stylist, with Medusa’s candy-coated sheen and synth-heavy score bringing to mind everything from ‘80s slashers to The Neon Demon; though initially inviting, this aesthetic takes on a sickly quality as things inevitably spiral out of control. And though you’re unlikely to meet anyone who values vibes over narrative as much as I do, Medusa’s long, meandering middle comes dangerously close to undermining its more fully realized beginning and ending. Even so, my contention that da Silveira should be given a blank check to make whatever movie she wants for however much money she wants remains unchanged — she’s as talented as she is underrated, and I don’t want to wait another seven years for her next film.