Although she was beautiful, she was a homewrecker. The vigilante group traces its origins to the myth of a woman named Melissa, who was the most promiscuous girl ever to live in their town-more sinful than Lot’s daughters. Did you know a selfie from below is Hell’s Gaze and above tries to mimic God’s gaze? Always snap a pic straight on! Mari works at a creepy plastic surgery center where all the patients, and even the doctor, look like they fell out of Terry Gilliam’s “ Brazil.” From this hyper-focused pursuit of purity and perfection, the pink-clad Michele runs a religious YouTube channel from her bubble gum pink bedroom aimed at grooming virtuous women through tutorials and life hack tips. Mari slicks back her naturally curly hair and stifles any hint of passion behind a passive smile, while Michele hides her relationship traumas behind a perfect face of make-up. These women have been raised in this church sponsored purity culture, where outward beauty supposedly correlates with inward virtue. Meanwhile the organized army run by the young men of the church, Watchmen of Sion, seem to spend all their time doing choreographed exercises taken from Claire Denis’ “Beau Travail.”
They also moonlight as vigilantes who roam the streets at night beating up women they deem sinful. “Medusa” follows two lifelong friends, Mari (Mariana Oliveira) and Michele ( Lara Tremouroux), whose church vocal group, Michele and the Treasures of the Lord, sing political propaganda and love songs to the Lord in the style of '60s-style girl groups while awash in purple-pink neon. As pointed in its criticism of the Christian Right as Beth de Araujo’s 2022 SXSW breakout “Soft & Quiet,” what separates da Silveira’s film is its interest in the structures that birth these kinds of women, not just the brutality of their actions. Inspired by the rise of radical evangelical Christian factions and women-on-women violence in her native Brazil, director da Silveira crafts a film that oscillates between satire and out-and-out horror as she analyzes the world of these so-called pious, yet actually brutal women.
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