INTERVIEW: In ‘Medusa,’ an old myth is given a modern-day parallel
Photo: Medusa is Anita Rocha da Silveira’s followup to Kill Me Please. Photo courtesy of Music Box Films / Provided by Fusion Entertainment with permission.
Writer-director Anita Rocha da Silveira’s new film is Medusa, a followup to her 2015 acclaimed debut, Kill Me Please. This time around, the filmmaker has crafted a story about a young woman named Mari, who is accepted into a Christian religious sect in Brazil that has many hidden secrets. Some of her new “friends” put on the appearance of living sin-less lives during the day, but at night they stalk the streets and harass, bully and beat up others whom they believe are breaking the church’s rules and regulations.
Medusa, arriving in the United States thanks to Music Box Films, is currently playing the Angelika Film Center in New York City, the Alamo Drafthouse in Downtown Los Angeles and the Laemmle in North Hollywood.
“It was around 2015, the year I was releasing Kill Me Please,” Rocha da Silveira said about the origins of Medusa. “I came across this news article about a group of girls that had got together to beat another girl … and they cut her face and cut her hair. It was a very violent attack. … Then some weeks later I read similar news, now with girls around 20.”
These violent attacks against the perceived “sinners” of the community reminded the filmmaker of the mythological tale of Medusa. There are some versions of the Medusa myth that parallel what Rocha da Silveira was seeing in the local press. As the script began to form in her mind, she began focusing her critique on religion and its ties to politics, money and power, and her vessel for telling this story is the protagonist of Mari (Mari Oliveria).
“For me, it was important in my second feature to write a character that was very different from myself,” she said. “For me, it was important to try to understand who is this girl that grew up in an ultra-right environment, in a very conservative environment. Who is this girl? … So for Medusa I wanted to make a straightforward film about one character; she’s in every scene, and it’s all about her journey. … Medusa is all about Mari’s journey and Mari’s transformation.”
The group of young women who attack others in the street was also carefully thought out while Rocha da Silveira was crafting the script.
“They have to control themselves so much to be in that community,” the director said. “They have to control their bodies, what they can wear, how they can speak. … And because of that, they start to control others. Like, if I can’t do that, why is she doing [it]? So they start to control their friends. Then they try to control the other women in town. So, for me, it’s all [about] the repression. They have to keep so much control for themselves, they start to control everything. That is something that can’t go well.”
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
Medusa, written and directed by Anita Rocha da Silveira, is now playing in New York City and Los Angeles. Click here for more information.
