By Josh Gardner, Festival Correspondent
After achieving festival circuit success with her first film Kill Me Please, Brazilian filmmaker Anita Rocha de Silveira returns to the silver screen with another killer genre mashup, Medusa. After debuting at the Directors’ Fortnight section at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, Silveira brought her giallo slasher cum biting social satire to the Toronto International Film Festival. There we talked to her about how Blue Velvet changed the course of her life, right wing propaganda, and the power of screaming.
How did you conceptualize the film and how did the Greek mythology of Medusa play into the original idea?
Anita: Around 2015 I started to develop Medusa and at that point we could feel this conservative rise in Brazil. I also read one news story of a group of girls going out and slashing a girl’s face because they wanted to make her ugly. Then some weeks later I read an article with a similar story, but in another city in Brazil. And then, I realized that this is how the youth is perceiving the ultra-right and how they're projecting these conservative ideas, that one woman has to control another woman's body. Because as women, we grow up having to control ourselves so much that at some point we start saying, "If I'm not doing that, why is she doing it."
When I read this news, I recalled the Medusa myth because she used to be pretty but was raped by Poseidon. In another version, she had sex with him. But at the end of the day, since she was not pure anymore, Athena, who was a Virgin goddess, punished her by transforming her into this horrible creature. So, I started to think there is this myth that has existed for some thousand years but that still resonates even today, about a woman punishing another woman for bullshit. So, that was a starting point.
At the same time, I started to read articles about this church in Brazil that was putting together an army of God and I started to do research on evangelical ultra-right YouTubers. And I discovered this world of really well done, high quality YouTube videos with a very cool aesthetic for young people. And these YouTubers are super charismatic. But at the end of the day, the message is terrible. But it's very cool and they're very happy and they talk in a very nice way. It made me realize that the ultra-right is doing really well at getting their messaging out. One of the aspects that got Bolsonaro elected is this machine putting together a lot of videos and a lot of WhatsApp messages and a lot of fake videos, that for most of the population was appealing.
Medusa and your previous film, Kill Me Please, play with genre conventions and mix elements of horror and thrillers. Why does that appeal to you?
Actually, I really like mixing genres. When I was developing both my films, I'd submit for funding and when the film was rejected, the main feedback would be that the film has more than one genre. You have to pick one, "It's a thriller? It's a horror? It's a musical? It's a comedy? What is it?" I said, "No. Why do I have to pick something?"
And for me, one of my favorite filmmakers is David Lynch. And I think David Lynch plays super well with mixing genres. When you think about Mulholland Drive, Blue Velvet, Twin Peaks. There are moments of laughter. There are moments of melodrama. There are moments of horror. And he's my biggest influence. I, by accident, watched Blue Velvet at a very young age. One week, my parents bought Blue Velvet on VHS, but I was like eight, nine years old. And then I watched the film a lot of times to try to make sense of all that.
But I don't know why you have to commit to one genre or another. At some point I have to, if people like the film, going to the premiere, they ask what's the genre? Someone said, "It's a horror." Okay. But I think for me the scariest stuff in the movie are the parts that are more realistic. Everything that the minister says is truly inspired by other speeches of ministers I saw on YouTube. So, I think that's the scariest thing in the movie. Obviously, we made some commitments to a horror aesthetic. Somehow I tried to match to Dario Argento, Suspiria, and many films from the seventies that I love. But I think the most horrific aspect is in the church.
You also use genre to talk about societal issues that are going on in Brazil.
I think if I did a more realistic film it would be much more heavy and difficult to watch. That's why I decided, from the beginning, that it would be a film with a lot of colors. The DP and I committed to color from the start of the shoot, "Let's put the green, the red." In a way more like people used to shoot in the seventies, in the eighties. Because now, it's very common to shoot blank and then add some color in the color grading. But no, "It's green and now it's fucking green. It's red, it's blue. It's purple." For me, having these visuals and this atmosphere separates it from reality, and I think it makes the film a little bit easier to digest. Especially for audiences in Brazil. For example, for journalists to say the film is futuristic. No, the film is not futuristic. It's set today, but in a parallel universe. Because the reality is so hard now there has to be a little bit of this fantastic aspect to make the film a little bit more easy to watch and we can have some comedy elements and some humor to talk about these difficult situations we are facing.
Mari Oliveira stars in both of your films. Did you always have her in mind for this role?
Yes. I’ve known Mari since she was 15. She came to an open call for Kill Me Please. For both films we made open calls. I love doing open calls, especially for our young actors. To announce on Facebook, Instagram and see what happens. And Mari did a test that was amazing. I think she was one of the best tests. And then, I started to work with her, and she's someone that's super smart, super attentive, super professional. Even when she was 15 years old, she was always punctual and super serious about her work.
Mari's been someone that I always had been in touch with and someone that kept studying. She's now doing film school. She's someone that reads a lot, she has a YouTube channel with some friends. I admire her. So, when I started to think about Medusa, I started seeing Mari there. And that was it. Since the beginning I was seeing Mari playing Mari. She's really amazing.
Do you think the film is more relevant today than it was when you wrote it?
Yes. I hope so. I think the only moment that I was a little bit afraid was during the pandemic in the beginning. I didn’t know what was happening. Will this film even be relevant one year from now? Because luckily I shot in November 2019. So, I was able to shoot the film pre-pandemic. But the masks are there. Even though the film is pre COVID I have some parallels. But I don't want to watch film's about COVID, about lockdown. I want to watch people dancing, people singing. I want to watch people have sex, basically.
But I think if you talk about, for example, it's set in Brazil, but the ultra-right movement is everywhere. In Brazil, it's very linked to religion, but you can bring in other concepts, you could link it with white supremacism. But it's something in every country in the world. There is a party getting more followers. And it's the people on the left that are a bit afraid of what can happen. So, it's something that I hope people can relate to in other countries. And also, I hope that it can be an empowering film, especially for women. Because of the ending where the girls stick together and release all the anger with their screams. So, I hope it can be a film that makes everybody feel like screaming. But I don't know, I hope in the future people will be able to scream during the screening. That's what I hope for the most now.
The film has a lot of really great ‘70s and ‘80s inspired music. I know you created some of it for the film. Tell us more about that process?
Yeah. The diegetic songs were done by Bernardo Uzeda. He has been working with me since my first short film. And he thought about his songs in reference to Goblin, Tangerine Dream, Carpenter. But I wrote all the evangelical songs, the song at the ending and I ended up doing some musical production as well. We started rehearsing the songs with the actresses, putting the choir together so they could feel the experience of being in the choir. But for me, I'm really happy with the film's soundtrack. I'm afraid people have the feeling of it going all over the place, but I don't have that feeling.
For me, the film is also a musical in some aspects. After the shoot, we started to research a lot of music. And at one point I started to play with ”Baby It’s You,” it's a song that has a lot to do with the film. So, I worked on this version with a friend of mine, he made the arrangements and he invited a friend of his to sing. At the end, there's more Brazilian sounds. But I don't know, I really hope someday I can release the soundtrack of the film, an EP for the internet. Because I'm super proud. I think everyone that worked to put it together did an amazing job.
