In the colossal, cathedral sized water tank beneath the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul, Turkey, several heads of Medusa have been used as pillar bases for the past 1.500 years. It is not entirely known where the heads came from, but they were believed to be taken from some other Roman ruin. The heads are upside down or sideways to inhibit the power of the Gorgon Medusa’s gaze.
The water tank’s existence was forgotten for hundreds of years, despite being beneath the Hagia Sophia. When it was rediscovered, explorers found fish inside of it.
“The Signal-Man” by Charles Dickens (1866) “What is the danger? Where is the danger?”
This idea of the adventuring British gent who wanders out into the world and feels free to go anywhere by rights is prime horror material, in particular because it’s good to swat down that idea by putting that gent in over his head. Now this story isn’t that necessarily (”A Distant Episode” goes there), but it does highlight that if you think you can just wander into someone else’s business on a lark then you’re fucking around and you will find out.
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“Hello, My Name Is…” by Nadia Shammas, Rowan MacColl, Licha Myers, Chris Sanchez (2021) “Workers have names. Management has power.”
What is a name but a tracking system? The means by which to search and destroy.
I was a good half hour into this movie before I realized this was not the Medusa I was looking for, but I couldn’t just stop watching after getting that far. This one does do something interesting with transformation and a reckoning for the abusers, then it muddles things a bit by trying to justify it all with an explanation. I do like a good explanation, but this one doesn’t pan out.
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Medusa dir. Anita Rocha da Silveira (2021) “Don’t let yourself be deceived by the worldly people.”
Now this is the Medusa I intended to watch, and it’s a different kind of movie altogether. It’s light on the horror but it does present a horrifying reality. That sense of a danger that might feel new but we’ve been facing for millennia. People get scared and they get together to come up with rules and systems that ultimately can’t serve everyone, and then they’re scared of the outliers, and then there’s death, and then one group or another is the majority and the rules and systems remain but in different forms. Anyway, that’s where my brain went from watching this. Systems and death.
