‘Raquel 1:1’ SXSW 2022 Review – A Clever and Wickedly Unnerving Takedown of Patriarchal Christianity

Murphy’s Law of small towns in movies is that unless it’s a Hallmark flick chances are something wicked lurks within the quaint facade. It’s no hard and fast rule, but darkness on the edges and in the hearts of small towns have provided the backdrop for all manner of unsettling tales. Raquel 1:1 (2022), the new film from writer-director Mariana Bastos, moodily extends that cinematic maxim. Raquel (Valentina Herszage) and her father Hermes (Emílio de Mello) moved back to his hometown hoping to avoid further nightmares after Raquel’s mother was murdered. She quickly connects with a group of local church-going girls and joins their devout clique. Trouble brews when Raquel questions the way that her peers and the church continue to hold fast to patriarchal doctrines in the Bible. Her vocal critique leads to a schism in the community, one that brings pious wrath to Raquel’s doorstep.

Early scenes suggested Raquel 1:1 sought to walk a route similar to that of Rose Glass’s Saint Maud (2019). Raquel and Maud bear similar traits of being lonely young women recovering from traumatic histories. Yet, whereas Glass’s work zeroes in on the internalized trials of religiosity, Bastos presents Raquel as a vision of what happens when women, especially young women, push against patriarchal restraints. Framed both by the nauseatingly high femicide rate in Brazil and Raquel’s interest in Mary Magdalene, Raquel 1:1 wades directly into the fourth-wave feminism that surrounds us. While we never see it on screen, Raquel processes her mother’s murder at the hands of a violent ex-boyfriend through searing audio clips, clarifying that this is a young woman set on challenging a Christian culture that preaches female submissiveness even as women are killed in droves. 

Herszage embodies Raquel not as a firebrand, but rather as an empathetic young woman who refuses silence. With her striking dark hair and eyes, she carries a quiet intensity. Her friends flock to her because she is the inverse of the vindictive and domineering pastor’s daughter Ana Helena (Priscila Bittencourt). Raquel emboldens the questions and concerns her peers have repressed because of the internalized misogyny that Ana represents. Therefore, Herszage and Bittencourt personify the debate between freedom and control, Herszage’s Raquel manifesting the possibility of being both religious and unbound by constrictive history. Nowhere is this more poignant than in her friendship with Laura (Eduarda Samara). The two form a family unit that weathers the increasingly violent response to Raquel’s point of view, and the film situates the narrative’s beating heart in their affection. 

Bastos displays a knack for memorable image-making. She takes full advantage of the rural Brazilian setting, establishing a back-and-forth between the town confines and the forest around them. That duality reflects and refracts the thematic tension at play in the narrative, while also providing ample opportunity for dynamic camerawork. The aesthetic and thematic interplay is best represented by the abandoned and crumbling house in the forest where Raquel and her friends go to discuss how they would re-write the Bible to better serve women. It is a space exposed to the elements, but the longer they stay the more Bastos frames it as a warm embrace. Candlelight flickers over walls and dances on the leaves outside. One shot I can’t get out of my head frames Raquel in the cracked and gaping archway of a doorway long missing its door. Frames within frames abound, revealing Bastos’ exquisite attention to detail. 

With its thriller-adjacent pacing and more than a few horror flourishes, Raquel 1:1 takes full advantage of the moodiness inherent in stories that deal with small towns and spirituality. I recommend it, especially for those pining after Midnight Mass (2021). No vampires here, but plenty of dread and human monstrosity to go around. 

Raquel 1:1 was viewed in the Global presented by MUBI section of SXSW 2022.

Director: Mariana Bastos

Writer: Mariana Bastos

Rated: NR

Runtime: 90m

Rating: 4 out of 5

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Devin McGrath-Conwell

Devin McGrath-Conwell holds a B.A. in Film / English from Middlebury College and is currently pursuing an MFA in Screenwriting from Emerson College. His obsessions include all things horror, David Lynch, the darkest of satires, and Billy Joel. Devin’s writing has also appeared in publications such as Filmhounds Magazine, Film Cred, Horror Homeroom, and Cinema Scholars.