DROSERA

The directing style deliberately draws from mainstream cinema, referencing familiar “teenage” tropes — the predatory group of boys, the oblivious parents, the older actors playing younger roles, etc. — along with the iconography of fantasy genre films. While the film remains grounded in the rural motocross setting, the cinematography and sound design gradually build a supernatural aesthetic. As the film progresses, the colors — red and black — become more intense, mirroring the growing radicalization of the heroine. As Alice begins to enact her revenge, her journey takes on the shape of a supervillain origin story, directly inspired by the language of comic books.

The filmmakers’ personal experiences — including school bullying and domestic violence — fuel a moral dilemma explored in all its complexity. Is Alice finding liberation, or is she losing herself in a self-destructive cycle? The immersive portrayal of cathartic violence pushes the viewer into moral discomfort. Though it may seem that Alice is entitled to revenge — a right largely shaped by narrative convention and a kind of popular cinematic morality — doesn’t this act of retribution, this answer to harm with harm, risk triggering a new cycle of violence?

DROSERA uses the codes of genre cinema to explore the full ambiguity of the carnivorous plant symbol — a fragile yet predatory organism. This duality is developed in the script and deepened through the visual storytelling of a destructive metamorphosis. The film’s climax, marked by the birth of a fully assumed supervillain, provokes both exhilaration and unease. In doing so, the film invites reflection on the tropes of mainstream cinema and the templates we so rarely question. DROSERA seeks to be both cathartic and critical.