Ari Aster's MIDSOMMAR (2019)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I0UWIya-O0s

in before the inevitable Wicker Man comparisons

I found Hereditary unique and effective enough to assume he's canny enough to go for something a little different here. Do we know who's handling the music yet?

he's canny enough to go for something a little different here

well if the trailer is anything to go by it's all daylight, which is definitely an interesting (and challenging) choice

i thought hereditary was great, i'll watch the shit out of this - i really like the sun-dappled look of the cinematography

florence pugh's been great in everything i've seen her in so far, keen to see what she does here

new trailer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Vnghdsjmd0

I'm going to avoid watching the trailers, but really looking forward to this. I saw Hereditary just a few days ago and loved it.

Conflicted about watching the trailer; considering Hereditary’s trailer had as much deception as some of the choices in the film itself, I can only imagine the Midsommar trailer would be well-crafted and avoid giving away anything you wouldn’t want it to ahead of time.

midsommar murders

Yes please:

https://pitchfork.com/news/the-haxan-cloak-releasing-score-for-new-film-midsommar/

interestingly polarized reactions on twitter so far, many raves but a few vicious dissenters. should be interesting.

I feel like this type of movie should be perfect for me, but they never go dark enough.

Hm. Okay, hopefully non-spoilery thoughts: Aster's metier, clearly, is trauma and survivorhood. That's what he explores, consistently. The question is how he constructs the vehicle. In this case I would add there's a definite sense being raised of *how* trauma/survivorhood is understood and interpreted not merely by the survivor but those around the survivor, especially, in this case, beyond family as understood, as opposed to <I>Hereditary</I>'s clear internal focus on family. I think this film will be one to reflect on with time, I'm not entirely sure how I feel about it, and I look forward to others' thoughts. Beyond that: beautifully shot (the all-encompassing/oppressive sense of light and its rare muting or absence is handled extremely carefully), some actual funny moments, truly striking diagetic (mostly) Haxan Cloak score. Will say that how the scenes are stacked to show all sorts of activity going on that is never fully explained (and doesn't need to be explained) is one of the film's strong points. Would add that this is clearly a case where if you know your horror tropes you kinda know where it's all going, which may or may not frustrate you -- this isn't <I>Wicker Man</I> redux, say, but it's a film that knows its heritage. Final note: it's LONG. Give into a pee break if you think you need it.

Oh and this is accurate:

#Midsommar spoilers out of context. pic.twitter.com/B70gkiMb8K

— JustinKnoepfel (@JustinKnoepfel) July 3, 2019

tbh I just want to know how long it takes them to kill the black guy

Final note: it's LONG. Give into a pee break if you think you need it

This gave me pause. But I'm going to a 10 a.m. screening. See you on the other side!

140 minutes

comedy and horror generally benefit from being compact

roundup (possible spoilers)

https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/6472-ari-aster-returns-with-midsommar

gonna end up seeing this despite how much i hated hereditary, hoping for the best. the length does not give me a lot of hope tbh

Also, now that I’ve had a night to sleep on it — sound design is pretty crucial in this film. Grief and its aftereffects are portrayed visually (natch) but the underscoring of how someone can *hear* differently in its throes is something that really stands out to me all the more. Like it is an aural representation of shock and what it means to work through it — things are murky, unclear, you feel disoriented, sudden memories overwhelm you and your senses don’t ‘work.’ Again, it’s there visually to a degree but the sound design really underscores it, and arguably has both vivid moments of sudden actualization in the narrative, making itself manifest and then part of a greater whole, leading to an ending where it is absolutely central on several levels. This might be one of the strongest such efforts in terms of how grief is portrayed since Twin Peaks season 3, though instead of Lynch’s operatic dream tragedy and confusion via sound, this is somewhere where we are constantly looped back into an internal headspace projected outward. It’s very striking the more I think about it.

the length does not give me a lot of hope tbh

An edit or two wouldn't've hurt anything.

Took me a little more thought but I finally put my finger on something that helps me think about the film: two themes, maybe more implied than directly stated, are culpability and conscious guilt. This plays out to the end, but in a way where I’m not entirely sure whether the resultant ambiguity is intentional. This could just be an overread on my part, though.

Also manipulation is more obviously central as well the more I think about this. I was initially treating the cult trappings as just that but the more I think about it the more obvious it is that you have to separate the actual 'trappings' part -- the rituals, the visuals, etc. -- from what a cult is like in any form. This all still feeds into grief as the core. And I'll finally stop for now.

It's dark enough.

I am intrigued by some ppl criticizing it for being not scary/horror-y enough (not seen yet), since I rewatched The Wicker Man recently and it reminded me how just a few plot trappings and a creepy scene or two were once more than enough to earn you the tag. Now people tend to whinge about classification if it's not wall-to-wall slayings or hauntings.

Yeah this is a movie with a very slow burn, one or two incredibly grotesque scenes, and the aftermath of same.

my main point of curiosity is what this guy can do without the WMD that was Toni Collette. Don't think I can handle a Hereditary rewatch just yet but I'm unsure how much of what I loved about that movie was her or the direction.

This movie is unthinkable (and unendurable) with the casting of Florence Pugh.

without, you mean?

haven't seen her in anything so don't have any expectations.

tired: midsommar

wired: midsummer murders

yeah, without

haven't seen her in anything so don't have any expectations.

See Lady Macbeth at first opportunity.

yep

oh shit, i had forgotten about that and yes she is amazing in it. that's reassuring.

the emphasis on casting and performance as being discrete and separable from directing is....weird to me

Alfred's got his review up -- there are spoilers so only read if you've seen it or if you know you're not going to, but I think it's a very sharp read on the film, including problems that I didn't address properly (but which DJP rightly noted upthread):

https://humanizingthevacuum.wordpress.com/2019/07/03/midsommar-wants-to-be-more-than-a-horror-film/

when you’re at an elite festival but IG is down pic.twitter.com/UGzBCtGTCG

— Eric Allen Hatch (@ericallenhatch) July 3, 2019

I literally just got out of this film and one of my first thoughts was “I bet Eric Hatch is on this”

Alfred's got his review up -- there are spoilers so only read if you've seen it or if you know you're not going to, but I think it's a very sharp read on the film, including problems that I didn't address properly (but which DJP rightly noted upthread):

I finished the thread, just read DJP's remark -- yep. The racial politics are....fucked up.

The racial politics are....fucked up.

I'm not gonna get around to this movie till it's on Amazon Prime, so if answering my questions would require too much spoilage feel free to ignore me, but...is there much made of the black guy being "a black guy," or is he just seen by the villagers/cultists as "not from here" just like the other protagonists? In other words, is his role in the film to be "the black guy" or is he a real character? And if it's the latter, why is it necessary or even good for a film set in a weird European village to hew to contemporary US racial politics?

You know what, never mind.

The summary on Wikipedia doesn’t even mention which character is black.

why is it necessary or even good for a film set in a weird European village to hew to contemporary US racial politics?

I mean, the writer-director is American (along with, we can assume, the bulk of the financing) and the festival is made up, so it hardly seems out of bounds

It's also a well-known horror trope that black people in those movies largely exist to be brutally murdered in front of or in the vicinity of the Final Girl

I'm not gonna get around to this movie till it's on Amazon Prime, so if answering my questions would require too much spoilage feel free to ignore me, but...is there much made of the black guy being "a black guy," or is he just seen by the villagers/cultists as "not from here" just like the other protagonists?

SPOILER

All these things, and he's the most committed to research, the smartest, yet he must collaborate with the boyfriend-asshole.

Lots of insane stuff in this movie but IMHO the most audacious move was to visually reference the Wicker Man remake during the climax. That is some next level cinematic trolling.

Good new Haxan Cloak interview re the score:

https://thequietus.com/articles/26744-the-haxan-cloak-midsommar-ari-aster-bobby-krlic-interview

Also worth noting — when I mentioned to my partner how I thought all the constant background activity was one of the film’s best points, she immediately said it made her think of Drowning By Numbers. Lo and behold, Krlic brings up that both he and Aster bonded over a mutual Peter Greenaway love among other things.

Seeing this tonight, but another thing I find interesting about this guy's movies is that no one can seem to agree about their degree of intentionality. I saw someone on twitter argue, for instance, that the ending of this one was "funny" and "wasn't supposed to be." Meanwhile in an AVClub interview Aster says he thinks of the movie as a dark comedy and specifically cited the ending!

I’m a bit bemused at the idea of seeing this film and thinking the humour was unintentional

Ari Aster is incredible at inserting bleak humor into his films. The reveal at the start of his short The Strange Thing About the Johnsons is simultaneously the darkest and funniest sight gag I think I've ever seen.

I enjoyed this.

Spoilery question - after the boyfriend was supposedly taken to the airport, did anybody else hear a woman screaming in the scene a few minutes later?

Yeah that was clearly Connie.

Figured. Thought that was a great touch. It was unsettling.

Loooooooved this for so many reasons. Haven’t read the thread yet. Some things I liked including but not limited to :
— casting no famous ppl, yes
— Dani was perfect, the intro scenes set up her emotional state perfectly, her face!!
— in spite of some of the gruesome scenes (the cliff!!), nothing about this movie rung gross to me
— I’ve never seen a cis het male character so obviously uncomfortable in a sex scene and I appreciated that, nice change of pace

SPOILERS!

Dug this a lot, though it's definitely too long. It could have painlessly lost 20-30 minutes. I'm a big fan of the way Aster juxtaposes fussy imagery with lowbrow humor. (I did wonder how many of Poulter's lines were ADR'd in after the fact.) Pugh was of course great but I really loved Reynor in this, so convincingly loathsome in a way we all recognize, yet also touchingly pathetic throughout the final act. (It helped that I related deeply to his physical discomfort while surrounded by revelry, having recently enjoyed a nervous breakdown whilst on vacation.)

I don't really understand Alfred's objection here:

Coming after a battle with Christian about who will take credit over their shared thesis about village customs, it’s hard to know who’s exploiting whom when it’s easier to see which minority gets punished for being smart; Aster stages the scene as if Josh is getting his comeuppance.

I mean, he *is*, for blatantly disrespecting an explicit rule pretty gravely given to him a couple of scenes earlier. It's in character, too, since it makes sense that he would be driven to do a distinctly better job than Reynor's character and will take any advantage he can get. He's not punished for "being smart." I get that it plays differently given the tropes associated w/ black guys in horror movies but I don't think it's fair to say that it's staged with glee or lingering violence compared to, say, the extended daytime hillside-mallet deaths. (Also, if DJP is looking for a precise answer to his earlier question: WJH bites it in roughly the order of his billing, and the final girl isn't really involved in any fashion.)

If there's an obvious political objection to this movie, I would think it would be the use of the disfigured inbred character, which is some straight-out-of-the-70s (or earlier) shit. Though Reynor and Harper's cultural relativism/detached academic interest in the proceedings was fairly timeless.

Also, Krlic's score was cool, and way out of his Haxan Cloak wheelhouse, but I can't imagine listening to it in isolation like I sometimes do with Stetson's score for Hereditary.

I’ve never seen a cis het male character so obviously uncomfortable in a sex scene and I appreciated that, nice change of pace

this was very deliberate it seems

https://www.thewrap.com/midsommar-jack-reynor-full-frontal-nudity-ari-aster/

"If there's an obvious political objection to this movie, I would think it would be the use of the disfigured inbred character, which is some straight-out-of-the-70s (or earlier) shit."

It's weirdly never used though... except for a couple of shots and then the incest "joke".

I really liked this and it was only in the last twenty or so minutes that I was like wait how fucking long is this movie??!?! it really breezes along nicely until then. I am going to make a lot of jokes about my Swedish friends from now on too.

I knew it was long going in and I didn’t feel any drag at all even tho my screening finished up around midnight

I did wonder how many of Poulter's lines were ADR'd in after the fact.)

A lot of the dialogue had the feel of obvious adr, disembodied and too-prominent whether it’s a background character or protagonist, which is a part of the sound design Ned was talking about

I wonder if when they cast William Jackson Harper, there was any thought as to maybe poking fun at the extreme whiteness of the cult and how clearly they only go for *certain types* of outsiders for "breeding purposes." Seems like a missed opportunity for a few extra lols

For once a reason to share a Bustle link:

https://www.bustle.com/p/the-breathing-in-midsommar-serves-a-much-larger-purpose-than-just-creeping-you-out-18136430

I am so into Krlic's score for this, can't wait to see the actual film

tbh I just want to know how long it takes them to kill the black guy

― brigadier pudding (DJP), Wednesday, July 3, 2019 9:08 AM (four days ago) bookmarkflaglink

Point acknowledged. On the other hand, how about Dani and horror's "last girl" tradition?

At any rate, I would compare it to Get Out--this beautiful and elite community is in a way recruiting you, but it is very much on *their* terms. And I liked the retort to the American stereotype of the Scandinavian countries as free love with blond bombshells (of both genders).

Surprisingly didn't mind or notice the length, kept me hooked til the end, at the same time I'm also just like WHY the fuck would you ever go to a place like this or accept an invitation...

Great follow-up to Hereditary in that it was very much its own thing, didn't feel at all rushed (like Us), and the question of whether or not it's better than Hereditary never occurred to me, they're both very good. no sophomore slump at all.

I can see the black comedy angle. I gotta read more interviews with this guy.

many xps but what was the Wicker Man remake reference? the bear?

Aster is clearly a major director - I hope he does something other than horror next, just to switch it up.

I found Jack Reynor weirdly cute.

he looked like bootleg Chris Pine to me. like a Chris Pine marionette. he has very big eyes

Chris Pine + Seth Rogen

^ great elevator pitch for a remake of The Fly

Aster is clearly a major director - I hope he does something other than horror next, just to switch it up.

― flappy bird, Sunday, July 7, 2019 1:46 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

he doesn't seem to like horror very much so probably

For someone who hates horror he sure loves staging horror setpieces and paying homage to classic horror movies

Yeah, what? Read an interview with him recently where he said he spent his youth renting and watching just about every horror movie he could get his hands on.

hereditary’s only a horror movie bc that’s how he could secure the funding, should i have said “he doesn’t seem to actually want to make horror”? is there a particular reason everyone’s jumping down my throat to defend the eli roth of elevated horror cinema

i’m seeing this thursday btw

sorry y'all, i really hate ari aster but i'm gonna try to like this comedy anyway

"the eli roth of elevated horror cinema" is an excellent grade-A burn

i don't think it's accurate but it's a solid attempt at being caustic

i *am* being mean

hereditary’s only a horror movie bc that’s how he could secure the funding, should i have said “he doesn’t seem to actually want to make horror”

This is I think more accurate and doesn’t I think really matter

i think it's totally fair that other people don't think it matters

Several friends who disdain horror have, guess what, embraced this one because It Transcends Horror.

Midsommer is the Frank Ocean of horror.

ppl say that shit about rosemary’s baby too and it’s also good

hated this so much. peace out!

lol

I’m seeing it again tomorrow, will be interesting to see how it holds up

I made it years with no Hereditary spoilers, but I'm going to try to see this one a lot faster. Alas, first spoiler: it's apparently 2 1/2 hours long! Gonna be tough to find a window.

I know it's only been a day. I need to watch his shorts to confirm my suspicions. But the more time I get away from both of his features, the less I like them and the more this criticism rings true (via Letterboxd):

this guy has built his rep on being solid at the drama stuff (directing actors) and really swinging for the fences with the horror/gore shit but has completely failed to synthesize them in any real way so its all just kinda thrown together into a collection of scenes that actually work, until they dont - i guess the real accomplishment is making drama audiences watch gore & gore audiences watch a drama?? in this & hereditary all the real-life family tragedy shit is wielded like a kid who just discovered racial slurs, excited that hes "hacked" his way into getting a emotional reaction - its unsettling but kinda empty & irresponsible

Honestly feels OTM - when I wished that he would switch it up next time, I was sure he could. Can he though? Midsommar is more consistent than Hereditary but it doesn't top the first half of that movie. Oh my god, the ending of that movie is such a fucking joke! During a lot of Midsommar, I had that stupid "HAIL KING PAIMON!" chant stuck in my head. I know he loves Bergman and shit but could he make something like Cries and Whispers? Midsommar might be as close as he gets.

The strategic use of wild, insane violence/gore feels essential to Hereditary (less so this one, and here it feels almost perfunctory because all of the big kills come at regularly scheduled interviews & they're not a surprise). So I'm not as confident in him as a writer, but he is certainly a talented director - one thing that doesn't get enough credit is the camera in both of these movies, which moves with such authority and inhumanity. But I'd like to see the pre-horror draft of Hereditary.

*intervals

Lol I love the ending of hereditary

What did you think about “HAIL SATAN” in rb?

I still have no idea what "elevated horror" means. horror with elaborate production design?

Probably someone's way of saying "better than that icky quicky genre trash."

Isn’t it just prestige/respectable/middlebrow? Not worth fussing too much about imo

xp yeah

xps

I think it works in RB because that movie is so much more rigorous and disciplined. As it goes on, you're just getting trapped in the Dakota, the walls are closing in, you're SURE that this all has to be in Rosemary's head, the tension just keeps rising until that final reveal and BAM it's actually fucking Satan! the casting of that group is essential too imo, they're genuinely fucking scary- and the line "HAIL SATAN!" is like popping the balloon of a nightmare only to wake up into a worse reality!

the second half of Hereditary is too undisciplined and there's too much space, doesn't feel focused, and the cult is much more obscure and less scary. there isn't that claustrophobic, and completely plausible dread that RB has. of course you could argue that Hereditary might be all in someone's head, but idk to me the crucial difference between the two is that RB never loses its realism while Hereditary just runs itself off the road.

That's a dumb moviegoer distinction. What does it mean on a formal or aesthetic level? Xp

Nothing

xp you make a persuasive argument!

"irresponsible" genre cinema is a very funny idea, to me

"elevated horror" is horror that goes up to HERE

must be this elevated to attend Midsommar

i do plan to go in higher than god

Rosemary's Baby also had a novel as source material and hand rail.

Yeah I heard a lot of ppl say it transcended the source material

Brad I think you will like Midsommar better, or at least I think it has fewer of the qualities you hated in Hereditary

that Letterboxd comment has a lot of otm

I have to say my least favorite take I've seen (elsewhere) so far is "oh so this guy's trick is showing women in visceral grief huh"

this guy is no von trier

Good thing too.

Oh God let's keep the von trier wars out of this thread

Yeah, good idea.

A point I haven't seen brought up as much, perhaps addressed earlier in the thread -- there's nothing explicitly supernatural happening in Midsommar at all (which, I suppose, is very Wicker Man too). Lots of ritual, sacrifice, etc. etc. but at no point is there a formal externalized sense that there's actually something beyond an explanation of things having always been like that.

Related to which, I kinda appreciated how there wasn't an actual 'head' of the cult as such. Leading figures, sure, but there was a kind of mutability happening, no one in specific making a final call, which fits in with the whole collective idea. And whatever practical considerations were or weren't happening as well, I kinda liked the weird sense that I got that the actual cult membership wasn't...consistent somehow. Again, could be sloppy filmmaking (kinda doubt that given Aster's obvious eye for the obsessive), could be down to what extras were available on what days, but I'd need a rewatch to see if it was always the same people each time filling out the corners, because it suited the air of dreaminess/otherworldy activity, combined with the idea of shifting and damaged perceptions.

that is a good point, and it's in the film's favor that it is basically realistic or plausible at the very least - makes me want to see it again, which I probably will tomorrow. I have no desire to see Hereditary again because the ending just eliminates any ambiguity for me, and severely complicates the whole thing and bungles an otherwise compelling & ambiguous movie.

One thing I keep thinking about is the final shot. the only time that Dani smiles in the entire movie?

did anyone else think of Sigur Ros when she said thank you in swedish

For me the plausibility stumble could, also, be intentional. If the cult has been doing this every 90 years, well, sure -- nine people (or less) mysteriously disappear, it could happen. But it's 2019(ish), and people have cell phones, social media, etc. etc., and part of me thinks the film ends at just the right spot because it's almost like two days later there'll be the first breathless CNN reports about a clutch of young college students from the US and UK that have all not reported back after planned vacations and the mass arrests are about to follow. Which reads as even MORE darkly comic to me than all of what's already evident!

So yeah, that exultant smiling final shot -- and I think it pretty much is the only time, at least the only notable one -- could also be what's about to be her last real moment of happiness on several levels. I absolutely love how by ending as it does there are any number of future possible fates for the character, and they all read as very, very possible.

I thought the internet didn't exist in Sweden. Ingmar Bergman said so.

she smiles a few other times but that was one of the only true grin from-the-depths smile rather than a polite smile. i loved her facial expressions throughout the movie.

also did anyone else notice that the girl who was approved to mate had red hair and the outlander mate she chose also had reddish hair? i feel like they only showed his hair in the sunlight (revealing it to be more reddish than brown or blonde) after it was revealed that she had chosen him.

I have no desire to see Hereditary again because the ending just eliminates any ambiguity for me, and severely complicates the whole thing and bungles an otherwise compelling & ambiguous movie.

o t m

Fuck ambiguity.

Otm. Ambiguity seems like a perfect argument for people who *haven't seen the fucking movie yet* to rail against it guns blazing. Fuck that.

i am complaining about hereditary, a film i saw

Fetishizing "ambiguity" in movies is some classist middlebrow bullshit.

go on

fkn rosebud amirite?

and yes i think it gets so narrow and boxed-in by the end that the story loses all imagination and any fascination for me, if you love that good for you xp

Fetishizing "ambiguity" in movies is some classist middlebrow bullshit.

― shared unit of analysis (unperson), Monday, July 8, 2019

I thought the complaint about middlebrow entertainment was its clarity and narrative inevitability?

ambiguity seems like a pretty elemental part of horror as a genre to me, your mileage may fuckin vary i guess

Ambiguity about what, though? To take a recent example I saw (because I generally don't watch horror movies), did you like Get Out? Did that movie contain ambiguity?

i started the get out thread! get out is an effective polemic so it does not necessarily require ambiguity, no, ok i take it back

but also i think it plays with ambiguity until the hypnosis scene, and generally offers a lot to think about beyond that. hereditary offered me absolutely nothing to think about except toni collette's performance and ari aster's hatred for his own characters

I don’t think ambiguity is de facto good, or bad, or fundamental to horror, or... classist?

That is my take

also i am using "polemic" incorrectly i think

ari aster's hatred for his own characters
this is also overstated and not otm imo

what i mean is that the politics of get out are very unambiguous in a good way

Guys

i love to overstate and be wrong, it is my true purpose itt

I thought the complaint about middlebrow entertainment was its clarity and narrative inevitability?

Upper-middlebrow entertainment--at least since Last Year at Marienbad--has seized on ambiguity as a signifier of quality.

Brad i think you should just see the movie. it's enjoyable if you like this sort of thing! i do. i was worried that the wicker man parallels would put me off because i am such a fan of the original, but there were a lot of different things to like. i like drama for horror people and horror for drama people. i especially like dirgey processions and would enjoy more of them in movies tbh.

*indicates upthread* i'm! seeing it on thursday! i guess i should complain about hereditary in its own thread but i thought flappy was otm!

but i agree with simon, i expect to like this a lot more than hereditary

i did and i thought hereditary was pretty great! i hope you enjoy it. try to have an open mind :)

[spoilers for hereditary stop reading if you haven't seen it] a lot of horror movies turn on the "is this really happening? oh my god it's really happening" axis and i guess where hereditary rubbed me wrong is what's really happening is fuckin boring and also stops dead a pretty decent exploration of the way profound grief and guilt ripples through a family so we can watch toni collette saw her own head off in mid-air. which in and of itself is a neat and disturbing image but also seemed to be the film running out of ideas and gas. are we so hypnotized by the trauma inflicted on us that we are doomed not only to repeat it but to become sacrificial goats in mom's satanic nudist colony? idk, but it's not coherent, and the incoherence doesn't suggest anything interesting to me. i came away feeling cheated and manipulated

this is what i meant when i quoted flappy's post, the whole thing just flattened out for me. looking forward to midsommar see y'all thursday

I get that feeling; it's why I detest Funny Games.

o_0

I dislike Funny Games too. It's easy if you try!

I didn't like Funny Games either.

I did like Hereditary a lot though.

That's a good take from Brad indeed. Realizing he's gone until Thursday -- yes, this is all 'really happening' in Midsommar, and arguably both the break-up dark comedy (an angle I caught here and there while watching, since the film certainly is often quite funny, but which admittedly became even clearer thanks to the various thoughts and interviews) and the relentless sense of building sacrifice of some sort are meant to be inescapably real. But that's where I think the less-remarked-about trauma portrayed in Midsommar may be stronger than the blood feasts, namely the suicide/murder that starts off the whole film and immediately isolates Dani as an orphan -- in a way, you could argue the slyest move of Aster's here was closely but not exactly reproducing the circumstances of the end of Hereditary where there's a family reduced to one survivor and putting that as the start, as well as establishing that (as far as can be seen) Dani literally has nobody else to turn to aside from Christian and his immediate circle. And of course Dani's family's collective death isn't bloodily gruesome -- her sister's appearance is haunting and wrenching, certainly, but not a gorefest, and her parents just seem to be asleep -- but that image literally recurs at key parts as her interpretive subconscious working hard. The whole subtext throughout the film really is "I have lost EVERYTHING," and by showing that loss -- instead of, say, referring to it, starting the movie in the aftermath or the like -- much of the rest follows.

And yeah, fuck Funny Games. Both versions.

Let's not put a limit on the number of reasons one gets to detest Funny Games.

Seriously that movie was horrible. No love for Funny Games the movie but I do think humans are the worst monsters in general. I didn't get the same vibe from Hereditary at all. One of the things i liked most about MIDSOMMAR was the way intense trauma kept reappearing and also receding for Dani. Felt very real to me.

I also wondered if Paal (? the guy who invited them to the commune) was telling the truth about how he ended up there (being orphaned) or if he was just trying to persuade her to stay. if he was genuinely empathizing with her, that's another interesting wrinkle imo.

Detesting Funny Games is fine, I was bemused at the idea that it's a weirdo ambiguous setup where what's happening may not be real for the family

tbf I was reacting mostly to this: what's really happening is fuckin boring[...] i came away feeling cheated and manipulated

Like, good on you dude, you did a violent meta movie about how movie violence is terrible. Why weren't you brave enough to cut out all of the grandstanding "I INDICT YOU, AUDIENCE" 4th-wall breaking since it actually undercut the point you were trying to make?

It didn’t undercut the premise so much as it absolved him of the blanket condemnation, even though as the director of the film he deserved it most.

Aside from the notion that no genre more readily invites audiences to dig around for metaphoric signifiers than horror. Unless that’s the point that Haneke was making, in the end ... that it’s all to easy to commit atrocities and then hide within the cloak of “society, man”-ing

You’ll forgive me for only having seen that movie once a long time ago and having going on about my life ever since.

You could sleep, too, couldn't you?

Aside from the notion that no genre more readily invites audiences to dig around for metaphoric signifiers than horror. Unless that’s the point that Haneke was making, in the end ... that it’s all to easy to commit atrocities and then hide within the cloak of “society, man”-ing

― Pauline Male (Eric H.), Monday, July 8, 2019 11:34 PM (twenty minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Bang on. One for the liner notes of the Criterion 25th anniversary release.

I was impressed that the festival went so well, considering nobody from the previous one would be alive to offer feedback from the previous one

Thought the same thing! Also, why 90? Why 72? They died at 72 right, so 18 years = enough time to create a new generation? For sure their methods for passing down knowledge left a lot to the imagination considering their method of following their designated “oracle”.They said very little about that.

"btw the killing innocent people thing doesn't work - our next harvest was terrible. Please exclude the killing from all subsequent festivals"

maybe that was the signified in some of the cool folk art on the walls of the temples and bunkhouses

I was a little confused as to how they could have so many photographs of May Queens when the festival only hap ends every 90 years. My impression was that they crown one every summer solstice but only perform the rites at that interval.

Also, Pelle said his parents were lost in a fire, which made me think they were lost to the rites, but that doesn't exactly uhh line up temporally speaking

I'm not entirely sure I liked this, and look forward to reading this thread and other reviews. But much of this felt as if Eli Roth came across an unproduced script by Stanley Kubrick inspired by the lyrics to "Stairway to Heaven."

Irdg the Eli Roth comparisons. For starters the Roth version of this would be about 20x more violent. (Tbh this movie already exists and it's called The Green Inferno.)

Are other people bringing up Eli Roth? I think it may stem from the repeated references to them being Americans, and also two of the characters/victims being utter douchebags, and certainly all of them being somewhat insensitive to this weird enclave. Also, yeah, doesn't help that Green Inferno came out just a few years ago. There's more going on with this one, but I'm not sure how much more, or What It Means.

Who did the score? Very Popol Vuh.

Haxan Cloak.

The Eli Roth of witch house.

The Ugly Americanocity in this was pretty muted beyond Poulter's character.

Small thing perhaps but: got a very Twin Peaks season 3 vibe from Dani's dream sequence with that dark smoke from her mouth. Also thought it was a weirdly inadvertant (?) similarity in that moment with a key image from Us re Adelaide's silent scream near the start.

yeah I thought the whole thesis stealing thing was an unnecessary diversion, I didn't think the movie dragged but that feels like something that could've been cut and folded into something else, all it really does it further establish what a passive aggressive dishonest prick the boyfriend is.

Americanism is brought up explicitly a couple of times. At one point lead Nice Cult Guy basically says "you're American, so just butt into the dance" or something. Which is fine, but I was hoping it would go ... further? There were a lot of things I wish went further with this, aside from the running time, esp. since the ending is more or less inevitable. I wish this movie had a clearer point/message/metaphor/theme to it, the way "Hereditary" (sort of) did. Like, I could sort of see Josh just going with the nuttiness - it's implied he knows what's going to happen at the cliff the night before, though weirdly he doesn't react like he knew. And he's always looking things up and appearing concerned. But he and Christian (and everyone) sort of just keep going after that cliff episode, and Christian specifically seems to be almost hypnotized. But he's not? It was unclear, to me at least.

If there was any humor in this it's in the/that lack of humor. I mean, it's ridiculous, but when people start vanishing but everyone remains in their hippie haze (even as they quietly freak out) it's kind of amusing, I guess. I'm trying to remember what else specifically this is reminding me of. Bunel? Something like that.

Something I missed in this movie (per the usual): at one point the sacred book supposedly goes missing. And then it shows up later. Why was this even a plot point?

And I know grief and trauma is kind of this guy's thing, but I'm not even sure what to make of the whole beginning of the movie, and what the death of her family had to do with anything other than her being upset all the time. I'm not even sure how much time passes before the movie gets to the meat. That was confusing as well, when it's revealed that Christian and her have been a couple for four years. Really? These guys don't seem like they could sustain a relationship for a month.

Just weirded out by this movie. It's so formally disciplined, but other aspects of it are oddly incomplete (and not in an intentionally elliptical sense, afaict).

FWIW, this and "Hereditary" have near-constant drug use (both prescription and not). In "Hereditary" the kid is always smoking pot, and the parents are popping pills. In this one, she at one point pops a pill (Ativan? anti-anxiety meds?), they're all smoking pot, they get to the Swedish village and immediately take mushrooms, and then the rest of the time drink psychedelic tea, and she's constantly bumming sleeping pills. I don't know what to make of any of this.

You know what I think is a solid Swedish cult (literally) movie? "The Ritual." I thought the characters and relationships were better drawn than they were in this one.

Re: their relationship, most people don't break up anywhere near the "correct" time, and life events artificially extending otherwise terminal relationships is absolutely a thing. Nothing about their dynamic was remotely unrealistic.

Well, I say it was. Four years! Even if the relationship is on life support, that's a long way to go with a person you're not into.

yeah I think we have all seen that couple before

I guess? Even then, kind of like the backstory with her family, I don't see what difference it made that they were even or ever were a couple, beyond rigging a way to get her to Sweden. Maybe if they built the story into a better allegory for a bad relationship or something? Which would have added another element of paranoia to it, maybe.

I agree, I think they should've lost the murder-suicide and done a similarly compressed version of their relationship or something. I think the construction of that opening sequence is superb, all of the jumps in time (in continuous shots!) are fantastic, but that whole situation just feels like a quick justification for her being upset all the time. it's not an intense study of grief like Hereditary, it moves on pretty quickly...

Like, if the movie started with them on the plane, landing in Sweden, I'm not sure what would have been lost. And then if he really wanted to he could have alluded to her family tragedy, or the status of their relationship or something, because as it is these characters are just sketches, which is sort of generic horror movie 101. Versus "Hereditary," where the characters are well drawn and complicated enough that you're thinking about their motives and behavior all the way up to the end. In this movie, they're just fodder, albeit much slower, offscreen-death fodder.

I get that feeling; it's why I detest Funny Games.

This guy is a huge Haneke fan, isn't he?

(googles) Yes he is.

Actually, the more I think about this movie (as I clean the house and prep dinner) the more I think it's kind of full of shit. Don't regret seeing it and look forward to his next film! But I think it's pretty vapid. I had just seen "Hereditary," and though I knew she wouldn't like it I did want to tell my wife about it, and there was a lot to tell! But this one, I'd be, like, "there's a group of college students who go to a weird hippie colony/cult in middle of nowhere Sweden, and they all die." Which, yeah, doesn't really do the film justice, but everything else beyond that is about the formal elements, how it looks, how it is shot, etc. But there's no there there, and that includes surprises, which "Hereditary" has in spades.

dani's attraction to the cult and the inevitability with which she finds her place in it would make no sense without the depiction of her alienation as she tried to bury her trauma to accommodate christian and his friends. the emotional mirroring of the women, the synchronized breathing, and the theatrical ritualized suicides are cathartic in contrast to the isolated grieving she was doing previously.

Just popping in to note that the visuals were very authentic and, if I'd been feeling a touch more sensitive, panic inducing

And that Christian being named Christian was a bit on the nose. I loved it tho

dani's attraction to the cult and the inevitability with which she finds her place in it would make no sense without the depiction of her alienation as she tried to bury her trauma to accommodate christian and his friends. the emotional mirroring of the women, the synchronized breathing, and the theatrical ritualized suicides are cathartic in contrast to the isolated grieving she was doing previously.

― karl...arlk...rlka...lkar..., Tuesday, July 9, 2019 4:09 PM (eight minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Good points!

I never felt much of an attraction between Dani and the cult, aside from when she's drugged and/or politely going along with what they ask her to do. But maybe this is another problem with painting her as a wreck from the very start. I didn't get the impression she was alienated in some existential sense. She has a really shitty boyfriend and her sister and parents just died in a murder/suicide. She needs more than mere "catharsis," and I don't buy that the horrors of the cult offered even that. Not least because she's by every indication trapped there. In that regard, I did get a vibe of fatalism from Dani. Like, what choice did she have? Scream and run away?

Christian and Josh seem much more attracted to the cult. When Dani goes to Christian and notes, hey, isn't it weird that British guy just vanished? And his reaction is more or less literally "yeah, that is weird. So, cult member, talk to me about incest." I thought there was going to be another Rosemary's Baby-esque element where they gave her up for sacrifice in return for the idyllic cult life, esp. after she has the vision of them all leaving without her. But no.

I just don't think she is a well-written character, especially not compared to Toni Collette's character in "Hereditary," who is handling so much more, from grief and trauma to possible mental illness to her terrible childhood to her own failings as a parent. Keeps you on your toes as a viewer. But here I got no depth or complexity from anyone.

I also don't even know how isolated her grieving was to begin with. She has a (bad) boyfriend, who nonetheless dutifully hangs around when she asks. And she has a therapist. It's not like she was aimlessly floating through life, though she easily could have been written that way, so that the cult offered something she was lacking. Hell, the cult could have been presented as "I know a relaxing place where you can get away from it all." And then we see what she is or is not willing to tolerate in terms of weirdness in pursuit of her own well-being ... until it is too late! Or something. Kind of like the new age colony satire that was in "The Howling" or something.

dutifully hangs around when she asks.

Yes he’s totally there for her, who could feel isolated with someone so technically present

If anything I did get the sense that she shoehorned herself onto the trip because she didn't want to be left alone, and because she was desperate to hold onto this wet-blanket of a boyfriend at any costs. Though from the first minute she is in the colony she seems ill at ease and uncomfortable, both around her erstwhile boyfriend and the cult members themselves. Perhaps she realizes she made a mistake, but really, crashing a boys trip with people who do not like you (not even your boyfriend) to a remote Swedish cult seems like a pretty bad idea from the start.

Here's another way it could have been handled. She goes through some unseen trauma, could be any number of things. She has nightmares, anxiety attacks. Friend of friend Pelle tells her about a place where she can get her head on straight. She tells her boyfriend, I think I need to do this, and he reluctantly lets her go. She arrives in the village to find several other newcomers in her situation. Things start out idyllic, but then things get weird.

Screw the boyfriend and those other people, they add nothing to the story, hers or otherwise.

Yes it's a shame Ari Aster didn't make a completely different movie that you just made up and called it Midsommar

At one point lead Nice Cult Guy basically says "you're American, so just butt into the dance" or something.

Christian asks if he can join in after getting flirtily kicked by the redheaded girl, doing a piss-poor job of hiding the fact that he wants to chase after her, and dani clearly notices; Swedish guy says that funny line, one of many good jokes in this film; josh eagerly joins in too because that's his whole deal. This scene is a p good example of how everyone's relationships and motivations are made abundantly clear and drive the narrative

But he and Christian (and everyone) sort of just keep going after that cliff episode, and Christian specifically seems to be almost hypnotized. But he's not? It was unclear, to me at least.

if you believe the cult's "little love story" tapestry he is literally hypnotised due to the various stages of the love spell, but it's more likely that he's staying around because he's a shit. It's made very clear he's fascinated by/lusts after the redheaded girl - his reactions to her mirror exactly the scene at the beginning with the waitress ("you could be impregnating her right now") - while trying to maintain a veneer of reluctance. Him staying also fits his whole "we don't have to, unless you want to" pass agg vibe, he won't just leave dani but he wants her to cut him loose (eventually she does, in the happy ending). PLUS the extra bit of venality re the thesis: he's a Mediocre Dude™ with no ideas of his own and a path to success opens up in front of him.

If there was any humor in this

there was, like, throughout

I never felt much of an attraction between Dani and the cult, aside from when she's drugged and/or politely going along with what they ask her to do. But maybe this is another problem with painting her as a wreck from the very start. I didn't get the impression she was alienated in some existential sense. She has a really shitty boyfriend and her sister and parents just died in a murder/suicide. She needs more than mere "catharsis," and I don't buy that the horrors of the cult offered even that. Not least because she's by every indication trapped there. In that regard, I did get a vibe of fatalism from Dani. Like, what choice did she have? Scream and run away?
Christian and Josh seem much more attracted to the cult. When Dani goes to Christian and notes, hey, isn't it weird that British guy just vanished? And his reaction is more or less literally "yeah, that is weird. So, cult member, talk to me about incest." I thought there was going to be another Rosemary's Baby-esque element where they gave her up for sacrifice in return for the idyllic cult life, esp. after she has the vision of them all leaving without her. But no.

I don't know what to tell you, man. The attraction is there and they underline why at every point. She's just lost her entire family and has come to a place where she's explicitly told she can stay and not be an orphan, and the alternatives are painted pretty grimly. She finds a supportive network of women (that therapy session was incredible and I want to post more about it but even before that bit) and every single time she makes a decision to go further along with the ceremony in that last half hour it's accompanied by her glaring for like a minute at a time at her awful boyfriend who's ignoring her. You can "buy it" or not, but that's the movie.

The whole film is about the terror of feeling pain alone vs the community's sharing of your pain. It's about the difference between gasping quietly in a toilet so nobody hears you having a panic attack vs screaming and having everyone around you scream with you. It's also about BURNING YOUR FUCKING SHIT BOYFRIEND because HE'S FUCKING SHIT.

Really not into Josh's ideas for a remake, basically.

^^^

one of the funniest bits is when Christian is fleeing from what he's just done with the young girl and starts to run toward the building the women are in, but then hears their screams of anguish-turned-strength and realises that that's definitely where he does NOT want to go

Haha, yes. I really adored this film, if you couldn't tell. I have to keep reminding myself that the commune are bad, because I just want to go there and scream it out with my girls. That scene completely floored me.

Emil.y super otm

There was a LOT of humor in this movie! Not just dialog but visual and physical performance gags. Overt ones. It blows me away that anyone wouldn't notice. My audience laughed a lot.

I just saw it a second time, having in the meantime seen some criticisms here and on twitter that seemed persuasive, but I loved it even more this time tbh

xpost There was *not* a "LOT" of humor in this movie. Come on. Like, maybe some sort of rueful inevitability, but I couldn't call this a satire, or even a black comedy, and it's inconceivable to me that anyone could view it as such. I mean, I heard stories of people laughing during "Hereditary," too, but I think that's more people letting off steam.

Anyway, I totally understand that different viewers bring different things to the screening, and different viewers project and receive different things. I didn't find the psychological stuff remotely compelling or convincing, or the boyfriend a compelling or convincing antagonist, so my mind wanders to what might have made it a better horror film. Like I said, even though I thought it was full of shit, it didn't make me mad, I don't regret seeing it and I wouldn't tell someone else not to see it. Maybe they'll get more out of it than I did. Hey, I love it when people get something from art. All I know is that if dude turns in his next script and it ends with a bunch of naked people chanting, he should try something else.

did you not laugh when the old lady pushed on his butt, or when they got invited to the austin powers screening, or when the extract from the lew tree did nothing to protect the dudes in the temple from pain, or when the lady was like "yeah that sounds right" when reynor mentions that he ate a pube

That's just off the top of my head, there's loads more!

There are enough lines of dialogue in this film that are actual unequivocal *jokes* to make it “a LOT” of humour (just one of the top of my head: “I’d like to give her a bath), even before you add in cringey social comedy (virtually every interaction) and humour in the performances (Christian’s reactions during the consummation scene)

Plus all the shrooming humour was spot on

the extract from the yew tree did nothing to protect the dudes in the temple from pain

I did love that. Guy kinda goes "Well at least my self-sacrifice will be blissed out and peaceful...OH MY GOD WTF."

(Which to me just ties in further with the whole NOT-supernatural functioning of the movie. Really does feel like a "I double dog dare you!"/"Haha you fell for it" scenario.)

Also FWIW this new review today goes in further on a trauma/recovery/community angle; we've talked about it plenty here but it's a further summation.

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/alisonwillmore/midsommar-ari-aster-florence-pugh

FWIW, I thought the guy screaming in agony was my favorite bit! Just underscored that, no, there is no actual magic at work here. Though that doubly underscored that there really is no incentive for this wacky colony to survive. Just ... drugged-out brainwashing and tradition?

But if you're asking, no, I didn't think the cringe comedy was funny or believable, I didn't think the one obnoxious guy and his constant quips was funny (a colony of guys like that vape dude is my idea of horror movie hell), and no, I didn't think the butt pushing or pube in the food was funny. because they've already established this colony as strange and tradition bound and wrapped up in fertility rituals and whatnot, so if the guy was picked basically as a breeding stud, why would I be shocked or even find it amusing that they treated him more or less as an animal? That's no stranger than anything I'd seen already.

So what did happen with the missing book?

"I didn't find the jokes funny, so it wasn't a comedy." got it

The humour wasn't in him being treated like an animal, it's that "I think I ate one of her pubes" "yep, sounds about right" being a hilarious exchange in itself. I mean, arguing about humour is a futile endeavour, but I feel like you're trying to say that the humour is absent, rather than that you personally didn't find it funny - the former is just wrong, the second is, y'know, absolutely fine.

Obnoxious guy *was* hellish, which is why it was hilarious and the best fun that he got murdered.

xp

I think the implication is that it wasn’t actually missing but as josh had just been killed after being caught with it, they announced its theft as a misdirection/plausible reason why josh & the other guy went missing

Oh yeah, I thought that was super obvious, too?

Considering how little anyone seemed to care about the disappearing guests ...

Oh, and didn't find the Austin Powers joke funny, either, just thought it a banality, like the kind of outdated bestsellers and movies you find sitting in vacation homes or whatever. But hey, if that's your standard for comedy, life's gotta be pretty funny!

I liked that Buzzfeed article. Don't agree with much of it, but it makes some good points and observations.

Anyway, I'll step away for once. Clearly some of you love this film far more than I dislike it, so more power to you.

Oh, and didn't find the Austin Powers joke funny, either, just thought it a banality, like the kind of outdated bestsellers and movies you find sitting in vacation homes or whatever.

Well, yes, it is this, except that this vacation home is a weird cult in Sweden that's going to kill everyone you're there with. Banality + extreme weirdness = unexpected combination = comedy, ba-boom!

Vape guy’s lines were like half actual funny (if still awful) gags and half just witless xenophobia - and there’s so much of it, it’s really wearing. It was kinda cruel to deny the audience an onscreen death for that guy

Just read the Buzzfeed article, and I think it's the closest to how I felt about the film that I've read so far.

Btw to clear up an earlier point of confusion, the may queens are a yearly midsommar thing and not only a part of the 90 year festival - the guy (pelle?) showed dani a picture of “last year’s May queen” in the apartment

I also think he lied to her about losing his family now that I think about it. The trauma/“what else do I have to lose” feeling Dani has that leads her to the communal experience was the best through-line of the film for me. What Emil.y said about hiding in the latrine/screaming it out w the community is the key to understanding why she went there. If you remove that/rewrite the movie to minimize her loss there’s not much left. Her loss and total aloneness in the world is another character in the movie imo.

AND being able to snag a few lols while she’s going through a patently horrific time in her life is basically the only way one can survive.

Lols that are definitively NOT at her expense

Sorry to pop in again, but does it matter that as she is apparently acclimating to the cult she is also constantly being plied with who knows what kind of drugs? That whole May Queen sequence, she is tripping balls and seeing things. So is Christian. Kind of runs counter to any narrative about power and agency when you are constantly getting roofied.

Another question. If she did not win the May Queen celebration, would they have killed her as well?

She doesn’t care about the drugs afaict

She knows and is like whatever sure gimme the tea.

Yeah "roofied" implies being drugged without your knowledge, which I don't believe she ever is.

I was under the impression that Christian was given some sort of strong, disorienting aphrodisiac. He might have taken it willingly, but he didn't know what it would do. Likewise the tea, who knows what that shit was or why she was given it, but to say she (or he) was in control of her faculties I don't think is accurate, even if she or he willingly gave themselves in to it. I dunno, I find that a problematic thematic snag. Are there any times on the commune they are *not* drugged? Who knows.

I didn’t say she was in control of her faculties — I said she didn’t care. I feel like you don’t grasp her mental state very well.

Did any of them care?

The scholarly guy definitely did.

About what drugs they were taking or being given? Don't recall that.

No he cared about his scholarly pursuits. I thought he was trying to be polite wrt their customs and take in all they offered, mushrooms and psychotropic tea and all. To his chagrin!

Was I right that he seemed to know about the cliff sacrifice the night before? When the guy said the name, he gave a glimmer of recognition and refused to tell the others. So he knew what was coming?

I wasn't sure if it was the sacrifice he knew about or another part of the festivities. I imagine that it was probably a different bit (or he was faking knowledge to get one over on his fellow anthropologists?), because even though all those dudes are shitheads it would still be a bit of a stretch to think that he'd be cool with it and not warn anyone. Really not sure about this, though!

Re: the drugs - it's made clear in the first ten minutes of the film that these are grad students who regularly get high. Even when Dani doesn't want to take the mushrooms at first it's pretty obvious that that's because she's not in a good headspace and wants to orient herself, not because she's shocked at the idea. However, the more interesting thing to me about the 'consent' to taking drugs/participating in the rituals is that her initial reluctance is mirrored by Christian nearer the end trying to turn the mushroom tea down and then begrudgingly going along with it anyway. As she grows stronger, he gets weaker, as she becomes more accepted by and accepting of the community, he becomes less desirous of the things he wanted from them (the sex, the drugs, even the knowledge). She's overtaken him and they both know it.

Hmm, that's interesting (even though we never know if they're ever *not* on drugs). Unfortunately, I just don't find their relationship that interesting, but hey.

Just saw this, and I havent read this thread at all so maybe these rambly thoughts have been expressed already, but just felt completely empty, rote & procedural. I guess much respect if it worked for you I thought it was total off-the-rails mess.

Like as soon as the Mysteriously Wholesome Foreign Friend says that they're all invited to his Mysterious Home Village for "ceremonies and rituals" 15 minutes into the movie we all know what the entire structure & plot beats are going to be. And making us sit through 2.25hrs of ominous foreshadowing for the big reveal to be that she chooses to kill the mean boyfriend and join the cult just left me with a big "that's IT?"

Part of the problem might be on my end, since all the foreshadowing seemed so obvious and right out of Genre Horror 101 that I kept assuming the film was one step ahead of me and that eventually there would be some turn or twist that played on the fact that everything was so rote and obvious, but no, it just turns out that they're a weird random-ass murder cult that murders people for no real good reason beyond the fact that they have screentime to fill. (And tbf I'm not exactly looking for plot realism in a film like this, but everything about the cult & its backstory felt like such a horror movie nonsequitir that it was hard for me to take any of it seriously.) The psychology & character arcs were similarly so telegraphed & breadcrumbed that the final shot just felt totally superficial to me. If ppl found it satisfying fair enough, I just feel like if that's all we were leading up to, we could have gotten there at least 35-40 minutes sooner.

Also I liked Hereditary and had no problem with the gore in it, but I felt the gore in this - thinking specifically of the 8?10? closeups of smashed faces - just felt totally childish and juvenile to me. The whole thing just seems like if Green Inferno went to grad school.

Really hated stuff like the scene when the Swedish guy announces the next days ceremony (which ends up being the cliff jumping sacrifice), and the scholarly guy recognizes the name and is reacting with facial expressions like "oh shit, wow thats crazy", and Dani out of nowhere asks "is it scary?" I thought that line was totally totally unmotivated - it was after the first day, which was joyful hanging out and drug taking, an admittedly Dani had a bad trip but she'd have no reason at that point to expect anything scary would happen. It seemed so clumsy and obviously intended to telegraph "THE RITUAL WILL BE A VIOLENT GORY SACRIFICE" that when (after 15 minutesof tedious ceremony scenes) the ritual was revealed to be a violent gory sacrifice after 15 minutes of tedious ceremony, I was just very confused about what this movie was doing and what it expected from me.

Also last gripe but fuuuuck the way they used that disfigured/disabled character, leave that shit back in 70s sleaze-horror, its 2019 dude.

lots of reference to this community as a "cult" itt and not sure that's the appropriate term...more like a religious sect if that's not too fine a distinction

iirc a "cult" is generally understood to center around a charismatic leader/founder

replace "random-ass murder cult" with "random-ass murder religious sect" in my post above

Man some of y'all have some strange approaches to watching movies

Is it scary was one of the lines that made me laugh

Man some of y'all have some strange approaches to watching movies

Another question I asked a bit ago that I'm still wondering about: were any of the Americans (and Brits) ever going to get out of there alive? Had they not wandered off, or gotten nosy, or peed on a tree, or asked to leave, or whatever, were they going to be sacrificed anyway? If Dani was not crowned May Queen, would she have been killed, too?

Does it matter, though?

I def laughed at 'is it scary' but not convinced the humor was intentional

xpost I dunno, there's been a lot of discussion here about power and Dani reclaiming power or whatever, but ... she's a victim here, of several types of abuse. She's drugged, her friends are murdered, she's forced to watch horrific suicides and hammer beatings (how's that for catharsis), she's pressured to participate in pagan rituals while under the influence, and she (and certainly they) was marked to be killed, anyway. One could argue about her agency and state of mind and I appreciate the defenses of this film, but I also see people wanting it both ways. Movie (and she) would be stronger if she was making clear choices and not being pressured/coerced. Like, did it matter that she chose her boyfriend at the end and not Olaf or whoever? What were they going to do, not kill her boyfriend or leave him paralyzed? Let them both go? No one was getting out of there alive.

A lot of the readings about Dani's agency/empowerment clash w/the fact that most of her characters (& everyone else's) choices are completely unmotivated and based on Final Girl/horror movie logic. Having to service the narrative mechanics of a horror movie where the characters get killed off one by one really destroys the coherence of any of the themes imo.

Reading through this thread, the Letterboxd review flappy quotes upthread is all kinds of otm. Aster strikes me as a super gifted & talented director, but with no awareness that he has no ideas as a writer. I would be interested to see him make a film that doesn't feature a graphic closeup of an exploded face, but not sure he has the confidence. Now hes made one movie about a spooky haunted house and one movie about an killer cult -- my bet is that his next movie will be about someone that gets bit by something and turns into a wolfman or w/e.

15 minutesof tedious ceremony scenes

Yeah, see, if you find the protracted scenes like this tedious, then... the film isn't for you! You're marking the film only on whether the "beats" are new enough for you, rather than looking at what those beats are allowing the film to deliver in meaning and visuals. The rituals were beautiful, and the slowness and stillness was the point.

Like, did it matter that she chose her boyfriend at the end and not Olaf or whoever? What were they going to do, not kill her boyfriend or leave him paralyzed? Let them both go? No one was getting out of there alive.

Maybe this matters more if you weren't watching the film with an internal chant of KILL YR BOYFRIEND, KILL YR BOYFRIEND from about two minutes in. Mmmm, it's deliciously satisfying.

Dani isn't a Final Girl, by the way. Final Girls are always at risk of being killed.

Yeah I've been chafing at that description. Final Girls are a trope specific to slasher and slasher-adjacent movies.

I think the gripe about the incest oracle/disfigured person is valid. That was indeed somewhat cheap, esp since they never explained more about it at all. Cut that out and you still have a good movie imo. Emil.y otm AGAIN and doing a lot of heavy lifting here.

The rituals were beautiful, and the slowness and stillness was the point.

So OTM - these sequences reminded me of the kind of 'processional cinema' seen in Jancsó's Red Psalm.

Or as Louis Malle once said, “What we see as spectacle is in fact a ceremony”.

I think the gripe about the incest oracle/disfigured person is valid.

Oh, yes, I haven't addressed this here - honestly, I ended up just relieved that they didn't use him much, as the trailer had made me worried about constant ableism throughout, but I do wish that they'd cut it completely.

If Dani was not crowned May Queen, would she have been killed, too?

I took the "would you like to be Swedish" conversation during the maypole dance as an indicator that at least some members of the commune wanted Dani to join them.

Eh, she's totally at risk of being killed! If she didn't get May Queen? Even after getting May Queen? Not that any of that matters. We can project all sorts of stuff, but there's no clear indication at all what the MO of the colony is. Probably better that way? Though I'm surprised we didn't get a shot of the meat and grain and egg planted suddenly sprouting into a magical drug tree, unless I missed it.

Also, I love the slow rituals! Some of my favorite stuff. And the production design, costumes, etc. That's why I said I thought the film was vapid and full of shit. It's expertly made, I just don't think it has anything to say. And honestly, if this 2 1/2 hour slow pagan murder epic boils down thematically to "KILL YOUR BOYFRIEND" then I think it's an even bigger failure. It's not like he peed on a tree or anything.

The Bunuel I always seem to come back to is The Exterminating Angel, which bears (pun intended?) some broad similarities to this film.

Some people desperately need to see the message of "burn your bad boyfriend in a fire" represented exquisitely on screen. Sounds like you don't, that's cool.

The ceremonial stuff was indeed beautifully staged, but just made me wish I was watching something like Color of Pomegranates or something similar that didnt feel the need to spice it up by interspersing graphic kills. I would honestly be way into this movie if the horror & murder elements were excised and it was just about some ppl experiencing their friend's weird religious commune & dealing with their different baggage. Horror plot mechanics seem to be a weird millstone around this guy's neck that he cant shake.

I do have more and more of a problem with bludgeoned, bloody faces framed in exquisite close-ups.

not just burn him but watch him squirm through a sex ritual surrounded by naked crones and then burn him

i didn't think about horror tropes like the final girl at all while watching this movie. it did not seem relevant.

also idk what the beef is with the smashed faces/closeups. it's a horror movie. there will be blood.

Final Girl stuff def. not relevant except in the context of horror tropes, which, yeah, with this guy, maybe that's the problem? After I saw Hereditary I read some interviews, and he claims not not have much of an affinity for horror, and mostly gravitated toward "Hereditary" because he thought/knew genre was more likely to get funding, and he promised/threatened that after "Midsommer" he would veer from horror. We'll see. I did read a Matt Singer review of this that resonated with me. His conclusion:

You can see Aster continuing many of the themes he began exploring in his superior debut, Hereditary; another movie about unbreakable family ties, mental illness, and the way people sometimes can’t help but hurt the people they love the most. In that case, though, Aster did a better job of blending the domestic and the supernatural. In Midsommar, the film gradually shifts from these very precise, very specific insights into toxic relationships into very generic scares at a crazy Swedish summer camp, and the fact that Dani is grieving really doesn’t matter all that much by the time the Swedes get really nutty.

There’s some very gruesome imagery in those climactic sequences, but nothing that will linger with me like the uncomfortable conversation between Dani and Christian in her apartment where he tries to apologize for something, and then she says he’s not really apologizing, and then he tries to explain what he’s saying, and she says she doesn’t even need an apology in the first place. Communication this stilted and tense is the stuff of true horror.

Don't mind them in Get Out or The Evil Dead, I mind them here.

xpost

Has this been posted yet?

https://youtu.be/MNz9nkQYag4

Yeah I mean this wasn't Cabin In The Woods but it seems like a huuuge & strange reach to argue that Dani's character arc is not in dialogue with the idea of the Final Girl.

Re:the smashed faces, the first time it happened me and my friend both laughed like "I cant believe he's doing this again!" Then after the 6th, 7th, and 8th time of cutting back to the same smashed face our mood became more like "Is this guy ok, is this some kind of a cry for help?"

His next movie is going to be nothing but smashed faces and naked people chanting.

I mean this was way less violent / less terror-driven than Hereditary so I'm half expecting his next to contain no horror elements at all

And that's just how he'll get you, the sneak!

I heard a rumor he was offered a ton of money to remake "Face/Off."

Anyway, you all are missing the point. These are movies about mental trauma. Mental trauma! HEAD trauma! In this one he literally beats it into the ground.

/The rituals were beautiful, and the slowness and stillness was the point./

So OTM - these sequences reminded me of the kind of 'processional cinema' seen in Jancsó's Red Psalm.

Or as Louis Malle once said, “What we see as spectacle is in fact a ceremony”.

I think that maybe there’s a little too much pressure on Aster to be meaningful this early in his career? Reading interviews about his student movie, he seemed to deliberately be angling himself toward to problematic, for no purpose but to be shocking— perhaps the essence of horror. Not so much apolitical but unpolitical, decisions deliberately made to annoy and discomfort on all levels. Still haven’t seen this yet, though I rewatched Hereditary again after a director was liberally using the score as temp— the final cue over the Hail Paimon sequence is some excellent film music, very cool decisions

Y'all really want to get into it, I don't even think he was a particularly bad boyfriend, any worse than she was as a girlfriend.

Very shocking from the “I was looking forward to seeing this so I could explain it to my wife” guy

Huh?

I said I saw his last movie, and even though I know she doesn't like that kind of movie, I thought she'd like to hear about it. my point with that comment was there's a lot less to describe about this movie than that movie.

Just fancied a cheap shot, nm - he was a bad boyfriend tho

Hah.

I don't know. I wouldn't date the dude myself, but then again, that's something I brought up before: why are they even a couple? The implication of the movie is that they've been together for years at the start of the film, and for years he's been helping her with her sister's breakdowns, and her own breakdowns, and he's starting to find it wearing. And yet - he stays with her. He takes her calls. He leaves his friends (who all want him to break-up with her). He lets her invite herself to his dudes getaway. When she says she doesn't want to take mushrooms, he, admittedly disappointed, agrees to wait with her as well ... until she relents under pressure from vape dude. Boyfriend is not happy, but she's not happy, either. Like, what is he getting out of the relationship? He sticks with her out of sympathy, which is not a healthy reason to be in a relationship but does not necessarily make him a particularly bad boyfriend, worthy of death, just the wrong boyfriend.

Btw, speaking of shock and (lack of) meaning, I did see a profile from last year that compared Aster to ... Todd Solodz.

Hard not to think of Solondz when you watch his first short

Yeah thats why I dont really get the reading of this as an empowering revenge narrative, its very thin soup in that respect. They're in an unhealthy codependent relationship thats past its shelf life, they're both kind of checked out and inattentive, and the empowering result of her discovering her agency is not that she finds the strength to stand up to him or finally face the truth and break up with him, its that she puts him in a situation where other people will immolate him after torturing & paralyzing him. That would be satisfying as genre if he had been set up as more of a heavy, but when both characters are just these sort of wishy-washy blah people it doesnt really track for me. Thats what I mean when I say it felt procedural for me, the characters' choices seem so meaningless, like theyre just going through the motions bc we need a certain number of characters to lead us through the horror setpieces that we all know we need to get to.

Is this the “good guy” defense?
Just because he sucks at a lower frequency than we expect means he’s not THAT bad?! I’ve heard this one irl, not just in the movies!

He sucks as a person. And her entire family was just murder-suicided so I’d hardly say her character or circumstances were merely blah.

This film would not have been better if she were a ~badass~ imo, nor if he were a heavy

I have to say, and maybe this is a me thing, I pretty much never care whether a fictional character’s actions appear “unmotivated”. It’s just not a concern for me and that’s kinda why I enjoy horror movies and also why I enjoy art movies

I think that maybe there’s a little too much pressure on Aster to be meaningful this early in his career? Reading interviews about his student movie, he seemed to deliberately be angling himself toward to problematic, for no purpose but to be shocking— perhaps the essence of horror. Not so much apolitical but unpolitical, decisions deliberately made to annoy and discomfort on all levels. Still haven’t seen this yet, though I rewatched Hereditary again after a director was liberally using the score as temp— the final cue over the Hail Paimon sequence is some excellent film music, very cool decisions

― flamboyant goon tie included, Wednesday, July 10, 2019 11:32 AM (forty-four minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

I'm probably harder on someone like him because he shows real talent and skill as a director and also appears to be severely lacking as a writer. I love that he has a new movie out only a year after his breakout hit debut. It would be awesome to see him keep up the pace, and as much as I like his two features (I don't love them), I do wonder if he can get by without an exploded face or decapitated head. I certainly hope so! But it remains to be seen.

I mean I could really see this guy making a movie about death and suffering in the same galaxy as Cries and Whispers, which is saying something. It's a lot harder without blood.

Also just realized that if he successfully mated with the village girl, his awesome genes will live on as part of this community. Bummer for them!

I’m less interested in the director and more in the movie. Tbh for this type of folk horror I think Wicker Man is way way way better in every way, including musically. (Though I did genuinely enjoy the music in Midsommar)

xpost
http://www.asharperfocus.com/images/Cries10.jpg

xpost Oh, I agree, he's really talented. And "Wicker Man" (and lots of similar) is better. And I really liked "Hereditary," just not this one so much.

And her entire family was just murder-suicided so I’d hardly say her character or circumstances were merely blah.

This is another reason I didn't give a shit about him or their relationship! Like, prioritize your healing, Dani.

"A death metal version of Cries and Whispers" has to be my favorite blurb yet. #Hereditary https://t.co/mF07hvFo4X

— Ari Aster (@AriAster) June 1, 2018

Elsewhere:

Cries and Whispers strikes me as the most painful and beautiful film about death . . . and sisterhood. I screened it for the crew when we were making Hereditary, which is also a movie about suffering. Bergman was always wrestling with the big things—family dynamics, one’s relationship to God—but he did it in such an accessible way. His films are entertainments—they’re fun, and they’re beautiful. I feel like he has a reputation for being a forbidding director, but I find him to be as inviting as a filmmaker like that could possibly be.

many xp to Lechera - what can I say, I guess my bar for paralyzed immolation is a touch higher? I can only speak for what he does in the movie, but he just seems like an emotionally unavailable mid-20s dip? Like yeah he obv sucks, but they all just seem like mid-20s ppl in 2019 who suck at communicating with each other. But if imagining an offscreen backstory for him where he's probably a fucked up monster helps you enjoy this movie then great I guess?

The way he sucks would probably not be justification for murder irl yes

This...is a film

He trash talks his girlfriend behind her back, he is too cowardly to break up with her and just goes through the motions of pretending to still love her, which lead him to do things like plan a trip to Sweden without ever telling her he committed to go, and forgetting her birthday.

Anytime she tries to have a serious conversation with him, he tries to get the upper hand by threatening to go home, because he knows she will back down.

Even like when they are taking their drugs and she wants to do it later, he makes an offer (to wait for her) that he knows won't work and the guys will balk at because he knows she'll cave to avoid upsetting anybody.

That screams "bad boyfriend" to me. Maybe he's not a monster of a human being but uh he sucks at the relationship part of life.

*watches phantom thread* now that’s hardly a solid basis for a successful relationship, total plot hole

Xpost Doesn't mean he deserved death either but again...what wins said

Glad to hear its just a film - I was worried those kids were really watching Austin Powers

But he's already at the tail end of the relationship! He wants out! And by all indications he would have broken up with her had her family not died horribly. So yeah, he's a coward, but, like, would breaking up with her after her tragedy had made him ... a better boyfriend?

I don't see him trying to get the upper hand, and see him trying to find a way out, even though he couldn't be more clear about the signals he is sending. Like, she literally imposes herself onto his (not easy!) dudes trip he planed without her knowing, with people she doesn't even like and who definitely don't like her. Who does that?!

But yeah, he did forget her birthday, so death justified, I guess.

Wait, this was a movie?!

*Smart Hulk spreads arms* "Midsommar!"

this thread has been jic'd

It’s been jfc’d at least

*jumps off cliff*

Well, I had to ji see it first, but mission accomplished.

*watches phantom thread* now that’s hardly a solid basis for a successful relationship, total plot hole

ftr im not demanding slavish realism from this movie or knocking it for being 'unrealistic' or w/e, i get that its a surreal art horror movie, just specifically quibbling w/the arguments that part of why its good is that its narratively satisfying to watch that guy die.

tbf seeing anyone in a bear costume is innately satisfying.

also can't go wrong with crones chanting, pastoral setting, processional music, rituals, costumes etc -- there are a lot of things to like about this movie that make me not care whether or not he actually deserved to die or was a bad boyfriend. he was a mediocre disappointment of a boyfriend.

at the end i don't think she was getting "revenge on her monster boyfriend" as much as reveling in whatever bizarre trip her life had become since losing her family all at once. at least that's what was on my mind when i saw her smile. her disappointment of a boyfriend getting burnt (inside a bear corpse!) was just the latest development.

should have ended with her turning to the camera and shrugging.

lol, same ending credits song though :)

gotta admit when they cut to him with his face sticking out of the bear mouth my first thought was "wow, perfect fit!"

Anyway, I see he's started working on his next film.

This is an r/relationships post from the SA peanut gallery thread because the original was deleted. You will not regret reading this one although you might scream. 🐀🐀🐀🐀 pic.twitter.com/nIt12atnqI

— Horrendous Jake Kablooie (@JakeMHS) July 10, 2019

http://www.magiclanternpodcast.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/wm_cat_masks_window_eep.jpg
"We can't wait!"

Aster's writing is sloppy and pretty horribly paced, and this was way overlong, but I didn't care. So thematically and symbolically rich, and wonderfully executed on every level. And lingeringly unnerving.

I do wonder if his starting point was to take some of the least threatening things imaginable, incredibly pleasant Scandanavian people and sunny fields, and make them sinister.

Her boyfriend was a huge fucking dickhead by the way.

I watched this last night and I'm going to give it 3 bags of popcorn. Maybe throw in a soda for the trippy visuals.

A musical thought: Know what this movie was missing for me? Trad Gras och Stenar/international Harvester/Parson Sound Swedish hippies playing droney jams. Did I miss them far off in a corner somewhere? Don’t these ppl like to zone out?

Zz

The druggy bonhomie that they first experience upon arrival had a definite euro raver vibe, so I expected bangin dance music of some description rather than underground free folk.

yeah i thought so too -- that vibe does not last very long. maybe it is a joke about burning man?
idk

You all will have to wait for Gaspar Noe's Midsommer.

How about Noe

One thing I've been amused by in the published talk around the film is the occasional mention of the 'amazing Scandinavian landscape' or the like. Setting, yes, but the filming was in Hungary -- as I realized as soon as the credits rolled and approximately 8000 Hungarian names appeared at once. (I did like how the credits were laid out, BTW -- also, a quiet point, has anyone said anything about the specific choice of Frankie Valli's "The Sun Ain't Gonna Shine Anymore" instead of the Walker Bros?)

Yes, why that version and why that song?

what does it mean Ned!

GREAT MYSTERIES.

(Choice of song seems obvious lyrically? Busted up relationship, sunshine, etc.)

I figured it was an oldie to lighten the mood

Should have been "Walk of Life."

You know what was extra weird, per Ned's observation? The number of reviews I've read that point out the amazing Scandinavian landscape *and* note that it was actually filmed in Hungary. Witchcraft!!!

It’s another variation on something he did last time (can’t remember offhand which 60s pop song played over hereditary’s credits) xp

Joni Mitchell song?

Iirc, this one ended with a few extra beats of black before the music and credits began.

Oh yeah how could I forget xp

Hereditary ended with "Both Sides Now" but not the Joni version

Nice

Nu metal cover of happy together for the triumvirate, best filmmaker working

Ah yes!! No wonder this seemed so familiar to me!! It was the Judy Collins version! How could I forget??

I felt the same way about the usage of that song — an oldie to lighten the mood. Lol.

Yeah it was literally the same move again, you gotta love it

I will concede that this trick was not good enough to be employed twice consecutively. Coulda tried a little more imo.

Probably couldn't afford the rights to the Partridge Family theme. Weirdly apt (in an obviously ironic way):

"Hello world, hear the song that we're singin'
Come on, get happy
A whole lotta lovin' is what we'll be bringin'
We'll make you happy

We had a dream we'd go travelin' together
And spread a little lovin', then we'll keep movin' on
Somethin' always happens whenever we're together
We get a happy feelin' when we're singin' a song

Travelin' along, there's a song that we're singin'
Come on, get happy
A whole lotta lovin' is what we'll be bringin'
We'll make you happy
We'll make you happy
We'll make you happy"

xp Haha well I was childishly pleased by the similarity but I listened to the Film Comment podcast interview with aster (recommend to all) and it makes me think he probably has a fairly well thought-through reason for picking that song for this

I’m sure there’s a reason but it’s like an overly fussed over playlist or mixtape. It’s a lil embarrassing to use the same trick 2x in a row.

Tbf There are a ton of elements the two movies share. I know the first time around he played it really coy about some sort of horrible personal backstory or something that informed the film, but I don't think he ever spilled the beans.

Man it sucks when artists have traits and preferences

Not really! It’s fine to have traits and preferences even if you’re not an artist :)

I like traits and preferences (even this guy's)! I was just reacting to people commenting on the same sort of use of a sunny song at the end as chaser. There are lots of traits and preferences he repeats so far, some very distinctive.

anyone else find the prologue of this movie incredibly offensive

but i thought the rest of it was much better than hereditary. a very successful cathartic exercise. cried at the group screaming scene

Offensive because of the bipolar - > murder-suicide aspect?

yes

Aster's writing is sloppy and pretty horribly paced, and this was way overlong, but I didn't care. So thematically and symbolically rich, and wonderfully executed on every level. And lingeringly unnerving.

I do wonder if his starting point was to take some of the least threatening things imaginable, incredibly pleasant Scandanavian people and sunny fields, and make them sinister.

― chap, Thursday, July 11, 2019 6:14 AM (fourteen hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

Her boyfriend was a huge fucking dickhead by the way.

― chap, Thursday, July 11, 2019 6:30 AM (fourteen hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

these chap posts are basically what i also got out of the movie

basically inside i am an enormous grieving flower slug searching for a group of women to scream with, so outside of the prologue this movie really got me

Yeah the word "bipolar" could have never been uttered and it would not have affected the movie at all

A lot of stuff (some funny) in his AMA:

https://www.reddit.com/r/movies/comments/cbxc8v/hi_im_ari_aster_writerdirector_of_midsommar_ama/

It sounds like he is working on an extended cut (he claims at least 30 minutes longer), since a lot of stuff was apparently cut for time. For example, skimming this, the Austin Powers gag was apparently a sub for a long scene being cut, where the village sits down and watches an educational film about fertility rights or something. Also, I guess this movie was facing an NC-17 almost right up against its release, for dick stuff.

Was out for a run and I thought of a question for fans: would the film have worked if the characters were *not* constantly taking or being dosed with drugs? That is, if you just took the scenes of them explicitly taking or being given drugs out of the film, but kept everything else, would that fundamentally change the movie? If the hallucinogenic, hypnotic qualities stayed the same, but perhaps were presented as something other than the product of taking literal hallucinogens? Def. would have solved a few of the problems I have with the movie, but for fans, would that have hurt it?

the mushroom trip warped reality scenes are great for at least reflecting what that kind of trip actually looks and feels like, time-space bending and plants breathing. and this movie isn't taking place in a hallucinatory realm, everything that happens happens in reality, so the drugs are totally necessary to bring in this otherworldly, emotionally-driven catharsis that is beyond literal experience. i have no idea why you have problems with it and refuse to read back through your posts

Yeah, thought the breathing flowers in particular were a really spot-on representation of one type of hallucinogenic experience, when you're coming down and reality isn't so much as obliterated as warped at the edges, in the little details.

The drug-taking in both of Aster's movies didn't seem excessive or unusual - it's what young people do!

drugs: real good for enacting a simultaneous cathartic release and loss of control

The problem i have with the drug taking is that it underscores her (and their) agency and free will. They are not just taking mushrooms for fun. she is given a specific drink, just for the girls, before the may queen ceremony. he is given a drink, just for him, which is clearly some sort of different drug, with mind blurring aphrodisiac qualities. I know you all disagree with me, and I do respect your opinions, even if your opinion is that i am stupid. But from the moment they arrive at the colony they are being coerced and plied with drugs. yes, maybe they are taking them of their own free will, more or less. but i don't know if they have a choice when it comes to refusing them or not. because we never see them refuse any. but we also don't know exactly what they are taking or why it is being given to them (other than pain relief lol). i agree with a post above that i don't think there is a lot of choice making in this film, and i see her being taken advantage of as much as a girl going to a party and getting drunk might be.

i think one of the most interesting things about the film is you never quite know how much agency she has (and idk i think the ending confirms she has a lot)

I'm not going to watch this movie, but this has been stuck in my head for days now

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MNz9nkQYag4

xp but i also don't understand why anything you've outlined is a problem with the film

the opening had me thinking that ari aster was just tossing his box of toys around to put his characters through trauma but the rest of the film turned that around on me. i loved dani, and even though it's kind of perverse i love that she found the deep, echoing love and support she couldn't find in her shitty boyfriend and his shitty friends in this murderous cult of screaming women. for this and several other reasons (boyfriend and friends are a real pack of socipaths) midsommar reminded me more of a slasher movie than the wicker man

I found Reynor wonderfully detestable in the first half, but I also thought he did a great job of making him gradually more small and pitiable over the course of the second half

yes! that performance walked a real line, the scenes where you can tell he's on a real bad trip are sorta heartbreaking even though he sucks ass

When he turns to the guy sitting next to him and says “excuse me, what’s going on?” and the guy claps in his face

I did like that. And he seemed kind of aware of it too, like someone being operated on without being put under first.

xpost The problem I have with it is in reaction to what a lot of people praised about the movie and her character specifically upthread.

When he turns to the guy sitting next to him and says “excuse me, what’s going on?” and the guy claps in his face

― shhh / let peaceful like things (wins), Friday, July 12, 2019 9:05 AM (one minute ago) bookmarkflaglink

lmao this scene is so excellent

i can't believe i liked this and am looking forward to the next ari aster film

Again, the version of this film where they go out of their way to make her a badass asskicking agency haver is not better

Maybe not, it would be a different movie! my point in this movie is that she is a victim who is being victimized.

you are concern trolling this fictional film and also making it way more boring than it actually is

this film had an extremely similar effect on me as lords of salem another movie where you can't really tell if the main character has agency which makes it more powerful

I absolutely agree! In fact, I was going to bring up Lords of Salem earlier, but I figured people would just be an asshole to me. In that one the protagonist is in fact literally a recovering drug addict, and there's all these parallels to addiction and how they can control you. Again, I know you haven't read the thread, but up thread a lot of fans of this movie thought she was embracing the cult, embracing the empowerment, and I'm just saying that is ambivalent at best.

I honestly think some people are taking this way too personally. I don't insult people, I just disagree with them about the movie. but hey, for the most part I don't know any of you are, so why should I get mad right?

but like are you agreeing with me that this isn't a problem with the movie???? xp

also josh you post way too much in uncomprehending "i'm asking this question but no answer will ever change my mind" style, this thread is overstuffed with it

sorry that's a problem, dude

not a dude!

In the fc interview aster said that the film can be read as standard folk horror from one POV but from another (ie Dani’s) it’s like a kind of wish fulfilment fantasy where external circumstances force her to confront things she has been unable to confront and move her towards catharsis, kind of like she’s willing this into being. She is imo pretty clearly embracing it (that ending is not ambivalent) but the lack of traditional agency is one of the things being embraced I think

^ otm

Actually, I do like that take a lot! I think it is expressed better than some of the comments up thread.

sorry for duding.

it's ok! thank you for apologizing

gah! brad otm about a lot

this for example
i think one of the most interesting things about the film is you never quite know how much agency she has (and idk i think the ending confirms she has a lot)

― american bradass (BradNelson), Friday, July 12, 2019 10:54 AM (forty minutes ago)

jic you don't sound stupid -- your word -- but you do sound like your beliefs about drugs are at least somewhat puritanical. this is well within character afaik!

one of the things i like about this movie is that it brings out different things in different people which is at least part of why this thread has been stuffed with questions (i liked that term brad!). that conversation is valuable in itself, esp when you are talking about a movie that deals explicitly with trauma, loss, drugs, agency, sex, murder, blame, etc. the one thing we can agree on is that ritual human sacrifice is more or less the least controversial thing about the ending.

I'm for it!

Ritual human sacrifice: it happens! :)

fwiw I'm not puritanical about drugs at all. It's that in this film they are not taking drugs to have fun, they are being given drugs of unclear properties for a purpose. And given the context of the film, it didn't make me comfortable that people were praising, more or less, her power-move or decision making when she is clearly under duress and under the influence (many influences, actually). In my experience that's not totally different from someone taking drugs then deciding to, I don't know, jump into a quarry and getting hurt. Yes, they took the drugs on purpose, but no, that was not necessarily a clear-headed decision. I so like the idea of this movie as cathartic semi fantasy, of her giving in to the lack of agency. I just feel, yeah, a little uncomfortable, too, because in real life it's kind of uncool to take advantage of people who are not in a good state of mind. But, as established, this isn't real, and as fantasy, in her case, the wrong state of mind might have been the right state of mind!

It kind of goes back to Rosemary's Baby. The whole movie she is being terrified, by both the real world and her imagination (and Satanists). But at the end, when she is holding little baby Lord of Evil, she still smiles and rocks it. Not fair how she got to that point (drugged and raped by the devil and all), but hey, she's there holding her devil kid and she's choosing to like it.

I must say at least bast on his AMA responses that Aster comes off pretty earnest and unpretentious

Yeah! Maybe he'll go (for better or for worse) the David Gordon Green route. Another gifted filmmaker who veers from dramas to stoner comedies. It took DGG about four films and eight years before he got silly.

i think josh actually loves this movie and hasn't yet accepted his coerced catharsis

Tbf, I did not say I hated it, loved the filmmaking and said I wouldn't discourage someone from seeing it. That's pretty good! I mean, love it or not, it's a pretty striking movie. I just found aspects of it problematic, both thematically and narratively. However, like I also said, seeing the stuff distilled in such a way from the Film Comment interview helped me come to terms with at least some of the elements I had problems with.

Ending of Rosemary's Baby is a great analogue for the ending of this. Like, its nice that you've decided to embrace and be happy w/this situation, but it's hard to imagine how this will end up going well down the line.

It's interesting all the very different readings ppl have on the 2nd half of this movie. My feeling re:the screaming-together scene at the end was v much not cathartic, but v tragic & disturbing because yes, these girls are helping her scream out her trauma, but also the trauma itself was caused by them murdering all her friends & having it finally truly sinking in w/her that leaving there alive is never going to be an option & this is just her life now. Very much the way abusive indoctrination/manipulation works, create a problem or trauma & then convince your victim that you are the only solution/safe harbor from that trauma.

idk the screaming scene happens right after she witnesses her boyfriend in the middle of the sex ritual, i think it’s more than “she has trauma bc they murdered all her friends and she’s not getting out of there alive.” total abandonment and grief being met and echoed by a community: it’s cathartic

of course it’s also manipulative but it can be all these things at once

I don’t know that they created her trauma - they didn’t kill her family. Diegetically tho yeah, they are using her pre-existing trauma to manipulate her which is what cults do

xp yeah also otm, she’s not screaming cause anyone died, she’s screaming cause of the infidelity. That’s another thing the community “did” but he was always that guy, explicitly

My first reaction was that the screaming reminded me of Silence of the Lambs, when Catherine Martin screams and Buffalo Bill sort of leans in and mimics/mocks her, not necessarily with menace on his mind but as a kind of twisted mirror.

They didnt create the trauma of her family dying obviously, but they murdered everyone she was with, made her watch other murders, and were basically holding her there against her will. (Even though she eventually becomes OK with her situation there doesnt mean that she ever had the option to leave alive.)

I def didnt read her screaming as simply being a reaction to his infidelity. He sucked and their relationship sucked but I feel like if I was her in that situation and looked through the keyhole and saw my partner in the middle of the horrifying nightmare image of that pagan sex ritual, my reaction wouldnt be wouldnt be "omg i cant believe my partner is cheating on me!" I took it as more the final straw of realizing "reality is fucked and i am trapped in a nightmare".

Its definitely multilayered, which is why I think it was prob my fave & most effective moment in the film. She herself is obv having a cathartic moment but I couldnt get past the objective context of "we are here for to help you through this situation (that we created, and also if you dont accept our help its understood that you will probably get skinned alive or fed to a bear or something, so we encourage you to find a way to make your peace with this and just roll along with it)". It struck me as deeply sad, the final moment when the accretion of all these traumatic & mindfucking experiences finally kills her soul & the old Dani is gone forever. Would have been a great moment to end on actually imo.

I guess she didnt officially know that her other companions were dead, but I'm sure by that point she knew on some level that vape guy was not gonna pop out from around a corner enjoying a nice afternoon vape

lol I like the idea of her having no problem with the pagan sex cult ritual itself, just that it's her jerk boyfriend.

I thought there were echos of Texas Chainsaw Massacre in the screaming as well, where she is just in hysterics, screaming at the horror of it all. There are other references to Chainsaw, too.

It’s her boyfriend having sex with the very young girl she’s been watching him stare at for the whole movie. Again if you are super tied to the literal and diegetic the sex ritual is unusual and disturbing but I think the effect is to emphasise the former aspect

I think “get(ting) past the objective context” is kind of key to most of our enjoyment of this, obviously the murder festival is not objectively kosher but as a reflection of a character’s headspace there seems to be a shift from total despair and isolation to communitarian bliss that is gratifying to experience

I def didnt read her screaming as simply being a reaction to his infidelity. He sucked and their relationship sucked but I feel like if I was her in that situation and looked through the keyhole and saw my partner in the middle of the horrifying nightmare image of that pagan sex ritual, my reaction wouldnt be wouldnt be "omg i cant believe my partner is cheating on me!"

none of us are saying this

lol again i can't believe i'm in the position of arguing in favor of this film, starting to think i loved it

I Think I Love You is a different Partridge Family song.

Here's another one: would this movie have worked without ... any of the outsiders but Dani and Christian? The others really don't bring much to the party, which is perhaps why no one misses them when they vanish. They're just fodder, killed off one at a time after they transgress, in true horror film fashion.

xp Brad tbf wins is saying it? Like obviously we all agree there is more going on in that moment than just her being upset at her bf having sex with that girl, my read was that the infidelity itself wasnt the main factor in precipitating her screaming breakdown, but w/e, the scene is open to lots of different takes, its nbd. Again, I thought that was the best scene in the movie.

Xp Well the film does follow a horror movie template, very deliberately.

Christian’s friends are essential to the dynamic imo. The brits are a more interesting addition cause they seem completely benign and don’t “deserve” to die even by our fictive standards (which are different from real life I just want to stress again that I am not in favour of murdering anyone except in the case of friends with right wing brain worms)

Hmm. Well, the British guy is the loudest (only?) to freak out after the suicide ritual, so he has to go - disrespectful and disruptive and all that. The British girl, her biggest death sentence was ... also being loud and complaining and asking to leave? Christian's friends all do more traditional "bad things." But I don't think they add much to the dynamic. In fact, I don't think there's much of a dynamic at all? Just an odd bunch of erstwhile buds waiting for their doom. But anyway, everyone was brought there to die (with spares), so it was strange to me (horror movie tropes or no), that they were killed one at a time, and mostly after they did something "deserving" of death. I mean, if they were all going to die, why wait for butthead to pee on the family tree? Just kill them all and put them in the barn.

What do you think, was Christian always going to die after he was put out to stud, or would he have been kept around as a breeder if her cooperated?

xp

I think “get(ting) past the objective context” is kind of key to most of our enjoyment of this, obviously the murder festival is not objectively kosher but as a reflection of a character’s headspace there seems to be a shift from total despair and isolation to communitarian bliss that is gratifying to experience

No I get that & it makes sense that she gets to that place in the end. Yeah I guess I was just so horrified by all that preceded it that it felt more emotionally ambiguous to me. For me it felt like the ending of Taxi Driver - Travis achieves his goals and winds up "happy", we as viewers understand that the bigger picture is more complicated, the intellectual frisson comes from the disconnect between those two ideas.

i'd say the idea you hit on there is otm for me

also the score for this is phenomenal

Krlic did a great job. I would love a piece comparing the closing fanfares in Aster's two features.

I saw this a second time because a friend was keen to watch it and what stood out to me was how sparing the violence is. Even the overt gore of the first cliff diver's head is limited to two shots. It's easy to imagine visiting the commune on an average year and having a perfectly nice time!

Eh. I think it's fair to say that the violence in the cliff diver sequence is more ott than even the average gore. Same with the guy flayed and suspended with his back peeled open and his lungs exposed (whether or not that's supposed to be a some kind of hallucination). But otherwise, yeah, it's one of the ways this movie subverts horror tropes (while still having it both ways). Usually in a horror film someone wanders off, then there is a death scene. In this movie, by and large people just wander off and disappear, but it's pretty clear they meet grisly fates. One guy gets the Leatherface treatment with a hammer to the head. Another guy is flayed open. Is it Christian who, when he is freaking out, sees a leg inexplicably sticking out of the ground, like it was planted there? And then there is plenty of rotting viscera and body parts. Yeah, that's pretty subtle, but it could be that we all are inured to seeing this kind of stuff in movies. It's like when people talk about Texas Chainsaw and note, you know, there really isn't that much gore in it! Which is true. But of course it's still extremely violent and shocking and bloody. Just not 90 minutes of dismemberment or whatever.

Who do you think washes all these pristine white robes? That job must suck.

Was the vagina dentata of the eviscerated bear a little too on the nose?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPGaPTdno10

he discusses the "happy" ending in the first question here

Interesting, and interesting answer, thanks for posting that! Maybe it gets to the crux of some issues I have with it, in that he concedes that for every character *but* Dani it is essentially a pretty standard addition to the folk-horror genre, but *for* Dani it's a cathartic break-up wish-fulfillment fairy tale. Embracing both of those things at once is definitely challenging for me. It would be like watching a Friday the 13th movie where for 95% of the cast, yeah, it's a slasher film, but for one character specifically it's a movie about coming to grips with the divorce of her parents, her sister's battle with depression and struggling with a sense of self-worth in a gig economy. Like, a collision of high and low that's hard (for me at least) to balance.

that friday the 13th movie exists, it is called friday the 13th part vii the new blood

Kinda, yeah. That one's pretty batshit, but not too bad, compared to what comes next.

I love that he is a huge fan of "A.I.".

i mean minus the gig economy and sister stuff but it’s about a psychic teen who accidentally killed her father who’s being gaslighted by her mother and her psychiatrist, and she accidentally resurrects jason while she’s having an emotional breakdown, and it’s pretty easy to read the film as: jason murdering everyone in her life who sucks is the unleashed expression of her own unconscious

I feel like we might be divided among the line of those who identify w Dani at some level and those who (subconsciously or consciously) wish to protect her.

That vid is the interview I’ve been talking about, it’s on the film comment podcast - def recommend. As well as AI he goes on at length about 45 years, which I still need to see

it makes so much sense to me that he loves ai, one of the most ruthlessly emotionally cruel films i've ever seen

I agree, but a lot of it hinges on whether as an AI robot David can feel or how he feels or does it matter that he's a robot that can feel, or even what it means to "feel." Juggling those aspects of "A.I." I find wrenching, but I think it's based on the inherent complexity and nuance of the scenario. This one maybe lacked that for me, and the more I think about it, yeah, the more I think the early murder-suicide stuff is an extraneous distraction.

i went in wanting to like this, but unfortunately it's terrible lazy smug indulgent horseshit filmmaking.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xiwMICAVwGo

The group screaming scene had real emotional weight, but ultimately I think the horror movie got in the way. Maybe I was rooting for the cult; I wanted them to be more legitimately sympathetic and mysterious, as in that scene. Human sacrifice just seems a bit predictable.

are you people still here?

Nine days, iirc

josh you love this movie

Saw it last night. Loved it. Much more so than Hereditary

Things I especially liked:

- Maybe the most true-to-life depiction of the psilocybin experience I've seen on film
- Speaking of which, Will Poulter provided some excellent light relief and his character was really well realised, right down to the vape
- Florence Pugh's stressed/agonised/anxiety-ridden facial expressions were spot-on
- Pelle and his calm/creepy Swedish brother were also great
- Soundtrack was incredible
- Such a pretty film. A cool idea to set a horror movie outdoors in the sunshine with very few night time scenes

i really loved this movie

I also think he lied to her about losing his family now that I think about it. The trauma/“what else do I have to lose” feeling Dani has that leads her to the communal experience was the best through-line of the film for me. What Emil.y said about hiding in the latrine/screaming it out w the community is the key to understanding why she went there. If you remove that/rewrite the movie to minimize her loss there’s not much left. Her loss and total aloneness in the world is another character in the movie imo.

― weird woman in a bar (La Lechera), Tuesday, July 9, 2019 5:50 PM (six days ago) bookmarkflaglink

sorry if this has already been addressed (not reading this whole thread) but pelle says his parents burned up in a fire, implying after the fact that they sacrificed themselves like ingmar and that other dude who are alive in the burning temple

I liked this a lot, but feel like its structure didn't lend itself well to the themes it was ostensibly trying to explore. You could arguably have gotten rid of all the ancillary characters who get picked off and it wouldn't have had that much impact on the core story.

re: Pelle's parents, I feel like they were trying to make that implication, but it doesn't line up with the "every 90 years" timescale. The film's never totally clear on which parts of the festival take place every year and which are only once in 90 years. That's a minor quibble, but it bugged me.

sorry if this has already been addressed (not reading this whole thread) but pelle says his parents burned up in a fire, implying after the fact that they sacrificed themselves like ingmar and that other dude who are alive in the burning temple

― na (NA), Monday, July 15, 2019

that was my conclusion too

I haven't seen the movie yet (and probably never will because I am a big wuss) but maybe there's an implication that the cult ages unnaturally as a result of their rituals that makes the timeline work and Pelle not a liar?

I will now go back to lurking since I haven't seen the movie

There's actually a detailed breakdown at one point of how the cult treats different ages like seasons, but they're all measured in normal years afaict

Most chilling moment was at the opening of the festival when the elder suddenly screams in Swedish (something like): "Spirits, go back!"

re: the 90 years thing, if everyone has to die at 72, then that part of the festival happens whenever someone reaches that age. the may queen happens every year. the burning of the temple/sacrifice - who knows, but if it's every 90 years then no one alive would have ever participated in the previous one... not that that matters so much.

my fav part of this was the title credits

pic.twitter.com/YWodhIDBLw

— Liv (@LivvyFanon) July 15, 2019

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xiwMICAVwGo

A24 absolutely knew that this movie would enjoy a second life in meme format but I'm not mad about it

This is easily one of the best films I’ve ever seen.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen such a perfect representation of the experience of trauma, the feeling of being an unbearable burden to everyone, the very real feeling in ine’s peer group that the needs of a trauma survivor are being felt as manipulative—

This wasn’t, to me, a horror movie, except for the first twenty minutes, that was the scary part—

That people who are traumatized are at first self-centred (Dani) and then deeply empathetic (Pelle), that so many of the rituals of a cult mirror similar methods of dealing with trauma both professionally and spiritually—

The contrast of tears being shed in private versus tears shed communally—

The contrast of murder-suicide being responded to with grief versus being responded to with joy—

Even the sex scene, which I knew was supposed to be “awkward” didn’t feel that way at all to me, this is how everyone should have sex, really—

I genuinely felt goosebumps everywhere in the crying scene and positively thrilled at the ending. I’ve read elsewhere about how Christian is a dick and Dani’s choice to burn him was a response to his infidelity and his emotional distance. I didn’t get that at all. Dani didn’t need a boyfriend, Dani needed family and empathy, she burned Christian in my opinion to sever her last connection to her trauma.

I didn’t love the deformed character and his function, and although I loved the music, the way they attempted to make the music sound diagetic was clumsily mixed to my ears.

I can’t read the thread ‘cause I’m walking home and typing on my phone but I think e.mily likely already typed everything I just typed and more succinctly lol

Ok, read the thread, agree with karl and wins and emil.y.

My one caveat is that I don’t think that Christian is a bad boyfriend, so much as an accurate representation of a partner who doesn’t understand/is exhausted by/doesn’t know how to deal with a severely traumatized partner (who likely, as indicated by her tearful initial phone call and subsequent call-to-a-friend, and the Ativan, has already some mental health issues before the opening tragedy)

i feel like that's true but that the movie also went out of its way to make him a coward and an asshole anyway

Dani didn’t need a boyfriend, Dani needed family and empathy, she burned Christian in my opinion to sever her last connection to her trauma.

i find this v otm

Good call. Dani and Christian are both at fault for following the path of least resistance, rather than questioning whether the relationship is worth saving.

yes, i like that. i mean he was not a great boyfriend but not to the degree where he deserved to be burned alive inside a bear.

Yea, at least put him in a wolf suit ffs

Avoided this thread until seeing the film last night, didn't realize we'd gotten to the spoilery bits already!

Although, unlike Hereditary's twists, you pretty much know where Midsommar is going as soon as they head for the commune. Like Texas Chainsaw, noted upthread, this sets up the family vs. the interlopers and you just wait for the inevitable to happen. The over-ther-topness of some of this also reminded me of Ken Russell's The Devils, a film I haven't seen in 40 years but whose atmosphere still lingers.

I didn't like this nearly as much as Hereditary. The ending, especially, felt to me like trying to outdo Hereditary by upping the crazy.

Still processing it, but somewhere betweenI went in wanting to like this, but unfortunately it's terrible lazy smug indulgent horseshit filmmaking and This is easily one of the best films I’ve ever seen.

My experience in dealing with different kinds of therapy can be summarized as follows. When I was first doing Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, I felt as if the basis tenet of it is "nothing is wrong, your mind is distorting things". All problems you might be facing are just "distortions"-- your work anxiety, your relationship anxiety, your social anxiety. It's not a bad theory, but there's a major roadblock. I was reading "Feeling Good" and one of the problems put forth by a CBT patient was, "I don't want to die alone, gay and abandoned and depressed." The doctor's response was, literally, "that's just ridiculous". I was appalled. It's not ridiculous, and there is no distortion in thinking you're going to die alone, gay and abandoned and depressed. That is literally what is going to happen.

And I started to think CBT wasn't solving actual problems. It was helping with the anxiety, but not helping with dealing with real-life. It was trying to convince me that "nothing is wrong" but everything was wrong. CBT wasn't making my boyfriend love me again, wasn't improving my financial or social situation. It was after I turned to mindfulness that I started to find ways of actually dealing with actual problems.

Mindfulness, in contrast, doesn't teach you that "nothing is wrong", but that "everything is wrong, and you can be OK with that". The most succinct and extreme statement that I've read in this field of discourse is Pema Chodron's famous quote: "Only to the extent that we expose ourselves over and over to annihilation can that which is indestructible in us be found." The inevitability of aging and death and so on must be accepted and, possibly, even celebrated. Hopelessness should be seen as an ideal state, as hope only brings suffering.

The dichotomy of these two methods of psychological treatment were, I felt, represented at the core of this movie. I don't think it was a coincidence that the movie began and ended with three deaths. Dani's sister's murder-suicide was represented as brutal, terrifying, painlessly achieved and yet still gruesome and terrible. Christian's death at the end was painful, beautiful, simultaneously grieved and celebrated by the Hårgas. Cars and piping and duct tape, compared to bear sewing and house burning? It's not just the murders, either: Dani is taking the Western drug-of-choice Ativan at the beginning of the movie, and at the end of the movie is meditating, dancing, reflecting, and taking natural drugs.

I first got that Pema Chodron quote in my head in the Ättestupa scene. The Hårgas had accepted their position in the Earth's cycle so fully that even dying didn't scare them. Simon and Connie flip out and just see gore, but Dani, as revolted as she may have been, seemed to pick up on the logic of what was happening. The extreme commitment of the Hårgas to "exposing themselves to annihilation" included enacting extremely gory ritual deaths upon the visitors and burning themselves alive. Viewers of the movie who don't vibe with the logic of Hårgan psychology won't find the movie rewarding, but like I said, I found the ending to be exhilarating (and the opening, the murder-suicide scene, to be the only legitimately terrifying scene in the movie).

In short, I think this movie fails as horror because it's trying to do the opposite of what horror movies try to do. Horror wishes to shock you, but Ari Aster has this "Irreversible" style of filmmaking, beginning with the most gruesome sequence, and then wearing you down until, by the end, the formality of the house-burning is meant to be seen as comforting. It bears more commonality to my mind to historical religious rituals of "purification", death metal, etc.

great post. although i think if you're ambivalent about the cult's ideology, which most viewers likely are, the horror still works. i felt a sense of dread from dani's slide into paganism, the upending of her conventional morality is underway without her realizing it and there's no going back, like how you can't start untripping once the psychedelic experience starts, no matter how you now feel about it.

In short, I think this movie fails as horror because it's trying to do the opposite of what horror movies try to do. Horror wishes to shock you

i disagree with this definition of horror, so it doesn't "fail" for me as a horror movie. it shares a ton of themes with horror

I didn't like this nearly as much as Hereditary. The ending, especially, felt to me like trying to outdo Hereditary by upping the crazy.

i also don't really understand this criticism, which i've seen elsewhere so i'm possibly just wrong! but the ending felt way calmer and less crazy to me than hereditary, with way fewer ideas being thrown around in the final twenty minutes

I mean, some of the criticisms I’ve read about Midsommar seem to hinge upon its success in “scaring” the audience, which I feel is missing the point of the film. It also occurred to me that this film has much in common with “Possession”

it does!!!! and yeah, it is not a "scary" movie, but i sort of think of this like "not all effective comedy makes you laugh" etc.

seeing this tomorrow (wedding anniversary date night lol)

godspeed

fantastic posts, fgti

Still haven't seen this and am avoiding all thread conversation till then BUT thought you might be interested

Film Society of Lincoln Center - Saturday, August 17, 6:45pm (Q&A with Ari Aster)
Midsommar (Director's Cut)
Ari Aster, USA, 2019 - World Premiere
Scary Movies is excited to premiere the official, nearly three-hour director’s cut of the acclaimed sophomore feature from Ari Aster (Hereditary) in a special Saturday night screening. American grad student Dani (Florence Pugh), grieving after a shocking loss, accompanies her boyfriend and his buddies on their vacation to a tight-knit farming commune in the sunny Swedish countryside. They’ve timed their trip to participate in an extravagant nine-day festival celebrating the summer solstice, with hallucinogenic drugs in abundance and a Nordic sun that hardly seems to set, but things quickly take a dark turn in this singular, unflinching, utterly contemporary entry in the fish-out-of-water folk-horror canon. An A24 release.

this movie does not need to be three hours long but i'm curious

"It's just a three hour movie, can't be too weird.*

*Lincoln Center blood rites, Brad burned in a bear suit*

Great posts, fgti.

This wasn’t, to me, a horror movie, except for the first twenty minutes, that was the scary part

The beginning being the scary part of the film was one of the first things I said when coming out of it - that aloneness is so terrifying. On the other hand, though, I do think this is very much a horror film! I think a lot of times when the "not really horror" tag is applied to a film it's based on a misunderstanding or underestimation of what horror is, what it's for and what it can do. Not accusing you of not understanding horror, mind you, just... I feel like the attitude so often stems from a place of disdain of the genre.

Dani didn’t need a boyfriend, Dani needed family and empathy, she burned Christian in my opinion to sever her last connection to her trauma.

My one caveat is that I don’t think that Christian is a bad boyfriend, so much as an accurate representation of a partner who doesn’t understand/is exhausted by/doesn’t know how to deal with a severely traumatized partner

I really like the reading of his death as her severing her connection to her trauma rather than a revenge ritual, though I didn't read it that way myself and I do think he's a bad boyfriend. While I might have over-egged the BURN THE BAD BOYFRIEND upthread, I think the film definitely provides this intentionally, along with his friends being dickheads, as a "romp" element that provides a base layer for the exploration of Dani's trauma.

I glanced at the script, and there's at least one important-seeming scene involving animal sacrifice which isn't in the film.

https://www.docdroid.net/39EggEN/midsommar.pdf

Great posts from both fgti and Emily.

Not accusing you of not understanding horror, mind you, just... I feel like the attitude so often stems from a place of disdain of the genre.

I think, like Emily said so succinctly, this movie is a proper Horror movie. "Not really horror" applied to films usually is, indeed, disdain of the genre, but also not understanding the genre is more than blood and gore and triggering screams (not in this thread, but it's a commonplace). "Not really horror" represents a very narrowly defined, 2D definition of horror which I don't ascribe to. The first 25 minutes of this are acute, terrible (=great) horror to me. Best I've seen in years.

I really like the reading of his death as her severing her connection to her trauma rather than a revenge ritual

Same here, this was an enlightening take.

just saw this, wondering how a remake with saorse ronan and chris pratt would do. also wondering if there are secret swedish jokes that were not translated.

I'm curious about the 3 hour cut

That's how long it takes to prep the bear.

has anybody seen this movie on mushrooms yet

gimme a second

Not too much here, but worth a read. It's a conversation between Aster and Eggers, apparently good buds:

https://a24films.com/notes/2019/07/deep-cuts-with-robert-eggers-and-ari-aster

just saw this with tt

it was superlative

we agreed it was v kind of aster to make a film about her (we also agreed i am a slight upgrade on christian)

but this was not so much horror as a sort of processional drama with strong comic elements. we laughed more or less throughout

the end was euphoric and exactly how it was always going to be

fgti, emily etc all otm

also all you Florence Pugh fans, get on The Falling if you haven't already

"about her"

abt tt? Be careful out there!

Learning Florence Pugh is dating Zach fucking Braff was a downer, but yeah she's great, and y'all see The Falling.

lol relax. i'm too fat to fit inside a bearskin

We're all trapped in a bearskin, in our own way.

(tt plz not to murder lj thx)

just gotta be not shit! :D

but yeah this was as much about grief and trauma as anything more directly bad-boyfriend-burning

funniest moment btw: the jester hat

Game the kids are playing earlier? Skin the Fool.

This was funnier than the Wicker Man!

Five bags of popcorn plus a little glass of hallucinogenic tea

that's had some blood dripped into it

it's not as good as Hereditary - no one in the film is as good as Toni Collette, the racial stuff is elided in a suspect way, it's way too long and could have been more succinctly edited. Those are the only knocks against it though.

lol at arguing over its genre placement, this is totally a horror movie - the checklist of genre tropes embedded and toyed with in the film is very long.

this thread is a bitch to wade through so apologies if I'm rehashing anything but I did note emil.y's post above:

The whole film is about the terror of feeling pain alone vs the community's sharing of your pain. It's about the difference between gasping quietly in a toilet so nobody hears you having a panic attack vs screaming and having everyone around you scream with you.

This is key. The sect processes trauma by acknowledging it, ritualizing it, and expelling it in a way that, perhaps most importantly, both externalizes it (sacrificing outsiders) and perpetuates it (sacrificing its own members). This is a kind of horrific evil that becomes attractive when you have no other way available to process your own trauma. Dani isn't free from her trauma at the end by any means: she *owns* it, she controls it via the power of the community, it has been harnessed and circumscribed. It has been integrated into her sense of self and into the wider community.

The racial politics of this though... it's bizarre to cast Josh as a black character (and Connie and her fiancee as brown characters) and then not in any way address the racial dynamics involved with a bunch of Nordic white people, who are fixated on bloodlines and breeding, murdering them. Like, no characters - not even the non-white characters themselves - *ever* acknowledge this? In the scene at their house prior to the trip Josh has a book on the table titled "The Secret Nazi Language of the Hraxthur" or something like that, clearly he would be aware of the racial aspect and histories of such cults and would at the very least feel some sense of exclusion/otherness, but this is never conveyed. And then the film leans into his conventional "black guy in a horror film" role... idk it was disconcerting. So much of this film felt carefully constructed and deliberate, and this aspect of it seemed not so well thought out.

And then the film leans into his conventional "black guy in a horror film" role

can you expand on this? bc i don't know what you're referring to here

well the whole film is structured around the classic "group of friends under threat" horror scenario, whereby each member is picked off/killed by a predator in succession, often for some apparent transgression, either implied or explicit (ie, having sex, violating a taboo, or for no other reason than being black). For reference: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BlackDudeDiesFirst

Josh's role in the film checks a number of those boxes - he's not top billed, he's the lone black guy, he's also the "most important" in the sense that he's given the most to do/has the most detailed understanding of what's going on, etc.

he has an explicit transgression that is not "no other reason than being black"

Right. Could also argue that he technically doesn't die first, because the other two brown people do.

you are right that the movie pretty much ignores that josh is black. i'm not sure that's problematic, but what do i know. i didn't feel like it made the film more illogical or unbelievable.

Will Poulter's character dies first, no?

No, Britishers first, right?

the East Asian Britishes die first

they are also, perhaps not coincidentally, the least fleshed out and obviously their function in the film is to be expendable

anyway my point isn't just that the movie ignores that Josh is black - it ignores that racially fixated white people kill a bunch of brown people *while never bringing it up that this is happening*

I found this interesting, although it gets a few facts wrong: https://www.graveyardshiftsisters.com/2019/07/how-midsommar-utilizes-and-subverts.html

When I was watching it I felt like they'd written the script, realised it could end up an *entirely* white cast, and made sure to avoid that by casting PoC, but as Οὖτις points out, didn't really change the script to acknowledge that there's a huge pre-existing dynamic at play. Maybe they thought it would change the theme of the film too much to make it a big deal, but they could have mentioned it at least a bit. I feel like I'm on pretty uncertain ground with this, though.

I'm not black (although I am named Josh lol) but as a Jew if you plunked me down into a northern European cult setting you can be sure as shit one of the main things on my mind would be the racial dynamic/history involved and how that would be a potential threat to me personally. My "otherness" would be foremost in my mind.

I get the logic of ignoring the racial aspect in the script, since it doesn't really tie in with any of the major themes Aster is interested in. But it did feel like a missed opportunity to at least poke fun at the sheer whiteness of these occult groups

as I suspected, the script makes no reference to the characters' races

The biggest missed opportunity for cultural comedy is that this film about Nordic hippies has characters staying in huts where you can constantly hear babies crying and the first thing a character asks is “where do we jerk off”, and ilx has not dealt with this at all

lol

as I suspected, the script makes no reference to the characters' races

cool, should've just cast Dani as black then - problem solved!

j/k

In terms of casting, I feel like they watched the Good Place and saw Chidi, and were "yes, yes, YES, that's exactly who I want for this character."

"Oh is he black? I don't see skin color"

As a horror movie, this is super weird in that the main character has no agency at all, or even a compelling drive to get out of this scenario -- she's peer-pressured into almost every decision. It really tracks more tightly with a teen anti-drug movie.

her drive is explicitly to get *into* this scenario - to forget her grief, find community/family, commitment

she's seeking catharsis, rebirth, etc. I thought her motivations were perfectly clear.

those were thrust onto her; the boyfriend fake-suggests it, and she says yeah. cult recruiter implants the idea of "you need a family" onto her.

needed a scene where florence pugh turns to camera and says "I am choosing to do this. thank you and enjoy the show!"

that's a bizarre misreading. the film opens with her desperately trying to elicit some kind of connection/commitment from her boyfriend in the absence of her family. this leads to everything else.

er xp