Ari Aster's MIDSOMMAR (2019)

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*