Ari Aster's MIDSOMMAR (2019)

Just saw the movie recently so missed the whole debate upthread. Sorry if I say things that have already been said.

I spent the whole movie wondering how the tragedy she experienced at the beginning was going to link up and be relevant by the end. I kept thinking: why murder-suicide? Why the sister killing the parents? Why can't it just be any loss, why does it have to be this? And then everything fell into place in a perfect, satisfying way when I saw her smile.

Because it's not just about catharsis, or shared screaming/pain, though both of those things are part of it. It's also that at the beginning of the movie, Dani lives in a world where people simply don't accept that things like that happen. That's why Christian is so dismissive of her worries, it's why he and his friends don't freak out even as people start disappearing around them - because in their reality, there's no room for things like what happened to Dani. So Dani is utterly alone, and she has no way to think about what happened to her, or process it, or start to move on. And I think that's an accurate depiction of the way people react to something that horrific; if it only happens to Other People, that means that someone it does happen to becomes unreachably Other.

Thus the appeal of the cult; this is a place where this exact kind of thing does happen, and (as I think someone said upthread) it's ritualized and normalized. Sure, they make it happen. But that can have an appeal in itself; when you know that horrific things happen, making them happen can be a way of maintaining some kind of control.

So it makes perfect sense for Dani to end by feeling at home in the cult; she finally lives in a culture that has a context for what's happened to her, that can give her a way to make sense of something senseless. That doesn't mean it's a good thing. It would obviously be better if she could get that sense of shared catharsis/context for trauma from something other than a creepy murder cult that's manipulating her in order to recruit her as breeding stock. But I think the movie gets at something real about trauma and the way it opens people up to things like cults (or religions, or fandoms, or what have you), and I think it was beautifully done.

yes

good take!

Really good. Thanks, Lily.

my feeling was that--within the logic of the movie--that the "cult" were admirable for the exacting communal moral standards that they held to. it's not a "cult" in the modern sense because it's not built around a charismatic powerful individual--it's like a genuine commune because all demands, harsh as they were, were made to all alike. theirs a genuine subsumption of individuality that's not predicated on surrendering your ego to the one in charge but to all. that's why the catharsis moved me--she didn't just find a new individual to (fail to) take on the burden of her emotions but found something more primal. that Aster doesn't portray the commune as utopian is to the logic of the genre but also seems to add some interesting moral complexity: is this what a real community would look like, what it would ask of us? figuratively speaking, of course

worst hyped movie of 2019 by far. europe is gross

one eye open otm itt. i mostly experienced frustrated unintelligible boredom while watching this and didn’t unpack it much, but having read your posts, i feel galvanized; I’m rich with articulate reasons for hating this film! and that’s what reading posts is all about

It scared and disturbed the shit out of me!

― babu frik fan account (mh), Friday, December 27, 2019 11:10 PM (one week ago) bookmarkflaglink

curious any specific scenes in which you were scared? i can think of like, 2 tops that were plausibly scary

I still think about the opening suicide scene and feel sick.

flops if you're so rich with articulate reasons for hating this film.... why don't you articulate some of them

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

― One Eye Open, Wednesday, July 10, 2019 5:18 AM (five months ago) bookmarkflaglink

i would say this is incredibly wrong

i also don't particularly give a shit that the movie never diverted from what i expected would happen, but i don't care about what happens in stories, i care about how it happens

otm.

also if i've learned anything from being a horror fan, what people find scary is as subjective as what people find funny

found this film far, FAR more funny than scary. also, i loved it

it's very funny! and it's very aware of how it is funny

it's a really effective satire among many other things

i also don't particularly give a shit that the movie never diverted from what i expected would happen, but i don't care about what happens in stories, i care about how it happens

IME with the passage of some time, it seems like a lot of the people who got way more out of this movie than i did approached it with an appreciation/tolerance of horror genre cinema & its tropes that I guess I just dont have. Like the fact that it didnt divert from what I expected would happen was legit surprising to me and felt like kind of a bait & switch w/r/t the arthouse tone vs what was delivered plotwise. So a lot of the stuff that came off to me as formulaic/redundant/obvious ticking off of genre checkboxes ('place being set up as ominous place where murders will happen', 'characters getting killed off one by one') I guess just didnt bother ppl who are fine with that stuff.

Ditto a lot of the humor people describe. I was legit shocked to hear people talking about how funny they found this movie, and i thought ppl were trolling at first when they mentioned stuff like the guy screaming while burning or hearing screams in the distance as being hilarious moments, but I guess if you're more steeped in an appreciation of those genre tropes then you can enjoy that stuff in a more meta/camp way than I did. Tl,dr:this was just Not For Me I guess.

I'm not a horror buff but the processional surprise-free plot was an important aspect of the experience imo - as with something like Melancholia (which I may have already said is perhaps this film's most direct antecedent), we all know what's coming, but we must live it

I love horror and its tropes, I love Hereditary, I think this guy is really talented and want to see all of the movies that he makes. But I didn't think this was scary, and I sure didn't think it was funny - I wish it was funny! - so there's that. I do like meta, but I'm not a big fan of camp, maybe that's the/a problem I had. I also think it felt (from memory) a little too thematically vague. There are lots of things going on, but too many ideas are just kind of thrown out there, imo. Like the inbred oracle or whatever. Or even the suicide at the beginning.

anyones mileage may vary but tbh for me this wave of A24 & related-style arthouse horror movies like this & Saint Maud & etc often just feels to me like finding a way to enjoy the gore & taboo of 70s exploitation/genre stuff but in a high class wrapper.

tbf, i like the low class wrapper stuff too... i guess that's blumhouse?

lol They showed the trailer for Saint Maud before Uncut Gems at this little arthouse theatre in Florida, and the old people there (most of the crowd) was noooot having it.

I didn't think it was campy at all. It's also not particularly scary; it's unsettling, and it's funny at times. But I found it a moving meditation on trauma; I think Lily Dale hit the nail on the head.

idk saint maud looks kinda tight. what 70s exploitation is it elevating

re "high-class wrapper" yeah it's crazy that people like movies more when they actually have production values and good acting and themes/concepts

i thought the magic mushroom scenes early in the film were both hilarious and one of the truest depictions of tripping I've seen in any film

re "high-class wrapper" yeah it's crazy that people like movies more when they actually have production values and good acting and themes/concepts

also those themes/concepts are not absent from aster's trashier antecedents

tbf i paid $ to see Green Inferno, def not saying im above trash

and to oeo's point: i know i'm biased but i think horror is better equipped to deal with these things than basically any other genre. most horror... is a meditation on trauma

anyway when they started smashing in the faces with hammers did anyone start humming this to themselves

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r861P1CqZeY

horror is better equipped to deal with these things than basically any other genre

otm. horror conventions are ready-made for the exploration of themes and ideas that other genres just aren't

lol brad. wld pay to see ari aster's version of a bohemian rhapsody/rocketman biopic of cannibal corpse

Lol yes Brad. I did

"Entrails Ripped From a Virgin's Cunt underperformed at the box office yet again. Producers are baffled."

Xpost

oh wow

I'm admittedly not a big horror guy! A lot of the frightening parts in Midsommar, outside of the gore -- which I also find distressing -- are based on empathy for the character(s).

The idea of frantically trying to convince your significant other that you absolutely have to check on your family, while the worst possible scenario is actually going down, scares the shit out of me. I've had phone conversations where it seems like someone's about to ask for help that ended up being cut off, only for all my callbacks to be unanswered, and 90% of the time it's because my friend's phone died and I was overthinking the conversation. This movie opens with whoops, hey, your sister was actually in the middle of a murder/suicide with your parents

like I get jump scares, gore, etc. are "horror movie scary" but when small worries and existential dread are played out on screen, and it's the worst possible scenario happening, that's also horror!

This was supposed to be on Amazon Prime starting the 3rd, but isn't showing up yet. Not sure what happened there.

https://amazonadviser.com/2020/01/07/amazon-prime-release-change-midsommar/

It turns out that the release date was wrong in the initial list of releases. Rather than Jan. 3, the release date for Midsommar should have been Jan. 10. That means the movie is heading to Prime Video at the end of this week.

in that case, will I watch this a third time? maybe

I have read most but not all of the thread and skimmed the rest. I will preface my comments by stating that I am not a huge horror fan.

The prelude with Dani and her family was truly horrifying. The cuts to the firemen entering the house and making their way up to the bedroom were nightmarish and very effective. Similarly, the drug use scenes were genuinely creepy and seemed "real" to me, especially the way Dani's trip when they first arrive turns bad on a dime. I swear there is a shot or two when she is sitting at the head of the table after being crowned May Queen where the large platter of meat(?) in the foreground appears to be slowly writhing. Good stuff.

I loved how Dani's wailing when she sees Christian with the redhead at the end echoed her wailing to Christian on the phone after her parents died.

My biggest problem is that the plot was largely sterile and everything seemed pre-ordained. Who was going to live and die was apparent within 10 minutes of arriving at the commune, if not earlier. The fact that the idiot boyfriend was going to have sex with the redhead (or at least try) was apparent from their first look and there was nothing done to make one question this. Asshole, druggy friend was going to be the first to go. English Guy #1 and English Girl #1 (who gives a shit about their names) were only in the movie to disappear. This may have been why I liked this less than Hereditary. With Hereditary, I had no idea where the movie was going and the ending was genuinely WTF and awesome.

I liked the build-up to the finale and final ritual, but the film was too long. As I am typing out this comment, I find myself thinking about things I liked more than things I disliked, which may mean I liked the film better than I think.

everything seemed pre-ordained

horror movies are rituals

there's all kinds of stuff warping and moving during the drug scenes, these were probably easier to see on the movie screen than at home

I mean didja expect they were all going to go to this mysterious Swedish festival nobody else in teh world had heard about it and it was all fun and everybody played games and had punch and then went home and then on the way home there was a wolf in the car?

The fact that the idiot boyfriend was going to have sex with the redhead (or at least try) was apparent from their first look

as inexorable horrors go a p familiar one

The events of the film are shown in the opening credits.

I mean didja expect they were all going to go to this mysterious Swedish festival nobody else in teh world had heard about it and it was all fun and everybody played games and had punch and then went home and then on the way home there was a wolf in the car?

― papa stank (Neanderthal), Monday, 13 January 2020 21:26 (eleven minutes ago) link

I am not saying that I expected it was going to be Bonaroo. Just that I could almost instantly tell the purpose of each "character" and there was nothing that made me question these snap decisions: Dani was going to stay as soon as she had the conversation about family with the Swedish dude; English people were redshirts; asshole was going to die first because he was an asshole and that was his purpose (to be a character the audience enjoys seeing get killed (or not seeing). I didn't care what happened to any of them.

Again, this may be my problem with horror tropes in general. Overall I guess I enjoyed the ride even if it was the world's slowest roller coaster.

The events of the film are shown in the opening credits.

^^^

"this fairytale was so predictable!"