Ari Aster's MIDSOMMAR (2019)

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