Ari Aster's MIDSOMMAR (2019)

the sex ceremony doesn't start until Dani's been crowned May Queen, but it's a rapid succession of events... Dani is crowned, and taken in the carriage to bless the fields and concurrently Christian is taken to Maja and both rituals are interwoven.

literally everything that happens in this film is clearly and deliberately signposted and the joy of it is experiencing all the things you know shall happen. it's also about how they happen

Yeah it's kinda like Taken in that sense... you're just watching a falling object shatter through a succession of barriers until it hits the ground

the biggest red herring for our anthropologist character is the interest in the inbred sage and the holy book -- there might be something interesting in there, but every part of the rituals is documented right on the walls of the room they're sleeping in!

yeah everything's on the murals, I noticed a bunch of stuff while watching it

dude showed her sketch of her as may queen fan art even before they left right?

yup

pretty sure he was humming Stairway to Heaven too

Side note, no anthropology grad student doing field work in 2019 would take photos of a sacred book after being explicitly told not to. In fact what actually happened to Josh is not far off from the response he would get from his thesis advisor upon discovering he'd done that. Dani was much closer to what an actual sociocultural anthro grads are like.

Yeah it's kinda like Taken in that sense... you're just watching a falling object shatter through a succession of barriers until it hits the ground

― the girl from spirea x (f. hazel), Monday, 22 July 2019 16:06 (forty-eight minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

or as others have said, Mandy...

xp kind of unclear whether he would have done that if left to his own devices or if he's reaching for unique material after getting his thesis sniped by Chris

which, if the prior scenes of him being a dick to his girlfriend weren't enough, clearly established him as a shithead. a few grad student friends of mine will be seething mad at that scene

I need to watch Mandy!

update: one of said friends was, in fact, very mad at that scene. lol

Have trouble believing Josh would feel any academic threat from Christian, he was such a fuckup it would be more funny than insulting that he'd decided to do his dissertation on the Hårga. No way is that guy going to make it through a seven-year Ph.D. program.

Also on an academic note, I will add that I absolutely loved during the dance contest when Dani begins to speak Swedish and is, like, completely delighted by it, maybe the most joyous part of the movie?

that was the closest to a supernatural moment, imo!

like.. is she speaking Swedish because she's becoming the May Queen? who knows!

To me it sorta pointed towards her wanting to be the May Queen, and also that actual magic was affecting events in the film.

The old guy clapping to fuck with tripping Christian cracked me up

(a bit of online research reveals that they were not in fact speaking Swedish in the dance contest, but nonsense... that's a bit less fun)

speaking in tongues, maybe?

you know, the version where you're speaking in the pre-babel universal language that all humans understand

Glossolalia

maybe it's an oblique ABBA dancing queen joke?

casting-wise are there any easter eggs like bergman actors or such?

This was great - the sound/music was brilliant.

loved this

tired and bad at thinking but:

emil.y and fgti and la lechera otm throughout

saw this with a friend and one of the first things she noted was just how uncannily well-rendered the badness of the bad boyfriend was. not a Bad Human That Deserves To Die, but just always so disappointing

agree that the most upsetting thing was the murder suicide, AND that chalking it up specifically to 'bipolar' was pretty gross and unnecessary. also that the elaborate and lurid nature of the killing was, on one hand, an unrealistic and needlessly macabre and, on the other, in keeping with the baseline psychedelia of the whole movie

don't think it's been noted but dani's apartment had a big ol poster of a big ol bear smooching/snugging a little blonde girl. touches like that and the drawings in the barn etc were v good imo

Dani and bad boyfriend are performed as the same blank person; not sure if it’s written that way or it was actors’ choice.

Reading the script is highlighting some really interesting points that I missed while watching it. In particular, so far, Pelle really perks up and gets enthusiastic about Dani joining them when he learns that Dani is a Cancer and her birthday is July 7.

Also it completely clears up the fact that they do the festival every year, but the human sacrifices only come every 90 years.

yes, gbx! I remember noticing the framing of many shots before they left for Sweden involved people sitting under large paintings or pictures, want to see it again so I see who was under what image!

And Dani apologizing for making her boyfriend remember her birthday was way more cringe-inducing than the cliff diving seniors.

Dani’s panic onset was palpable — her facial expressions are obvious standout but the way they changed from bad to worse were very hard to watch and memorable for me. The head smashing, eh nbd (i mean yeah it was gross but it did not have the same effect on me as watching her lose it) that’s part of why her smile at the end is so poignant imo.

Dani and bad boyfriend are performed as the same blank person; not sure if it’s written that way or it was actors’ choice.

― Philip Nunez, Saturday, July 27, 2019 8:30 AM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

i’ve heard this reiterated through the thread and i’m not sure what movie you saw

There’s definitely some mirroring in how they set both characters up (and also how they end up!) but the actors in particular have a really blank affect that none of the other cast have.

the actors in particular have a really blank affect that none of the other cast have

Still haven't seen the movie but I'll be shocked if this is true - I've seen Pugh in 4 other things to date and the word "blank" would not describe her performance in any of them.

whenever Christian was on screen I had to suppress my "Chris Pratt present, exit theater now" impulse

Maybe blank isn’t the right word for it but it’s very pod person or uncanny valleyish—I don’t know how you would write such a thing into the script so I’m wondering if the actors came up with it themselves.

I did think Chris Pratt would be the human version of this character!

at this point chris pratt isn't the human version of anyone

scariest part of this movie was when dani was peer-pressured into taking mushrooms

you're easily scared

or haven't taken mushrooms

I cackled loudly enough that people in the theater looked at me when The Fool whined, "It won't even be the same trip!!"

I thought it was insanely rude and insensitive but in a movie where “just drink this, it’s fine” became a refrain it kind of took a backseat

just wanna say uhhh i was joking but also wanna say that it would not be a very fun time to be guilted into taking a bunch of shrooms in the weeks following the murder-suicide of your entire family

as evidenced by her experience! Lmao jeez

Found the first 45 minutes or so effectively creepy--thought the rest alternated between lengthy dead patches and camp lunacy. Completely baffled by the last shot, and if there was some connection to the parents/sister, that went right by me too. But well done, Frankie Valli.

There's no literal connection between the cult and Dani's family tragedy, but the whole film is about her dealing with her trauma.

xp that's p much exactly how I felt about Hereditary, not so much Midsommar. Yeah I found the last shot a bit baffling too.

(x-post) I thought some more about that last night and eventually made the connection. So is it that she's smiling at the irony of her way being essentially the same as their way? Or that they need to add all this ritual and pageantry to arrive at the same point? Or...I still come up short. I guess there's some latitude there.

I thought she was smiling because she'd found a family

also because she finally realized her boyfriend sucked and he was... well, you know

I had quite a simple interpretation in cinema, that it was the first time she'd felt some kind of peace since the murder/suicide. I guess the whole experience was a cleansing for her, stripping away the detritus (notably Christian). I'd have to watch it again to expound that reading with much confidence though.

xpost - more or less the same

i thought she was smiling because after a long period of despair she felt momentarily happy
why she was happy isn't really for us to know, but it's clear she felt a stab of happiness and that brings relief for her and us

momentary relief, since the actual situation is quite dire