Finally, a romantic comedy I can invest in!
Midsommar is an engrossing feast for your eyes with enough unsettling moments to keep you awake at night.
I saw Ari Aster's Hereditary last year, and was impressed by the young director's ability to shock audiences, perhaps, in the same way films like Alien or The Exorcist did when they were first sprung on unsuspecting viewers decades ago.
I'm happy to report Midsommar is an equally twisted follow up. And much like Hereditary, it deals with harrowing levels of trauma on a personal, familial level. This film is a very bad trip, in just about every sense.
It begins with a college student Dani (Florence Pugh) who, within the first 10 minutes, is thrust into the deepest pits of emotional anguish due to a murder-suicide involving her bipolar sister and parents. To make thing worse, her boyfriend, Christian, (Jack Reynor, a sort of frat boy version of Chris Pratt) is a disinterested and emotionally unavailable twit. He is evidently unhappy with their relationship, but doesn't know how to gracefully breakup, especially after this family tragedy leaves Dani vulnerable and clutching for support.
Luckily for us, Christian's hilariously aloof Swedish college buddy Pelle, with the same soft-spoken mannerisms and ulterior motives of Varg Vikernes, invites Dani to join Christian and his dumb ass grad school buddies on a field trip to his ancestral homeland in Sweden. A pagan pilgrimage that only happens once every 90 years, to which he is suddenly VERY excited to include Dani in the festivities. What could go wrong?
Yes, this film has very clear similarities to The Wicker Man. I should also note that Midsommar sets up its pieces very clearly, and derives its suspense from the viewer knowing that something dreadful is coming. Everyone is in on it, except for Dani and her boyfriend's group of mostly unlikable friends.
This is not a scene from Midsommar but it could be. PC: Heilung
I genuinely felt sorry for poor little Dani. When she's not grieving, she spends most of this film second-guessing herself, apologizing and being generally gaslit by her dim boyfriend and his shit bird friends.
As for the Swedish locals, like any good cult, they're all pleasant, polite and accommodating. Frankly, I found them more likable than any of the American characters besides Dani. The Swedish villagers have a constant cheerfulness about them, eager to make Dani feel at home when she is at her rawest, which makes their true intentions more sinister.
The villager's Midsommar commune is an idyllic mountain village where the sun shines all day and all night. They wear white frocks and look like they could be members of Heilung. They have an affinity for jazz hands, emotionally cathartic improv group games, and maybe a little human sacrifice. Oh, and they like to trip balls, A LOT. Remember when I said this movie was a bad trip? What could be more horrifying than hallucinating for days in a sunlight-saturated Ikea without walls, filled people who are like a cross between the Freemasons and the Manson family?
This film's terror almost entirely takes place in broad day, earning a similarity to the expertly macabre Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Midsommar's color palette contains beautifully composed shots of warm natural colors, the green hills, all sorts of vibrant flower, golden rays of sun saturating every frame, as if to match Dani's grief. I couldn't help but be reminded of a Jodorowski film, where the imagery is a language in itself. A story that cannot be translated through dialogue, but is meant to be absorbed and meditated on.
Thematically, this film deals with a lot. Mourning, culture shock, entitled American attitudes versus ancient tradition, toxic relationships, and so on. I'm not really sure what it all means, but this film is satisfying as hell to watch if you can stomach some grisly on-screen violence.
4/5
I saw Ari Aster's Hereditary last year, and was impressed by the young director's ability to shock audiences, perhaps, in the same way films like Alien or The Exorcist did when they were first sprung on unsuspecting viewers decades ago.
I'm happy to report Midsommar is an equally twisted follow up. And much like Hereditary, it deals with harrowing levels of trauma on a personal, familial level. This film is a very bad trip, in just about every sense.
It begins with a college student Dani (Florence Pugh) who, within the first 10 minutes, is thrust into the deepest pits of emotional anguish due to a murder-suicide involving her bipolar sister and parents. To make thing worse, her boyfriend, Christian, (Jack Reynor, a sort of frat boy version of Chris Pratt) is a disinterested and emotionally unavailable twit. He is evidently unhappy with their relationship, but doesn't know how to gracefully breakup, especially after this family tragedy leaves Dani vulnerable and clutching for support.
Luckily for us, Christian's hilariously aloof Swedish college buddy Pelle, with the same soft-spoken mannerisms and ulterior motives of Varg Vikernes, invites Dani to join Christian and his dumb ass grad school buddies on a field trip to his ancestral homeland in Sweden. A pagan pilgrimage that only happens once every 90 years, to which he is suddenly VERY excited to include Dani in the festivities. What could go wrong?
Yes, this film has very clear similarities to The Wicker Man. I should also note that Midsommar sets up its pieces very clearly, and derives its suspense from the viewer knowing that something dreadful is coming. Everyone is in on it, except for Dani and her boyfriend's group of mostly unlikable friends.
I genuinely felt sorry for poor little Dani. When she's not grieving, she spends most of this film second-guessing herself, apologizing and being generally gaslit by her dim boyfriend and his shit bird friends.
As for the Swedish locals, like any good cult, they're all pleasant, polite and accommodating. Frankly, I found them more likable than any of the American characters besides Dani. The Swedish villagers have a constant cheerfulness about them, eager to make Dani feel at home when she is at her rawest, which makes their true intentions more sinister.
The villager's Midsommar commune is an idyllic mountain village where the sun shines all day and all night. They wear white frocks and look like they could be members of Heilung. They have an affinity for jazz hands, emotionally cathartic improv group games, and maybe a little human sacrifice. Oh, and they like to trip balls, A LOT. Remember when I said this movie was a bad trip? What could be more horrifying than hallucinating for days in a sunlight-saturated Ikea without walls, filled people who are like a cross between the Freemasons and the Manson family?
This film's terror almost entirely takes place in broad day, earning a similarity to the expertly macabre Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Midsommar's color palette contains beautifully composed shots of warm natural colors, the green hills, all sorts of vibrant flower, golden rays of sun saturating every frame, as if to match Dani's grief. I couldn't help but be reminded of a Jodorowski film, where the imagery is a language in itself. A story that cannot be translated through dialogue, but is meant to be absorbed and meditated on.
Thematically, this film deals with a lot. Mourning, culture shock, entitled American attitudes versus ancient tradition, toxic relationships, and so on. I'm not really sure what it all means, but this film is satisfying as hell to watch if you can stomach some grisly on-screen violence.
4/5
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