[film review] Midsommar (2019)
Another trippy work from Ari Aster
After the outstanding success of “Hereditary” (2018), an obsessive psychological horror which might get everyone goosebumps whenever it is mentioned, Ari Aster once again wrote and directed the second feature-length film in his directorial career “Midsommar” (2019). In this work, Ari continued to devote himself to the horror genre, one of his favorites since he was young, but unlike his previous film, “Midsommar” was classified as folk horror and slasher.
Summary
Dani Ardor (Florence Pugh) has a post-trauma after her sister Terri committed suicide and killed her parents. Besides, the relationship between her and Christian Hughes (Jack Reynor) is on the edge of collapse since Christian has been unable to be patient with her unstable mental health and the tragic event makes it worse. One day, Dani discovers that Christian is planning a trip to Sweden with his friends for their graduate thesis purpose (at least it’s what they say) and they’re going in 2 weeks. After arguing, Dani is invited to join the trip with Christian and his friends including Josh (William J. Harper), Mark (Will Poulter) and Pelle (Vilhelm Blomgren) — the one invites them to meet his commune Harga in Halsingland, Sweden where he grew up. In Halsingland, the group experiences the Midsommar festival (Sun Solstice) which is only held once in every 90-year and few strange customs of the Harga people. But the more they stay, the more they witness how crazy and inhumane the Harga culture is.
The main themes
It’s easy to interpret that there were two main themes in “Midsommar”: (1) The deteriorating relationship between Dani and Christian, this was the spine of the plot; (2) The controversial customs of Harga, this was the element of horror and reflected the reality of culture and religion.
Ari Aster cleverly inserted the level of deterioration of the relationship varied inversely with the frequency of strange ritual activities. The more the schemes of the Harga people revealed, the more the relationship between Dani and Christian restrained.
In addition, the two themes seemed irrelevant to each other, but both had the same purpose that was to make Dani helpless. Dani was in a stalemate in a nearly 4-year relationship with Christian, who was currently unwilling to maintain the relationship and influenced by his friends. Dani also could not do anything against the rituals and activities of the Harga people. She did whatever people told her to do, she followed wherever people told her to go. Along with her unstable mentality, Dani appeared not to be strong enough to stand up for herself.
Sound design
Perhaps, this is one of the characteristics in Ari Aster’s directing style, by amplifying the sounds of characters’ cries and screams or other verbal sounds and sometimes turning them into a background sound. This is a creative and deliberate way to produce horror without using visual effects or jumpscares. “Midsommar” was not an exception, the audiences felt nervous when hearing an intensely strange background sound which turned out to be the breathing sounds of Harga people doing their rituals in the next scene. In another scene where the sound of Dani’s desperate scream was amplified and lengthened to become the next scene’s background sound, which was aimed to initiate continuous obsession.
The realism in graphic violence
Who has already watched “Hereditary” would never forget the frightful image of a falling human head that was being eaten by ants. Ari is very thorough in depicting human body parts that were damaged, injured or even cut off. These violent images cause Ari’s films to be classified as slasher even though their plots don’t depict the genre.
In “Midsommar”, the directing style of Ari was quickly shown right at the beginning when the audiences saw the dead body of Terri connected to a long pipe that pumping poison gas from the cars and there was vomit all over her body. Thereupon, the sound of Dani’s scream was lengthened until the next scene which introduced names of the cast members, the director, and the film’s title. This intention was likely to announce to the audiences that “Midsommar” would be another terror just like “Hereditary”.
The pseudo peace
Ari Aster has built a commune of Harga which seemed very peaceful at first glance. The moment the group of Dani-Christian stepped inside, what the audiences saw was the warm welcome, everyone was wearing white clothes, some were working, some were dancing and some were playing flutes. The land was covered by green grass and there were some large wooden houses. The people here had a gentle, calm and elegant attitude. For who is living in a crowded and chaotic city, this would be a paradise. In this place, people provided their food by handy work and never worried about career or making a living. Lastly, the air was fresh and unpolluted.
Even though, the audiences always had a feeling that something dangerous was waiting ahead through Dani’s point of view. In fact, in that group, besides Pelle was the only one who acknowledged what was going on, there was only Dani could feel the insecurity behind the peace of this place. However, as mentioned above, Dani was nearly helpless with her feelings. Perhaps the sensitivity, whom she possessed through her post-trauma made her sense that something wasn’t right. And that sensitivity also made her too vulnerable to make a decision.
The installment of pseudo peace for the Harga commune in Ari Aster’s “Midsommar” was an attempt to stimulate the viewers’ insecure feeling. This method is also found in other famous horror films such as the white community in Jordan Peele’s “Get Out” (2017) or the Overlook Hotel in Stanley Kubrick’s “The Shining” (1980). When the director chooses this approach, we have to accept that the film might be lengthy and the first two-thirds of the film might be boring since we don’t see anything happens. Nonetheless, if the film is well directed, the first two-thirds of the film won’t feel abundant, there will be odd details that are inserted deliberately and needed the audiences’ close attention to observe. The purpose is to incubate the insecurity of the audiences as well as the characters and also to signal the upcoming terror.
The element of religion and superstition
In my point of view, I assume that Ari Aster’s intention in using religion and beliefs as the theme was to criticize the ancient customs that are rusty, uncivilized, unscientific and stray from humanity’s common values but still exist nowadays (human murder/sacrifice, incest, manipulative drugs, superstition, etc.). However, I don’t understand why Ari picked the Midsommar festival but not any other festivals or customs.
As far as I know, Midsommar is a festival celebrated the Sun Solstice in many northern European countries with different names (not just Sweden). During the festival, people gather to enjoy big feasts, singing and dancing around the Maypole. This is a happy and healthy festival, apparently doesn’t have any inhumane rituals like in the film. Despite so, perhaps the way I interpret Ari’s intention is wrong or his intention was simply to terrorize a normal festival. In another perspective, maybe the Midsommar festival was just a cover to help the Harga people practice their customs without being noticed, or their beliefs are similar to other northern European regions’ so they might celebrate Midsommar in a different way.
Conclusion
“Midsommar” was less horror and less depressing than the previous work of Ari Aster. In spite of that, it still maintained the characteristics of Ari and emphasized his horror directing style. I believe there are more hidden messages underneath the film that I haven’t discovered yet. As well as there are many details that I need to watch over and over again to find out. This is also a feature in Ari’s directing style, you have to focus on watching every second, because of the “show don’t tell” storytelling along with a complex plot which both make you easy to get lost. In 2019, besides an entertaining “IT: Chapter Two”, we also have a sophisticated “Midsommar” that is worth watching. However, with so many great competitors this year, it is truly hard for “Midsommar” to acquire any Oscar.
Genre: folk horror/slasher
Director: Ari Aster
Screenwriter: Ari Aster
Cast: Florence Pugh, Jack Reynor, Vilhelm Blomgren
Grade: A
Nguyen Hoang Bao
