KRR: So, 'Midsommar' is a Trip Worth Taking.

 

This is the third and final review under the theme: The Queen's Gambit, movies about queens in all of their forms. If you haven't read them already, check out my first two reviews on Marie Antoinette and Mean Girls. Now, for one of the bizarre, yet beautiful movies ever made (and the absolute queen that is Florence Pugh). 

Before I begin, I have to acknowledge my wonderful mother. She is the one who put me on to The Queen's Gambit before anyone else, which is not only the theme for these recent reviews, but just a really wonderful show. She is also the person who sat through a matinee screening of Midsommar with me last July. Or is it last last July? July of 2019. That's what I mean. Anyways, sitting through that movie, especially if you don't want to, is no easy feat.

Midsommar, for those of you who aren't fortunate enough - unfortunate is how my mother would describe it - to have seen this movie, was one of the biggest film surprises of 2019. The movie follows grad student Dani (Florence Pugh), her boyfriend Christian (Jack Reynor), and his friends, played by a trio of Wills (William Jackson Harper, Will Poulter, and Vilhelm Blomgren) as they travel to a small cult-like commune in Sweden to witness a midsummer festival. It is an anthropological survey of this small community, as well as a break-up movie, as well as a therapy session. Oh yeah, and it's a horror film.

-SPOILERS AHEAD-

Now, neither me nor my mother watched that trailer before we saw the movie, which means that we had the rug pulled out from underneath us in the theater. Midsommar is far from your archetypal horror film. In many ways it transcends the horror genre itself. And it does so from the very start.

Besides the opening scene - a twelve-minute stretch where Dani discovers her sister has murdered their parents, as well as herself, feels as real as it is chilling - the entire movie is filmed in daylight. Darkness is where horror films make their money. Aren't we all afraid of the dark? Midsommar shies away from that. The characters are able to see everything that's happening, as the sun never sets for very long in summertime Sweden. Ari Aster, the film's writer, director, and creative mind, also decides to stray from horror's second biggest meal ticket - the jump scare. Besides one exception, the movie is entirely devoid of the tactic. Instead, the terror is slowly dialed up right before your eyes. Midsommar doesn't keep you on the edge of your seat. It makes you uncomfortable with where you're sitting altogether. 

My mother and I's reaction as well.

By starting with such a grotesque - yet conceivable - scene (i.e. something tragically horrific happening to your closest loved one), audiences are never granted the opportunity to find their footing. The first half hour of a horror film is almost always a relaxed, oftentimes comedic, set-up. We get introduced to the characters, get invested, and know that in 45 minutes the real terror will begin. Not so with Midsommar. It hits you with an emotional gut punch, gives you the title card twelve minutes in, and then introduces you to the cast and story. In my opinion, the movie's opening is its strongest moment. Florence Pugh comes out of the gate hot, an Oscar worthy performance from the second the scene starts, and Ari Aster shows that he is in control of this movie and where it will take you. You're in his hands from the opening tip, and his methodic dribbling of your emotions only intensifies as the film plays out.

Now, you might be wondering why I've been mentioning my theater experience with my mom. Let me try to explain (and if you saw Midsommar in a theater, you already know what I'm talking about). To begin, the movie can feel like a joke at times. Not that it shouldn't be taken seriously as a piece of art, but rather as something so absurd, you aren't sure whether to laugh, scream, or cry. If one of the 15 people in our matinee screening had just said, "What the fuck" at any point during the movie, the whole theater would've erupted with laughter, instead of the normal shushes and angry glares. 

The other reason I mention the theater experience is because Midsommar feels hallucinogenic, when seen on the big screen especially. The events taking place in this movie are not only shocking, they're visual tricks. The periphery of the shots seem to constantly be in flux. The intensity of the colors are gradually brightened throughout the movie. Objects that are not sentient, such as flowers and trees, breathe and move with the characters. Paired with the constant brightness in a very dark theater, the grotesquely beautiful imagery is intoxicating and entirely disorienting. You can't even be sure of what you saw, but what you think you saw was morbid.

Down the rabbit hole we go.

And there are so many truly morbid, what-the-fuck-am-I-watching scenes in this movie. The aforementioned opening scene is one. Then there's the cliff scene. If you've seen Midsommar, you know what I'm referring to. If you haven't, I'll spare you. There's the mating scene near the end of the movie. Same thing - I'll spare you. Finally, there's the ending. While I don't want to spoil the ending, we do need to talk about it for a minute, because it's probably the most important part of the film.

Though Midsommar is a horror film with one hell of a color palette, it's also a Trojan horse for a deeper look at grief and family-building. What is abundantly obvious, even from the trailer, is that Dani and Christian are not in a healthy or caring relationship. Christian is totally uninterested in Dani, while she is putting in all of the effort to make their "love" work. (It doesn't help that Jack Reynor seems uninterested in acting either, but that's for another time.) What Dani needs throughout the film though is love. She's just been through a terrible tragedy - honestly, probably the worst conceivable thing that could happen to a person - without a support system seemingly of any kind. She goes to Sweden to get away from her trauma and to recover. Does that end up happening? I'd say yes, though not in the ways she ever imagined. 

It should now be mentioned that during the grad students' trip to Hårga, the Swedish commune, they witness cultish induction practices, drug-induced ceremonies, and brutal ritual sacrifices. It becomes obvious fairly soon after their arrival that something is happening to the visitors, themselves included. People begin to disappear, the Swedes' rituals become more... exuberant, let's say, and the nature of their visit - as anthropology students working on their theses - takes a backseat to survival. Though for Dani, visiting Hårga was never about an anthropology thesis, nor does it even fully become about surviving. She is there to recover, to find herself, and by the end of the film, following a truly unhinged series of events, she does just that.

We here at So are in love with Florence Pugh. Maybe you can tell.

While the lore of Hårga and its residents is never fully fleshed out - a major problem considering the movie is in many ways an anthropological study of the community - one thing is made certain: every midsummer festival requires a May Queen. Without spoiling too much, it's safe to say: Dani fits the bill. Now do those midsummer festivals happen every year? They seem to, based on the pictures and general practices of those involved. Are multiple references made to the fact that the cycle actually happens every 90 years? Also yes. Like I said, the lore doesn't really check out, and believe me, I really tried to figure it out on this, my third, viewing. Regardless, Dani is crowned the May Queen, and thus the story of familial grief begins to resolve. She has apparently found a new home in this twisted daylight commune, despite losing everyone she'd ever been close to. Is it fucked up? Without a doubt. Is it a cathartic quote-unquote happy ending? Ari Aster leaves that up for interpretation.

A horror film about empathy and grieving above all else.

Why then did Midsommar fail to garner a single Academy Award nomination for writing, or costume, or special effects, or score (which is great), or above all those, a Florence Pugh acting nom? If this movie is so excellently made, why wasn't it rewarded as such? Well, because it's a tough watch. And that's why I mention my theater experience with my mama one last time. 

I loved Midsommar. My mother was far less enthusiastic. As we left the theater, I sang the film's praises, while my mother was baffled by my adoration of the topsy-turvy cult film we'd just seen. We agreed on only two things definitively: First, that Florence Pugh is an incredible actress with a very bright future. Second, that my brother, Luke, would have walked out of the theater within the first hour. Luke is not one for "artsy" movies. He is, in more ways than I, the typical movie-goer. He sees and appreciates tentpole movies. For example, last Christmas I went and saw Little Women, while he saw Jumanji: The Next Level. I can't say which movie is better. I can guess and hope that my selection was, but I can't guarantee it. Neither one of us is more "correct." We are just two very different movie watchers. 

That's how I know Luke would've walked out of the theater during Midsommar. It is not universally beloved. It's, admittedly, a tough hang. I cannot and will not give a universal recommendation for this film the way I will with Get Out for example. It is not a must see. But if you do watch it, please try to appreciate the artistry of it.

There are few artists alive today with the talent to stretch your senses to their breaking point without pulling too far. Ari Aster and Florence Pugh are two of them. And if you ever, ever get the opportunity to see this wonderfully twisted and brightly painted movie on a silver screen in the dark, do it. It's a trip.

Also, the entire movie is laid out on this tapestry in the opening shot of the film. Mama's favorite movie, 2019.

Midsommar KRR: 8.3/10