After depicting a suffocatingly tense descent into one family’s worst nightmare with HEREDITARY, Ari Aster has given himself much more room to flex his directing muscles. With just his second feature, MIDSOMMAR proves he’s a master in the foreboding style with just a touch of substance to back it up. While his previous film dealt better with the complications of grief and relationships while giving us characters we cared about, MIDSOMMAR feels like a greater achievement in terms of what he’s able to do as a director with a seemingly smaller bag of horror tricks. Despite the openness of the Swedish countryside and the bright, blue sky overhead (they actually shot in Budapest, Hungary), the same feelings of claustrophobia and uneasiness he was previously so successful at achieving are still very much present. He avoids the sophomore slump as a director but isn’t quite as successful in doing so as a writer.
Dani (Florence Pugh) and Christian (Jack Reynor) are a young American couple with a relationship on the brink of falling apart. To move on past a horrific family tragedy that haunts her thoughts, Dani joins Christian and his college friends on a trip to a once-in-a-lifetime midsummer festival in a remote Swedish village. What begins as a carefree summer holiday filled with psychedelic drugs and overly-friendly villagers, slowly transforms into an unnerving and shocking series of events that tear apart the group.
It’s clear what the end destination is for these travelers. As evident in classic films like THE WICKER MAN or even THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE where our heroes go on a sunny escape that’s destined for doom, in this genre, the journey to get there becomes more important than the destination. What it lacks in surprises or scares, it more than makes up for with uneasy atmosphere. There’s a lot of quiet tension, especially for fans of weird, religious cult films. That being said, your patience for this type of filmmaking will be tested. True believers of slow religious horror need only apply (drink the kool-aid with caution).
In a way, director Ari Aster fetishizes the ceremonial aspects, soaking in every sun-filled shot and laboring over every pause in the ritual. He’s in no hurry when creating the initial facade of peaceful ambiance. After a while, the slow methodical manner washes over you, in a fever-dream sorta way. And by the end, the backgrounds pulsate and the experience becomes downright hallucinatory as you question if these rites of passage are truly transcendent and giving birth to new life or downright barbaric. The fact that Aster has somehow put a trance on the audience to make you question your own beliefs truly speaks to his cinematic power as a director.
The cliche of Americans acting dumb overseas is becoming a bit tired. When the male friends aren’t focused on drugs and sex, jabs at each other and the village feel like a forced attempt at adding levity to the dour tone of the film. Between the college thesis discussions, the clunky frat jokes, and the awkward relationship bickering, Aster’s dialogue doesn’t quite find its footing. Thankfully, he’s much more confident in just letting long sequences go on without dialogue pushing the narrative. He has a tendency to intentionally shock you with violent imagery, from the disturbing opening to the flashes of gruesome deaths (he clearly has a thing for head trauma). In the end, you’re going to remember the film for how it made you feel more so than what it has to say.
While the film may be watered down when it comes to handling the weight and repercussions of grief compared to HEREDITARY, it excels at showing the different approaches to gender in developed society versus a more rural or ancient society. Dani is belittled by her boyfriend and his friends while the Swedish community elevates the power of the woman. Florence Pugh excels at playing the grief-striken martyr. Throughout the film, she’s constantly apologizing for how she is “misinterpreting” situations or for her conversations with her boyfriend or his friends. You feel the burden and shame she puts upon herself, as well as how traditional societies make women feel for exhibiting feelings. As much as MIDSOMMAR is a horror film in the traditional sense, it’s just as much a story about Dani becoming a version of herself that she didn’t know she had the potential to be. And when she’s finally able to expel all the negative energy she has kept pent up for so long – in a chilling and emotional group therapy scene with other women – then she is finally able to ascend to a place of power in her own life.
Interestingly, MIDSOMMAR opens with a shot of ancient drawings depicting aspects of the ceremonies to come. The drawings then open up like a stage curtain, revealing the cold and snowy opening of the film. It’s as if the film is presenting the audience as voyeurs, openly acknowledging us and signaling that we’re about to witness a performance. This idea translates well with the Americans going abroad story and being a stranger in this foreign land watching these rituals. Additionally, it feels like an idea that’s a companion to the dollhouse visuals he goes back to again and again in HEREDITARY. Whether this idea is read as a positive or negative in terms of how he views his audience is certainly open to debate, but it seems clear that Ari Aster enjoys setting the stage for big sweeping motions in small family tragedies.
Overall Score: 3 out of 4
MIDSOMMAR opens in theaters July 3rd
