Midsommar

Midsommar is a film that will best serve people who are seeking inspiration for a very spectacular way to break up. Aster again lags behind his own ambitions. Midsommar ostentatiously gives the impression that it wants to be an essential contribution to the horror genre. However, the long runtime, slowness and seriousness emanating from the grandiose filming of everyday scenes (camera crane FTW!) and the coldly methodical, mechanically timed editing do not guarantee great depth of thought or psychology (the comparison with Bergman, who did not pretend to be enigmatic, is laughable). When you shoot a psychological horror movie and let the actors ham it up and the characters behave like idiots who do not mind the fact that people are disappearing around them, you pull the rug out from under yourself. In the final third of the film, it is as if Aster is so attached to his effort to build tension that he completely forgets to develop the banal, straightforwardly told story and to concern himself with whether the characters’ actions are consistent. Though noteworthy from an anthropological point of view and nourishing for interpretive adventurers, the attempt to pound into our head with every shot the fact that something scary is about to happen (which is paradoxically less effective than subtler hints would be) and that we are watching a tremendously sophisticated horror film becomes increasingly annoying as the minutes drag by. I could much better imagine Midsommar as a musical comedy (it is actually not far from being just that, though not intentionally) about a group of doped-up flower children singing and dancing in a meadow, wearing animal costumes and familiarising themselves with a foreign culture and cuisine, including, among other things, meat pie with baked female pubic hair. Ari Aster is not a bad director and he knows how to create a dense atmosphere in individual scenes. He would just be better served by considering what is enough. 70% (07/25/2019)

No sophomore slump this time. With his second feature film, Ari Aster confirms that in recent years there hasn’t been a more significant directorial breakthrough, at least not in the field of the darker genres. Midsommar’s atmosphere is unique, beautiful in its visuals and exciting in the portrayal of the concept of trauma, which the main character is experiencing. And mainly, it’s incredibly, truly incredibly bizarre. Rather than a second Hereditary, what we have here is some sort of perverted sunny fairy-tale, “The Wizard of Oz” for the weirdos, as Aster himself said in an interview. Why then only 4* (for the moment)? After Aster’s first film, I was probably expecting a more radical twist and a sharper horror ending. Midsommar manages to surprise in several individual moments (many of which were of course in the trailer), but as whole it goes in a fairly expected direction. The ending IS mad, but, once again, in a bizarre rather than horrifying manner. I could get over it, but, the fundamental difference with Hereditary is that this time, at least during the first viewing, I wasn’t able to relate to the character of Dani enough to fully comprehend her final mood. To get the meaning of Midsommer, it is absolutely essential that the relationship between Dani and Christian resonate with the viewer. But I was too enchanted by the pagan bizarreness around to live with the characters the crisis in their relationship. So, I hope that the half hour extended version that’s in the works won’t have much more gore, sex and nastiness, but will get deeper into that central relationship. That would work perfectly for me. (07/25/2019)

A convincing example that goosebumps can appear on a viewer even watching a film that takes place mostly during the day. Ari Aster has all the hints or mythological connections thoroughly thought out, symbolism plays a leading role, and Florence Pugh is perfectly persuasive in intertwining her civilian life with mental difficulties. However, this Midsommar lasts disproportionately long, the few twists, though suggestive and disturbing, can be seen from miles away – and then there's the last half hour. Specific, striking, unique, but above all, overdone. I've been thinking about it for quite a while, but I still can't take it seriously. I understand what and why is happening during the rituals, but a figurative boundary is crossed with every moan from the group. (06/17/2021)

A bizarre mindfuck full of Nordic cults, precise camerawork and a tense atmosphere that gradually builds into an unadulterated inferno. The depiction of violence and murder doesn't matter, on the contrary it is fresh, crisply shot and at times very intense with the help of the music and the skill of the filmmakers. An interesting mix of dark relationship drama, set in even darker interiors and exteriors (the first half), where everyone finds their own thing about both protagonists, and an over-lit feast for the eyes, where everyone is nice before the murders begin. Paradoxically, while the relationship drama has power and tends to emerge from the darkness, the seemingly positive, lavishly photographed natural scenery of the wilderness is full of light, but here the adage that it’s darkest under the candlestick is doubly true. Bold filmmaking that hasn't been here in such a form and with such a unique directorial style for a long time. (06/29/2020)

A long-overdue stay in the village of Harga ... and what can I say? It’s great! The best couples therapy / horror about the ultimate evil and a relationship destroyer called a thesis. I've seen a lot of ambitious US horror movies in recent years that were inadvertently funny. What at first glance seems to affect the viewer's psyche as an extract from psychotropic, or perhaps even poisonous mushrooms, in fact resembles, after watching the film, the unpleasant come-down after smoking an excessive amount of marijuana cigarettes, which contain more twigs and other unpleasant ingredients. The film combines ridicule of practices that are common in sects and a bizarrely-constructed drama with the theme of toxic relationships. It works like a anthropological study written in the manic phase. In a year from now, our entire family is going to be dead. Along with Get Out, it’s the peak of the wave of indie horror films. Bye - Ari Zoroaster aka Josef Midsommar. (11/21/2019)