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REVIEWING MIDSOMMAR
The Summer season calls for the good things in life; more parties! more travelling! hot weather! festivals! Sometimes, even drugs! This is the Swedish getaway writer-director Ari Aster creates for his sophomore feature, Midsommar. A year after the critically- acclaimed release of Hereditary, we meet protagonist Dani, who is dealing with a now- trademarked Aster family tragedy. She travels with her boyfriend, Christian, and his rowdy anthropology nerd-friends to experience the Midsommar Festival in Hårga, a rural Swedish commune. They dance, enjoy the weather, see some cliff-diving, and of course, watch their friends get killed off one by one.
At a Q&A at the Lincoln Center in New York, Aster joked, “I think my trick is I don’t process anything and then it comes out as some evil movie.” Creating art to express your own pain and existential suffering? That’s hot. He’s repeatedly stated that this film was designed to be a cathartic release about codependency and the end of a relationship inspired by his own experiences. Although the collapse of Dani and Christian’s relationship begins long before the events of Midsommar take place, we can see it continuously punctured by a lack of communication and empathy. Much of what happens in the film is the result of characters refusing to express their emotions to one another, and so the film’s ethos can be captured simply as “expressing yourself? That’s super hot.” Midsommar dangerously highlights the importance of belonging and community to the human spirit, and how easy it is to weaponize the lack thereof.
“The film’s ethos can be captured simply as ‘expressing yourself? That’s super hot.'"
While Aster was simply making a self deprecating joke about neglecting his own emotions, his characters do exhibit this same trait. A common theme throughout the film is suppression. Dani constantly struggles to be forthcoming about her own feelings and suppresses her wants and needs as to not inconvenience anyone else. Though she knows she doesn’t fit in with Christian’s friends, she tries to push her anxiety to the side and be a good sport when they all decide to take hallucinogens together as to not hold anyone back. She suppresses disappointment when Christian forgets her birthday in the interest of not rocking the boat, even taking the blame for his mistake. Though Dani is a strong protagonist, she spends much of the movie passive and cooperative in hopes of placating her boyfriend and his friends. On the other hand, Christian’s biggest sin is his own contention to express his true feelings to his girlfriend. It is established early on that he feels suffocated, but refuses to say anything until leaving Dani is no longer an option and they are forced to bond through grief... except, they don’t. He chooses to stay with her out of guilt and as an act of consolation. Dani not wanting to be alone and Christian not wanting to abandon her, they cannot be stopped from drifting apart. Aster alludes to this through paintings in Dani’s apartment. One of them places Dani and Christian literally an ocean apart. Tableaus on the compound portray the cataclysmic third half of the film; the audience realizes their fates were sealed from the very start of the film.. Dani and Christian just needed to start expressing themselves.
It’s hard to place any blame on Christian for choosing to stay with Dani. He knew she needed him and he obliged, although not to his greatest ability. Similarly, it is difficult to place any blame on Dani for wanting Christian by her side. We are given hints that he had been a caring and important figure to Dani as she dealt with tumultuous family life throughout the years. It would be unrealistic to expect her not to need him after her devastating loss. We see both characters placed in impossible situations within their own lives and at the festival. Dani and Christian are both victims of circumstances and yeah, of this weird Swedish cult. But while Christian is apparently trying, his dialogue with Dani is often dismissive. Christian spends most of the movie gaslighting her. His first conversation with her in the film is him dismissing her concerns about her sister’s e-mail. His last conversation with her is at a breakfast table saying he wasn’t concerned about his (dead) friends, although, she definitely was. Their relationship had run out of love long ago, and was fueled with toxicity until it finally ran its course and ended in literal flames.
When we are brought into the commune, it is through relaxed customs and easygoing traditions that weren’t exactly unfamiliar or too hard to digest. Lots of hugs, drugs, and communal meals. In terms of cultural appreciation, things only start to go downhill (literally) following the Ättestupa ritual. The most senior cult-members choose to end their lives before old age can begin to monopolize their control of mind and bodily functions, believing that this was simply the end of their lifecycle. This bloody event causes the first big rift between visitors and locals. While the British guests could not come to understand or even accept the cliff- diving custom, the Americans were observing for their own academic gain; Josh, an anthropology student, even going so far as to sneak photos of the sacred text for his thesis, which he is immediately punished for. Mark, the joker of the group, represents a different kind of ignorance, in which he just picks and chooses what could possibly be important to the community. We see this exemplified in the tree-pee scene where he argues that the dead tree is just a dead tree. His foolish choice to not be attentive to what could be important to the community is ultimately what gets him skinned in the end as well. The tranquil image of Hårga that we were initially introduced to has now begun to flicker as the reality of the commune is revealed.
Likewise, much of the imagery we see in the first half of the film directly opposes the second half. We start with going from Winter to Summer. When Pelle asks Dani if she felt “held” by Christian and whether or not he felt like home, we can think of the earlier scene of her sobbing in his lap after hearing the news of her family’s deaths. He is cold, quiet, and still as she screams throughout the night. Later, when Dani is crowned May Queen, he doesn’t celebrate with her like the rest of the Hårgans, nor can he share in her joy. Though she constantly craves empathy, a person who can mirror her pain, at no point in the film does Christian express any empathy towards her. Before heading to Sweden, Christian is frequently seen through the reflection of a mirror instead of appearing directly on screen. He is perceived as being close to Dani, but still, emotionally, so far away. In contrast, when Dani breaks down after seeing Christian having sex with Maja, a girl from the cult who recently came of age, the other women in the camp fall to the floor and cry with her. In one of the most iconic scenes in the film, Dani bursts into uncontrollable tears as her sobs release all of the hurt she has repressed for so long. Through a display of sympathy, the women surrounding her begin to sob hysterically in a way that feels somewhat like a parody. The longer they weep, the more they sync up, resulting in an almost tribal cry. In this moment, Dani is comforted, embraced, and finally receiving the empathy she’s desperately needed. In short, they hold her.
As Dani and Christian begin to experience the festival apart, and the more time they spend away from one another, the more emboldened they become to make their own choices and speak honestly. Only when Dani is finally met with an environment where she seems to receive empathy, community, and love, can she finally begin to speak her mind. Through empathetic mirroring, she finds company in her grief; they share her cries and scream in pain with her. The beauty of processing emotions and releasing the truth allows you to release yourself, and even find community. Creating offers this same possibility, as Aster has forged his own community of empathizers through his art. In a sense, by processing his emotions on some level and creating a story that mirrors his own, he has created a community of people who now understand his pain on some level. Though we aren’t part of their relationship, we understand it and know why it ends so catastrophically. Though we don't feel his pain, we too crave to be understood as we bawl on the hardwood floor with him and Dani.
While Midsommar’s visual identity is firmly planted in Swedish landscapes, I was pleasantly surprised to see the colours of tragedy remain consistent in the Aster Cinematic Universe. Hues of green and blue flooded in darkness open the film, pressing on with the colour palette we saw in Hereditary, safeguarded by Pawel Pogorzelski, the Director of Photography of both films. We know that this coupling, accented by the red of sirens and car lights, announce death. We see this as the first responders walk into Dani’s family home, and as Peter sat in the car after his sister is decapitated. These are not the only similarities we see in Aster’s works. Aster excels in tense dialogue and impactful gore, and characters who just can’t seem to catch a break and I’ll always love him for that.
Admittedly, I very much appreciated the film for what it was, but there were some oddities that I felt needed to be addressed in this piece - specifically, Ruben, the child who was purposely inbred to become Hårga’s oracle. We are introduced to Ruben through an unexpected and unexplained cutaway when Dani and the gang first get to the commune. We are told about him when an Elder is explaining the book of runes. We see him through a few more arbitrary shots in the last half of the film. Beyond his brief introduction, Ruben’s character has no other use if only to elicit feelings of discomfort from the audience and reinforce Hårga’s otherness. Yet in that regard, the only discomfort really felt is due to the story’s exploitation of a disabled character.
In the film’s grand finale, Dani is forced to choose the last sacrifice of the Midsommar festival. Her options are either a random cult member or her boyfriend. She now needs to take care of the person who has been looking out for her, and what happens afterwards is really based on interpretation. Although the cult masterfully manipulates the situation, from Dani’s perspective, Christian cheated on her with Maja. Perhaps due to Christian's ongoing gaslighting throughout the film and generally being pretty terrible to her and his own friends, Dani choses to punish him through this sacrifice and moves on to have her eternal Hot Girl Sommar. Because she is one of them, she does not need him. In the film’s final moments, we see Christian stuffed into a bear’s body and placed in the sacred yellow building as it is engulfed in flames. His now ex-girlfriend watches in horror, attempting to flee for a moment, before she eventually stops and comes face-to-face with the hot and sunny reality: Christian, along with all of her companions and everything she’s really known, burn. Dani says goodbye to the bleak reality she once knew and so she smiles as she breathes in her new life with her new sisters and new home without Christian - her ultimate catharsis. When she is crowned the May Queen and invited to bless the soil on the compound, Dani asks if Christian can come with her and she is told “No. The Queen must ride alone”. This could be just another of the cult’s masterful manipulation techniques, but it also reflects that Dani is no longer the broken girl who walked into Hårga days before. She has healed and prospered and there is no longer any place for her to be dragging around her destructive relationship with Christian. Or at least, that’s what she thinks. Right?
After first seeing Midsommar, I left the theatre having felt like I had been force fed Dani’s arc a bit too literally. I had difficulty identifying some of the story’s meaning and thought maybe this was all just meant to be a drop in the Hot Girl Summer ocean. But the more I focus on the optics of the story, the more it feels like I have been manipulated into agreeing with the cult’s tactics. Like a Technicolor Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, the outsiders were picked off one- by-one as they each defied the rules set by the commune. Not being able to acclimate resulted in a death sentence for everyone but Dani who was able to integrate with the other members of the commune, even speak their language and become their Queen. Aster has hinted to political ideas interwoven in the story, and after some time away from the movie, they come to light with ease. None of the transgressions committed by the outsiders justified their violent punishments, yet we still root for Dani being able to find a community, no matter how intolerant they seem. Aster utilized radical empathy so we could consider this a happy ending for her while disregarding the group of people that failed to conform to the Hårgan culture. Dani’s sense of belonging comes at a deadly cost fueled by xenophobia and nationalism, a strategy that has never failed our world’s most bigoted and fascist leaders since the dawn of time. The true horror of Midsommar lies in so many of us identifying with Dani’s need for empathy and community, and believing that she was the true winner after all.
What ends up being a horror story for Christian and his friends becomes a much needed antidote to Dani’s pain following the loss of her family. After not feeling understood, belonging anywhere, or being cared for after so long, she becomes the queen, dressed in flowers, and surrounded by a community who chooses to lift her up, share her pain and her grief; it is a fairy tale come true. For her. For now. The title of May Queen will eventually be revisited. She has all but shifted her codependency from Christian to the commune and entwined her own life with the same group who murdered her friends. Much like the cycle of life, the cycle of trauma persists until confronted. It’s scary how important it is to feel understood, accepted, and loved.