Midsommar (2019): The Best Bad Trip You’ll Ever Take [No Spoilers]

Folk horror is a specific sub genre that’s nebulous and uncommon in a modern world. The most famous example would be 1973’s The Wicker Man, in which a policeman travels to find a missing girl on a distant island populated by ritualistic pagans. It’s rooted in an outside from more modern times coming into a seemingly ancient village stuck in time. Yet, the backwards morals of said police office blur the lines between our villain protagonist and our cult of villains. These complex murky layers firmly resonate over forty five years later in director Ari Aster‘s Midsommar which takes the concept of pagan festival horror to a modern space that’s equally confounding and ambitious. Aster is keenly aware of the concept of a sophomore slump and aims for a sophomore ramp up that swings straight for the fences after impressing/confounding audiences with last year’s masterpiece Hereditary. One may say they prefer his first film, but no one can say that this second feature is anything less than an upright boldface daggering stare of a statement. It’s… a lot to take in. To say the least.

Instead of using the confines of horror to elaborate on family specifically, Aster aims for the absence of family and of those that truly care about you in favor of those that vaguely show support buried in apathy when your world is thrown into chaos. Right from the brutal sudden opening, Midsommar sets its eyes on making the audience linger on the cruel hand life deals our protagonist Dani (Florence Pugh) after she loses her family in a murder/suicide performed by her sister who suffers from a bipolar disorder. The crushing mental anguish and worry about this possibility is extinguished long before Dani ever gets this tragic news by her distant and indifferent boyfriend Christian (Jack Reynor) who was already dismissing some cryptic emails from Dani’s sister as mere “cries for attention.” His lack of direction and individuality puts him at a registry that finds Dani’s emotional breakdowns more burdensome than anything else. Ari Aster frames Dani’s anxiety and depression as a genuinely horrific experience not to be taken lightly, so as to put the audience in her position. One shot shows her desperate to find a bathroom in her boyfriend’s apartment only to transition to an airplane bathroom, showing just how all encompassing and endless this mental nightmare is for her and yet how isolated she feels. Which she then dismisses thanks to Christian’s apathy, thus eternally continuing the cycle of emotional distance caused by a lacking support system. I could see how this might be triggering for some particularly given Midsommar‘s extended length, but it also firmly places us in the perspective of a woman suffering such anxiety and being gaslit that Aster and Pugh treat with utmost sincerity and naked honesty at all times.

Christian and his buddies Mark (Will Poulter) & Josh (William Jackson Harper) all exhibit some form of toxic masculinity. Some are more overt than others, but all three dismiss Dani’s respectable needs as the actions of a crazed grieving woman without any sense of awareness. Josh tries to intellectualize it as an anchor weighing Christian down. Mark overtly tells him he could be impregnanting so many different women instead of being “stuck” with a woman like Dani. Christian meanwhile is in a sort of limbo state of harmful behavior that disguises itself as chill. Reynor portrays a stunning accurate version of this aloof ass that isn’t clouded in an over the top unrealistic bitterness or violent tone lesser films would take. Midsommar elects to present such toxicity as it most often does creep up; casually, as if totally normal. All of them create a foul aroma of insincerity that Dani breathes like smaug infected air, the only possible option in an environment lacking in clean resources. Soon, Dani’s needs matter less to her as she abandons free will out of a need to not seem like a nag or someone bringing down the party everyone else is celebrating. Pugh portrays this emotional anxiety beautifully as she sinks  further due to a lack of guidance at a troubling time. She feels trapped in a world where her only support system is cognizant yet uncaring of her troubles.

It’s a type of recursive trap that builds the believable foundation for Midsommar to blossom into a bizarro wacked out ride for two and a half hours once all Dani, Christian, Mark and Josh journey with a fourth friend Pelle (Vilhelm Blomgren), an exchange student who takes them on a trip to his home village in Sweden in time for a special titular festival that only happens every 90 years. The festival and its rituals put us at arm’s length while giving us the sense of community these villagers have. Happy smiling folks in large white gowns and flower crowns constantly in revered observation for their customs as the sun blazes overhead for the majority of a 24 hour day. The horror seeps in with gorgeous uncompromising daylight that shines directly in our faces. A rare feat for horror films that usually cascade us in darkness. It honestly makes the few night set horror sequences seem slightly underwhelming after the contrastingly brightly lit sequences of horrifically dark excess. The various arrangement of flower almost recalls an old Technicolor feature like The Wizard of Oz as we journey further into a surreal blend of pastels that makes these proceedings feel otherworldly. All of this puts our characters in a fuzzy position of mental perception, so as to excuse some admittedly odd character turns.

Midsommar isn’t as narratively tight as Aster’s debut Hereditary though. With it’s 147 minute long running time, there’s a lot more bloat as we bask in the uncomfortable awkward tension of these outsiders entering a world of simple pleasure and disturbed customs. There are various outdoor meal sequences in particular that play like the worst outdoor family barbeque events one might stumbled into with a friend. Yet, Aster tends to use this to create perfect ongoing tension for an audience that might be ahead of the game as to what the story brings forth. He strives for the Alfred Hitchcock definition of suspense. We’re aware from the moment we arrive in this village that something is off. Aster immediately illustrates this with one of the more stunningly accurate bad drug trips in cinematic history. So many films go to Yellow Submarine levels of cartoonish visuals to show a drug trip when more often than not it’s simply a few details blurring the lines of sight that catches one of guard during such an experience. The grass once under your feet suddenly becomes part of your body. A face appears in the trees you’re staring at. One face from your past stares you straight in the eye as you uncomfortably squirm through a crowd. It’s a feeling of discomfort that only heightens the stranger in a strange land quality our protagonists go through.

Oddly, the strangest thing that makes Midsommar such a fascinating experience despite its pacing issues and odd character choices is how it weirdly feels comforting given our chaotic modern world. Aster paints a disturbed portrait of this community, but still makes them feel more like a community than any of our other characters have ever been a part of. This sad reality that even a pagan cult that participates in such depravity and is stuck in terrifying tradition is still more empathetic and understanding than the cruel modern world our characters come from. It’s not excusing the violent behavior so much as sending the bleak message that when we lack the support system for those in need like Dani in pursuit of selfish aims disguised as pragmatism like Christian, cultish folk horror feels like an oasis where one can be open to their feelings and find an extremely warped version of support. It’s not healthy, but it’s bizarrely more comforting to the alternative. This is the kind of blurred lines of protagonist and antagonists that makes what could be an overlong and trite detritus on modern relationships, depression and apathy feel far more engrossing and unsettling as it lingers in the recesses of the brain. Midsommar gives us an bizarre folksy edged to folk horror. It’s rather… folksy horror, if you will.

Rating: 4 out of 5 Warped Flower Crowns

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