Midsommar Murders

Although Midsommar is director Ari Aster's second feature (his first was Hereditary), the film still feels like the handiwork of a seasoned professional. It is well-crafted, beautifully photographed, intellectually provocative and highly atmospheric. It's also a difficult film to fully embrace. 

Florence Pugh (currently chewing the scenery in Netflix's East of Eden) is cast as Dani, a high-strung graduate student whose insecurity is alienating her from longtime boyfriend, Christian (Jack Reynor), also a grad student half-heartedly searching for a doctoral topic. Christian's best friends, obnoxious wanker Mark (Will Poulter) and ambitious Josh (William Jackson Harper) are--very vocally--fed up with Dani's neediness, but Swedish student, Pelle (Vilhelm Blomgren) is a little more reserved. At least, he's not pressuring Christian to end his relationship, although, privately, Christian has just about reached his limit. 

When Dani's bipolar sister murders their parents before killing herself, Dani breaks down, compelling Christian to abandon all thoughts of a traumatic split. He needs to stay the course and be supportive of his broken girlfriend, if only to avoid feeling guilty. However, when Pelle presents an opportunity for Christian, Mark and Josh to immerse themselves in the midsummer festivities of his communal stomping grounds in rural Sweden, the boys are totally up for it. It's especially perfect for Josh, who is writing his thesis on ritualistic ceremonies across Europe. Naturally, Dani isn't particularly pleased with this unexpected turn of events, especially since Christian has kept this from her until the last minute. With Dani's family barely cold in their graves, Christian finds himself in a bind. Should he stay or should he go? Or should he avoid the inevitable repercussions and just bring her along? 

Choosing option 3 turns out not to be such a great idea but, for the time being, the gang seems content (well maybe not Dani) frolicking in the bucolic sun-drenched countryside and tripping on mushrooms as they are warmly welcomed by the orphaned Pelle's (very) extended family. In fact, the entire commune of Harga feels--at first--like one big, happy family. These athletic, preternaturally euphoric white folks--adults and children alike--are the total antitheses of our down-to-earth Sinners from last week's post. And not necessarily in a good way. 

The white-robed Hargans work harmoniously, almost robotically, their roles largely assigned by sex and age. Some are caretakers of the children, others work the fields, still others cook, build structures on the grounds, lead religious ceremonies. They share meals together and live in dormitories. They're completely self-sufficient and, in a sense, isolated from the rest of the world. 

Along with a young British couple--Simon and Connie--the Americans are treated like royalty when they first arrive at Harga. Ever so subtly, however, things begin to change. Something is off about these people.

After two elders, a man and woman, are feted at a banquet in their honor, their chairs are hoisted atop the shoulders of several Hargans and carried ceremoniously to the top of a high cliff. To the horror of Dani and the rest of the visitors, the woman hurls herself down onto the rocks below. Seconds later, the man follows suit. Unfortunately, the man's descent doesn't quite finish the job so a chosen few are dispatched to bash his brains out with a gigantic wooden mallet.

Seventy-two, Pelle confides, is the cut-off age for the locals, at which time they receive the celebratory send-off our friends have just witnessed.  This has been the custom among my people for centuries, Pelle insists. Maybe I should have mentioned this earlier. 

Instead of getting the hell out of there, our smarty pants collegians decide to discuss things first.

We shut away people in nursing homes in America all the time, is this any more barbaric than what we do? says one of them. 

It bears mentioning that home-grown psychedelics and herbal sedatives are condiments routinely served at the group dinner table so perhaps this fact clouds the judgment of the guests. Because, instead of thumbing a ride back to Stockholm, they decide to hang around, do a little research and see what happens next. As the wildly synchronized dancing and movements of their hosts become more frenzied, Connie and Simon finally suggest that maybe Harga isn't so much a commune as it is a cult. Well, duh. 

Josh is way too concerned with the knowledge the cultists can provide for him to complete his studies, while Christian, himself now inspired to appropriate Josh's ideas for his own thesis, are heedless of the actual gravity of their situation. Christian seems especially oblivious to Dani's concerns and doesn't seem to notice--or care--that her mental health is spiraling. He tells himself he wants to be a good, decent boyfriend and do the right thing but Dani's PTSD has been kicking his ass for far too long. Therefore, it's up to Pelle to try and comfort the young woman. But maybe Pelle isn't the perfect confidante for Dani, especially since he's the one who brought them here in the first place (Londoners Connie and Simon were led to Harga by another male cult-member promising midsummer merrymaking). 

Meanwhile, Mark--who has been insufferable throughout the entire film--accidentally pees on a fallen tree containing the ashes of the commune's ancestors, and the atmosphere of cordiality (if it can be defined as such) dissipates considerably. With some of the cult members enraged and others noticeably cooler, things finally get uncomfortable enough for Dani, Connie and Simon to question what exactly is going on. Of course, by the time the light bulbs flicker on and they start packing bags, it's already too late. Much too late. In fact, their fates were sealed the moment they set foot in Hargan. 

By this point, we're almost 2 hours into a 2 1/2 hour film so it's almost a relief when the carnage begins. Ari Aster does a beautiful job setting up mood and an atmosphere of sunlit dread but I'm pretty sure he could have achieved the same results in significantly less time. The film is about 30 minutes longer than it needs to be (the director's cut clocks at 171 minutes!), dramatically underscoring its cinematic forebears (which somehow diminishes the film's novelty). The most obvious influence is Robin Hardy's 1973 folk-horror classic The Wicker Man, but there are also nods to Rosemary's Baby (1968), Deliverance (1972), Tobe Hooper's Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974), The Stepford Wives (1975), even Cannibal Holocaust (1980) and the more recent Get Out (2017), among others. The excessive detail given to setting up the mise-en-scene also lessen the film's impact and element of surprise, leeching the film of its inherent suspense. 

We also don't care about the characters, which is not necessarily a fatal flaw, but still a flaw that robs us of our ability to empathize with any of them. The performances by Florence Pugh and Jack Reynor are quite good and psychologically sound, but Dani is so endlessly needy that she becomes grating after a while. Reynor's Christian wants to be someone he can respect but he's actually a dick at heart, and a fairly ineffectual dick at that. Of course, that fact doesn't make it any more palatable when he is effectively drugged and raped by a virginal female acolyte hoping to be impregnated by his sperm while surrounded by a chanting chorus of naked devotees (it's the reverse of the scene in Rosemary's Baby where Mia Farrow is inseminated by Satan). The other characters in the story--Mark, Josh, Simon, Connie--are simply stereotypical figures lined up to be slaughtered by the cultists. 

The Hargans are creepily over-friendly but don't have much depth or individuality to really distinguish one from the other. Vilhelm Blomgren's Pelle starts out strong but, for some reason, is largely relegated to the background once Gunnel Fred (a ringer for Cloris Leachman's Frau Blucher) takes center stage. Interestingly, the man who throws himself from the cliff in an early scene of the film is an unrecognizable Bjorn Andresen, once known as the "most beautiful boy in the world" after appearing at age 15 in Luchino Visconti's 1971 classic Death in Venice. Sexualized and exploited by Visconti, various handlers and a voracious press, Andresen's tragic experiences have been recounted in the 2021 documentary The Most Beautiful Boy in the World. 

Cinematographer Pawel Pogorzelski does an expert job capturing Harga's rustic, sunshiny allure while also highlighting the cult members' frantic vivacity against a backdrop of pagan totems and squeaky clean weirdness. 

Now that I've seen the film and written this much, I'm still not exactly certain how I feel about it. It's almost appropriate to the Halloween season but due to what I can only assume is the director's self-indulgence it misses the mark. Which is a shame because folk-horror in a rural setting during 30 days of sunlight is an intriguing premise. What I did find extremely unsettling were scenes where the cult members, in unison, mimicked the cries of people in agony, ecstasy and psychological distress. Equally disturbing was that last take of Christian, echoing a scene from earlier when a grief-stricken Dani lies in bed below an illustration that features a young girl wearing a crown and kissing a bear (Stackars lilla basse, a 1912 work by Swedish painter John Bauer). And, in the end, there is the enigmatic final shot of Dani, herself, the May Queen wreathed in flowers and smiling happily as she recognizes that the loss of her birth family has led her into the loving arms of this new, more purposeful family. If only the rest of Midsommar was as effective as these sequences then Ari Aster might have had a minor masterpiece on his hands. Although it would still be 30 minutes too long.