ARI Aster’s first feature film was the well-received “Hereditary” which focused on a family that is destroyed from within due to the interference of a demon king and the cult that worships him. “Hereditary” was so good that I count it as one of the best horror films I have ever seen. Aster’s second film, “Midsommar”, focuses on a group of friends who travel to Sweden to experience the local culture when they become embroiled in the deadly rituals and customs of the people they encounter. Although both films focus on cults, that is really all there is in terms of the similarities between the two films. “Hereditary” is swamped with eerie night-images while “Midsommar” revels in the daylight. “Hereditary” has demons and monsters that manifest in very physical ways, while the threats in “Midsommar” are mostly psychological and rooted in human beings rather than supernatural forces. However, the most significant difference is the fact that “Hereditary” is a bit more fast-paced, and this is enough to render Aster’s first horror film as better than his second. This is not to say that “Midsommar” is not good. In fact, it is a very good film, but, in my opinion, it is not as great a movie-watching experience as “Hereditary” was – and this brings us to an important question. As movie-watchers, we must contemplate the answer to this: do we need to enjoy the experience of watching the film in order to appreciate all that it has to say? I think the short answer is no, and that it is indeed possible to analyze and appreciate a film even though watching it was an unenjoyable experience. I think it might be comparable to watching an old dance style with a valuable history, even though the moves are not comfortable, or to a painting that is too grotesque to be loved, but the painter’s skill and ideas are still good enough to make him/her much lauded. “Midsommar,” with its solid acting and directing, its load of symbols, its garish costuming, and its dense layering of ideas constitute fine filmmaking even though it is a highly uncomfortable viewing experience.

Dani (Florence Pugh) and Christian (Jack Reynor) are American graduate students who travel with their friends into the interior of Sweden in order to find inspiration for their theses or, in Dani’s case, to escape some recent trauma. When they get to the closed-off community called the Hårga, things are immediately recognized to be out of the norm. The community is a very religious one, with ancient ceremonies involving love potions made from menstrual blood, the burial of the ash of the cremated under a sacred tree, non-stop dancing among the women until there is only one left standing, walking backwards to pick flowers, numerous instances of natural drugs being used for religious, hallucinatory, or lethal purposes – and these are just the more mundane of the ancient rites that Dani, Christian, and the others come across. Before long, the central couple finds their already decaying relationship being tested by the smiling, innocent-seeming people of Hårga as the community’s midsummer festivities grow more gruesome and the true roles of Dani and Christian in these festivities are revealed.

It is important to recognize the two leads, as they carry the film well. Florence Pugh, especially, is destined to be a bona fide movie star, turning in a sinister picture of a young woman in a toxic relationship, a woman who is also battling mental illness and a murderous cult. She cries like someone who is in a physical fight with both grief and death.
The writer/director of the film has referred to “Midsommar” as a break-up movie, and it is true that while the audience wants to root for Dani and Christian, there is no doubt from the very beginning that they are not meant to be together – which is an interesting take on the horror movie couple who are supposed to be so in love that their feelings for each other inevitably conquers all. Dani and Christian are the exact opposite of that. She is needy and mentally fragile, while he prefers the company of his friends and is unable to interpret her emotions. While Aster does include murder, flaying, torture and all the other elements of cult-horror, the true scares come from seeing yourself in the quickly disintegrating relationship of the central duo. It is a reminder that love actually, logically, cannot conquer everything and that the choices couples make often having long-lasting effects, as seen in how Dani and Christian constantly propel each other towards their final outcomes due to the personal, individual choices they make for themselves and not necessarily for each other or with each other.

There is a lot of beautiful imagery in the film. The costumes and the use of symbols are particularly impressive. The lush countryside and the dancing girls wearing flower-crowns give the impression of freedom, ecstasy, and nature. However, in “Midsommar,” the imagery also serves to underscore the unknowability of Hårga and its people; it functions as a reminder that all is not as it seems and that there is a layer of terror and ugliness beneath the beauty. While the film cannot be classified as a traditional horror, it can definitely be regarded as scary in certain ways, particularly through the use of Aster’s images. So while you will not find jump-scares or ghosts in this movie, you will find chilling bits of imagery. The sight of a character wearing another’s flayed skin, for example. A deflowering that is at once ritualistic, sensual, and macabre. A still-living character strung up in a chicken-coop with flowers in his eyes and the lungs torn out of his back. A troupe of youthful girls wearing pretty dresses and dancing in a drunken daze in the midday sun. A deformed child scribbling into a holy book. And these are only a few.

This movie is not for people who lack patience, nor people who have recently gone through a rough break-up. I don’t think it’s for people whose idea of great horror films are the Freddy Kreuger or Jason Vorhees movies. I don’t think it’s for people who are easily squeamish. I don’t think it’s for anyone who has any idea of what a horror movie is supposed to be like. But if you do fall into one of the groups above and you still want to give “Midsommar” a chance, then maybe it is for you, after all, you and the rest of movie-goers who fall into the category of being open-minded.