Midsommar

There are only a few horror genre directors worth buying a movie ticket for, and Ari Aster convinced me with his debut last year that he belongs to this select group. While watching Hereditary, I had the impression that the director gradually went astray and the result did not correspond to the possibilities, but with his second attempt, he hit the bullseye. Ari created an incredibly polished genre film that, in my opinion, will deeply divide not only the audience but also the critics. It is a film that goes against genre conventions and fan expectations. Do not expect typical jump scares, dynamic editing, sudden camera movements, ghosts, and blood splatters everywhere you look. For the average viewer, Midsommar will probably be too slow and frustratingly ineffective. Others, on the other hand, will encounter emotional barriers. Midsommar goes against audience expectations and needs, and it will unpleasantly attack your psyche. Aster questions the ethical norms derived from Christianity and enlightenment, returning us to the time of pagan cults, shamanism, and mysticism. He turns our value system upside down and shows us people willing to die voluntarily, as well as kill others without remorse because earthly existence is just a preparation for the afterlife, where death signifies mere metamorphosis into a higher sphere. Similarly, the depiction of the sexual act is unpleasant and significantly contrasts with current film trends. The director tests our limits of emotional endurance. He plays with open cards, he is predictable, but at the same time, he builds his game with the viewer. Carefully, he strains us with how far we are willing to go. Aster's direction primarily works with contrasts. The color white is usually a symbol of innocence, but here it evokes an evil premonition. The sun, a symbol of life, brings only ruin. Pleasing scenes hide horrifying content. Aster works his magic with the camera and skillfully mixes music, just like Lynch used to do. He relies on an unknown but flawlessly functioning cast, of which Florence Pugh, above all, will likely become a rising star of the film scene. The result is a film that pushes the boundaries of the genre. Surprisingly, no one thought to explore this highly interesting sphere, except for Robin Hardy's The Wicker Man (which lacks filmmaking precision). Overall impression: 90%. (02/08/2019)

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. (21/11/2019)

It's like a modern The Witch meets 1973’s The Wicker Man. Midsommar is a concentrated, poetic, psychological horror film, but it doesn't scare simply by shocking and frightening – it scares by its creeping unpredictability, where we know how someone will end up, yet we have no earthly idea what will happen to them or when. Hereditary rather disappointed me, but Aster's second film has already won it for me by a landslide. The opening, in which we get to know the characters and their relationships, is already impeccable, but after the flight to Sweden it's hard to find words to describe the atmosphere that ensues. And how it is filmed! Imaginative camera angles and editing, long and absorbing shots, plus "live" music and one heathen stranger than the other. I look forward to seeing it again – I know exactly what to focus on. (02/08/2019)

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% (25/07/2019)

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. (17/06/2021)