A couple travels to Sweden to visit a rural hometown’s fabled mid-summer festival. What begins as an idyllic retreat quickly devolves into an increasingly violent and bizarre competition at the hands of a pagan cult.
“His madness keeps him sane.” – Delirium in “Three Septembers and a January,” The Sandman #31, by Neil Gaiman.
Having just returned home from a screening of Ari Aster’s “Midsommar,” his sun-drenched follow-up to the cloaked-in-darkness “Hereditary,” I find myself still shaken to the core – not by the gore, of which there is plenty but by the spell Aster’s film cast on me. I consider myself highly desensitized to on-screen violence, yet I was both tremendously unsettled and drawn into the madness, forgetting about time and space as I plunged headfirst, along with “Midsommar”’s hapless heroine, into a feverish, psychedelic, cheerfully belligerent world.
Don’t let the sunshine fool you; if anything, it emphasizes the horrors gradually unfolding on-screen, Aster never for a moment resorting to cheap shock tactics (read: “boo scares”). This is an intense slow-burner, a meticulously-structured study of grief and finding redemption in madness, under the guise of a horror film. Forget Jordan Peele – “Midsommar” firmly establishes Aster as the maestro of deeply psychological freak-outs.
The emotionally-unstable Dani (Florence Pugh) just experienced a terrible loss – her bi-polar sister committed suicide, taking their parents with her. There’s no one left to console the orphaned Dani, except for her increasingly distant boyfriend Christian (Jack Reynor), who tries to hide his upcoming boys’ trip to Sweden from our grieving heroine. When Dani finds out about the much-anticipated adventure, Christian brings her along out of guilt, much to the despair of his comrades. Led by the soft-spoken Swede Pelle (Vilhelm Blomgren), the gang — which includes Mark (Will Poulter) and Josh (William Jackson Harper) — visit a remote Amish-like establishment: all floral hats, white outfits, and whiter smiles. Mid-summer festivities are on the way.
Haunted by her tragic past (to the point of panic attacks), Dani does her best not to be a burden to the boys, even reluctantly consuming magic mushrooms upon their arrival to the settlement. From this point on, things get progressively — and captivatingly — schizophrenic, Aster in complete control of the organized chaos he’s concocted. As Dani gradually succumbs to her new family, so do we: there are insane pagan rituals, horrific murders, teacups spiked with an ayahuasca-like substance — oh, and a bear trapped in a wooden cage, awaiting a grueling fate.
From the very first shot, jarringly punctured by an incessantly ringing phone, to one that takes you out of an airplane window to get caught in its turbulence, to the fiery, grisly finale, what’s most effective about Aster’s feature is the sustained atmosphere of dread. Unease, terror and sheer panic all seep from every frame, right into your bones. Not a frame is out of place. It’s been a while since I’ve seen superb craft such as this – from the production design to the acting, to the sustained tone, to the outburst of side-splitting (and bone-chilling) humor (a lot of it courtesy of the never-better Will Poulter). What distinguishes great horror is the depth of themes it explores, and “Midsommar” studies the allure of family, the threat of alienation we all live under; it examines our societal values and rules, the film’s cult functioning as a mini eco-system, very much resembling our own. On top of all that, it can be viewed as an allegory on the toxicity of ignorant boyfriends, an ultimate feminist revenge fantasy.
It would take many paragraphs to describe how magnificent the mostly-Swedish ensemble cast is here, so I’ll focus on the anchor that holds it all together: Florence Pugh. She provides an enigmatic but relatable performance, tittering on the edge of dementia, but she also unnervingly evokes our own deepest demons. When the “trip goes bad” for Dani early on (in the most realistic depiction of a hallucinogenic trip ever committed to celluloid… not that I would know), Pugh goes through a kaleidoscope of emotions an actress with twice her experience would envy. With any luck, she’ll be on all the major award lists come the end of the year.
“Midsommar” is certainly not for the faint of heart. Those brave enough to take this acid pill will never forget it. Add it to the pantheon of great psychedelic cult flicks like “The Wicker Man,” “Kill List,” “The Sound of My Voice” or, to a certain extent, the similarly-atmospheric “The Witch” — but dare I say, it tops them all. It transcends mere “horror” and becomes a surreal study of humanity, of our everlasting search for solace. “Midsommar” is the best film of 2019 so far – and one of the very best of the decade.
Now available on Digital and On-Demand and on Blu-ray™ Combo Pack (plus DVD and Digital) and DVD October 8th
