atomjackfuser wrote:Is It OK to Laugh at Midsommar s Ending?Great article. I found this sentence relevant to my experience:Reynor s reaction made me wonder if Midsommar is the rare horror movie designed to make straight men with checkered pasts squirm more than anyone else. It also made me wonder if the actor had initially misread the character a bit, or the movie s intentions with him, in a way that highlights its subversive powers; the movie s early scenes, to me, certainly foretell a worse fate for Dani than Christian.It's designed to make all men squirm, even the queer ones.I've been struggling with the ramifications of the writer's sentence for the last few weeks and have had difficulty trying to express it, mostly because I didn't want to sound like a dick. For the first half of the film I was not a fan of Dani's; I was not rooting for Dani. Call it "residual male toxicity," hell, just call it male toxicity. I was on the side of Christian's friends, and I had no proof to back up their feelings other than my feelings, and that was a punch to the gut. I felt validated when they arrived to the colony and were about to embark on their first shroom experience. Dani doesn't want to participate at that moment causing Christian to balk on tripping with his bros. "THERE! RIGHT THERE!" I remember thinking to myself. In my head here was Dani in her quest to manipulate Christian and keep him from his friends. I mean, so what that her sister just murdered her parents then committed suicide. She should have stayed home, dealt with her trauma, and not fuck-off to Sweden to ruin everyone's holiday. As the movie went on I became more ashamed of myself. In the weeks that followed I've struggled with how to express myself without sounding like a jerk. I don't think I've succeeded in that endeavor here, but believe the article you shared somewhat supports my assertion. Aster is a motherfucker for this. A brilliant motherfucker.NewDarkAge wrote:I also think his exploitation tendencies sometimes veer into plain exploitative ” aside from anything else this is his second film in a row that does ˜facially disfigured children are sinister I found both of those characters to be sympathetic. Casualties of forces beyond their humanity

NewDarkAge wrote: ˜facially disfigured children are sinister . Wicker Man. I didn't get that this child was meant to be understood as sinister, rather gifted. NewDarkAge wrote:I liked this review.Completely disagree with this review w/r/t to characters. The story is about Dani, she's the only character that matters ultimately, and you get all you need to know about her and her relationship to the world of/with others. Maybe Aster assumes the audience is already familiar with cults/religion and the mind-fucks they play with. We all know cults fuck with people's heads, no need to spell that out, really. I would never suggest this movie (haven't seen Hereditary) is a melodrama, and I don't understand why the author assumes one might do that with this film. This review is so full of assumptions it strikes me that maybe we're not talking about the same film.

I guess I m pure as the driven snow then because it seemed pretty obvious to me that the boys were being complete dicks the entire time - even when the kindhearted cult motherfucker reached out to her in the beginning after her family died horrifically - sorry, but that is completely inappropriate to bring up at a gathering of friends.

I think I'm somewhere between the people here who really liked it and the review that FM New Dark Age posted. Midsommar is impeccably produced and acted and all that but Ari Aster is not great at building tension. This bit from the review articulates exactly my problem with this and Hereditary (although Midsommar is better than Hereditary which completely just fell apart for me):So much of his work lives and dies on the potential for crazy shit to happen, and it s better to hint at the possibility of crazy shit than to promise something your narrative can t fulfill. And as such, the Swedes never totally manage to make an impression, scary or otherwise, and their subsequent descent into œevil feels as if you d fallen asleep while watching a Disney travelogue and accidentally woken up in the middle of The Wicker Man.As a result the last 10 minutes of this and Hereditary feel less fucked-up Grand Guignol than just sort of rushed. And, again, Midsommar was much more successful to me than Hereditary. So while the last third or so didn't entirely land, the very last scene did, for reasons I think FM numberthirty nails:numberthirty wrote:Ultimately, I just didn't get the feel that it was anything like Revenge... in the way that we tend to think of it. Never mind if Dani was in the right frame of mind to be out to get said revenge.I don't think this is a revenge film at all. I think it's a film about grieving. Actually, both of his films are and maybe the thing he does best is capture the fucked-up mental processes and hallucinatory quality of being in that kind of state. The susceptibility to being possessed as it were by just the absolute darkest shit. That very last bit *SPOILERS* of Dani''s despair turning to a perverse joy at watching the temple burn down with her bear boyfriend in it kind of mirrored my emotional life. I've been having a rough go of it recently (nothing to do with my relationship which has been great) and I identify so much with the kind of headspace she was in when all bad feelings take over and there is a sort of satisfaction one takes being embraced by them, while things burn. (I don't mean to sound too dramatic about myself here. Nobody's getting murdered or anything.)

numberthirty wrote:llllllllllllllllllllllll wrote:I guess I m pure as the driven snow then because it seemed pretty obvious to me that the boys were being complete dicks the entire time - even when the kindhearted cult motherfucker reached out to her in the beginning after her family died horrifically - sorry, but that is completely inappropriate to bring up at a gathering of friends.One guy's read on that...Buddy was working an angle. If it was "Inappropriate..." is completely beside the point."Being A Complete Dick..." doesn't even play in because he is essentially a guy on a creek bank putting a worm on a hook.Oh yeah, for sure. I m just talking about my impression as I was watching it for the first time. That scene doesn t occur very long in the film after the gruesome scene with her family and her heartbreaking wailing.

llllllllllllllllllllllll wrote:I guess I m pure as the driven snow then because it seemed pretty obvious to me that the boys were being complete dicks the entire time - even when the kindhearted cult motherfucker reached out to her in the beginning after her family died horrifically - sorry, but that is completely inappropriate to bring up at a gathering of friends.One guy's read on that...Buddy was working an angle. If it was "Inappropriate..." is completely beside the point."Being A Complete Dick..." doesn't even play in because he is essentially a guy on a creek bank putting a worm on a hook.

tmidgett wrote:I don't know if it's a horror movie exactly. It's more like Ex Machina or something like that. Using horror tropes as a springboard--great horror is always about expressing the inexpressible darkness lurking at the heart of some human experience, and this one surely does do that much. The utter vapidity of modern life and society. Also how soft its (still real, still painful) violence and insanity really is compared any other period in history. The triviality of our ideas and sense of ourselves as individuals. How laughable it is that we "matter" the way we usually think of ourselves mattering.How culpable men are (and will be) in their own demise and what a reconfiguring (or a return to past configurations) looks like. The power of an idea and how seductive community is. Etc. You can take it as horror, you can take it as sort of a basic revenge fantasy, but you can also see all those other elements woven through it, expertly.It's a beautiful film, exceedingly well-done, a lot more depth than a typical horror movie. Or even other really good horror movies. Or really good other kinds of movies.The fact that it all takes place in broad daylight--genius.I've been thinking about it since I saw it yesterday, straight through. Rattling at a basic level, in a lot of subtle ways.While I know a lot of folks are coming at it from that angle, it feels like you have to ignore a lot of where Dani is coming from to make it something as simple as "Basic Revenge Fantasy..."- She is someone who was clearly already dealing with what might be depression/anxiety issues.- Those issues appear to be something that runs in the family.- It feels like she may very well be going through a mental break in the commune before things take that "Banana Splits..." turn.Ultimately, I just didn't get the feel that it was anything like "Revenge..." in the way that we tend to think of it. Never mind if Dani was in the right frame of mind to be out to get said revenge.

One other thing that really stuck out to me...While what I knew going in pointed to the the film being sort of a "Breakup"/"Revenge Fantasy" sort of a thing that wasn't taking the usual route, the way that Ginger dude treated folks all around really made itself known.While it largely made it about his relationship with Dani, dude went out of his way to undercut what he knew good and well that his friend was doing. On top of that, he had absolutely no issue with throwing him under the figurative bus as soon as the opportunity presented itself.

RSMurphy wrote:atomjackfuser wrote:Is It OK to Laugh at Midsommar s Ending?Great article. I found this sentence relevant to my experience:Reynor s reaction made me wonder if Midsommar is the rare horror movie designed to make straight men with checkered pasts squirm more than anyone else. It also made me wonder if the actor had initially misread the character a bit, or the movie s intentions with him, in a way that highlights its subversive powers; the movie s early scenes, to me, certainly foretell a worse fate for Dani than Christian.It's designed to make all men squirm, even the queer ones.I've been struggling with the ramifications of the writer's sentence for the last few weeks and have had difficulty trying to express it, mostly because I didn't want to sound like a dick. For the first half of the film I was not a fan of Dani's; I was not rooting for Dani. Call it "residual male toxicity," hell, just call it male toxicity. I was on the side of Christian's friends, and I had no proof to back up their feelings other than my feelings, and that was a punch to the gut. I felt validated when they arrived to the colony and were about to embark on their first shroom experience. Dani doesn't want to participate at that moment causing Christian to balk on tripping with his bros. "THERE! RIGHT THERE!" I remember thinking to myself. In my head here was Dani in her quest to manipulate Christian and keep him from his friends. I mean, so what that her sister just murdered her parents then committed suicide. She should have stayed home, dealt with her trauma, and not fuck-off to Sweden to ruin everyone's holiday. As the movie went on I became more ashamed of myself. In the weeks that followed I've struggled with how to express myself without sounding like a jerk. I don't think I've succeeded in that endeavor here, but believe the article you shared somewhat supports my assertion. Aster is a motherfucker for this. A brilliant motherfucker.NewDarkAge wrote:I also think his exploitation tendencies sometimes veer into plain exploitative ” aside from anything else this is his second film in a row that does ˜facially disfigured children are sinister I found both of those characters to be sympathetic. Casualties of forces beyond their humanityJust to point this out...While Dani did pull the "Debbie Downer..." about whatever they were about to take, think over the fact that Ginger was telling his crew about that he had Dani manipulated into not actually going on the trip worked out when it was just the four of them.Even if he didn't, dude thought said thought out loud.

Solid break-up comedy with enough vagueness in the script to lull people in for mental gymnastics. I personally dug the Skin The Fool/jester hat takeaway.Completely agreed that the tense pre-title sequence was the best part.I don't know why he mixed Get Out with The Wicker Man and I'm furious that he gave away 1/2 the plot on a fucking clothesline mural - at least the other paintings were teasers! But man, how shitty of a storyteller do you have to be, Christopher Nolan level obliviousness.Some really good chuckles though - this was sold as psychological horror?! The only horrific parts were the Black Hole Sun effects and the cadence of the Swedish language.