Okay I think I see what you did there

Rating: 7/10 (25 April 2020)

Spoilerzzz:
Ari Aster captures death in a unique combination of jarring imagery and all the ridiculousness that one might expect in an exposition about a King of Hell. While other films like The Babadook explore grief in a pressure cooker, the story seems to let the more supernatural and odd aspects of both grief and death flow in stream-of-consciousness contortions.
Aster depicts humans that make a stupid mistake (hard to believe this could happen, I know), which bring them face-to-face with the prospect of containing death itself instead of just trauma and grief. For those that need specifics and translation, this is the stupid decision to send a young girl to a party in the care of a teenage brother without an Epipen. More stupid scenarios have happened in real life and yes, siblings die in the care of each other all the time. The daughter also seemed disabled in some way (asking who would take care of her...good foreshadowing btw...and showing that she's socially disconnected).
Aster seems to want the audience to have a fragment of the shock and disorientation that could occur in a string of traumatic events. He explores the coping mechanisms of shock (through the son mostly), denial of reality (through the mother mostly), and peacemaking and holding on to reality (through the father). While some of the character's reactions seem way over the top and even campy at times, I believe we might find examples of similar behavior in the face of actual traumatic experiences. One might say, I would never go to bed after decapitating my sibling, but it's not a normal circumstance and people have done weird af things when in extreme shock....which you would experience if you decapitated your sibling. Aster explores various triggers that go back to her death and depicts the trauma in a way I have not seen done so well. I'm not an expert in human behavior, but as a lat person I would think these scenarios are very plausible in many ways.
I gave the review a lower rating because of some of the more campy devices Aster uses for shock and to create a feeling of how ridiculous our dealings with death might be. They still terrified me because of the anticipation he created, so it worked. For some, it made them laugh. And that too is a way to cope with tension that is hard to understand. I don't like that he made the purpose of the campy elements unclear, but the whole scenario seems to work to create a feeling of distrust in what the audience sees. Laughing in the face of death is also a human experience and maybe he wanted to give the audience a taste of what he considers the ridiculous pursuit of humans trying to process death. Something supernatural would probably look and feel dumb to us, because how would we understand it at first? The few times he does create a tone of veneration for how humans process death is so powerful, such as when the mother begs to sacrifice herself for her remaining family and when he presents the concept of royalty and patriarchal lineage. These are real ways that people cope with death. It might seem pointless or laughable or confusing, but isn't that the point? Different cultures and people process death and trauma in beautiful ways, but this is a horror film...so he mocks and shows the darkest shades he can conjure.