LET THE SUN-SHINE

Rating: 9/10 (23 August 2019)

Last night I finally had the chance to see Midsommar, Ari Aster's new horror. I saw it in Sweden, my home country, where the movie is in theatres. Whereas Hereditary's gloomy and unsettling atmosphere was dominated by darkness and nocturnal moments, in spite of some scenes shot in the daylight, Midsommar takes us into a sinister realm where the hallmarks are the brightness of white color and the light of the midnight sun in the northern hemisphere. A brightness which is the frame of a plot that is developed on the traditions linked to the summer solstice. An unsettling light which almost feels artificial, Luciferian. As seen in Hereditary, major themes have been preserved, such as the impact that the family tree and the bloodline have on a person's life, including the apparently coincidental consequences arising from it. Again, there is a family tragedy with the haunting ghost of mental disease, a family tragically marked by a devastating loss. Another recurring key element is the satanic power of manipulation and brainwashing: the concept of gaslighting in Midsommar is ubiquitous. Once again, we find a woman playing a pivotal role: like in the matriarchal Hereditary, it's a female character who eventually will come to pull the very strings. In Midsommar, the female character symbolizes Mother Earth, a primordial Gaia, a "Persephonized" Lilith: it's Proserpina who comes back to the surface from the bowels of the earth, bringing back the resilient and fruitful sunny season. Maya who tears the veil of darkness bringing back light and life. The male character is instead an allegory of a pseudo-anointed (the name itself, opposed to "Dani", which in Hebrew means "Thus God has judged"), the "ichtys", yet with a cursed dark side; he's a man facing his own destiny to make atonement for "the negative emotions" narrated in the book of runes, energies opposing to light which are to be confined within the darkness of the underworld, in order to reach catharsis. The beginning of the movie wraps viewers in snowy darkness: it is the early phase of a descent, an initiatory journey, ultimately leading to enlightenment. It is a metaphor of the psychological evolution the protagonist, a psychology student, goes through; a character who struggles with her own emotional darkness made even darker by the fact Hades/Pluto claims her there in the underworld (the toxic relationship). The crops, the flowers, the nature and the fruits we see in the movie are a constant, just like various rituals and the orgiastic rites, featuring even more nudity than what we saw in Hereditary. Midsommar swings from a half-jokingly atmosphere to the utmost sternness, all while maintaining a horrifying and grotesque tragicomic tone. There's plenty of symbolism in this movie, symbols which Ari Aster have at this fingertips: he handles all these elements skillfully and meticulously, something which entails there is a thorough study behind: Ceres/Demeter, Bacchus, the Eleusinian Mysteries, fertility cults, maenadism and orphism as well as astrological and numerological references (number 9, 72 and 9 to quote a few of those) are revisited in a Norse-pagan spirit. The landscape of HÃ¤lsingland has been recreated by using the woody meadows south of Budapest. The final result is however pretty accurate, since Swedish is actually largely spoken throughout the whole film, there is even a major reconstruction of a still unidentified pseudo-Norse dialect (considering how it sounds, it might be the Elfdalian language but it could also be a crafty artifice). It is though sad to see that Sweden somehow is subliminally presented as a country where suicide is basically an everyday occurrence (this is only partly true). Midsommar lacks the heaviness and the overwhelmingly haunting atmosphere Hereditary featured, which instead have been abundantly replaced by the aforementioned comic-grotesque moments of diversion.
The music is a lyric-coral element which once again contributes to create an evocative and ceremonial atmosphere. Another constant which is recurring even in Midsommar is the symbolism the pyramid and the triangle encompass, something we have also seen in Hereditary. It is the initiatory ascension one has to embark upon in order to fulfill the plan and complete the journey, reaching the purpose, thus celebrating the ritual in the designated temple. Witchcraft, curses and the magic crafts, which unlike Hereditary, occur in terms of Wiccan filters, infusions, psychotropics and hallucinogens, are another cornerstone Ari Aster holds dear. Runes, unlike what most recent studies claim and the consensus anthropologists and philologists have come to, are given anew a strong magic meaning in the collective imagination. An attempt to relaunch Sweden had already been made with the remarkable and Blair Witch Project- evoking "The Ritual", which also takes place in the North of this Scandinavian country. Midsommar makes another attempt to focus attention on the "Ikealand", though enhancing the whole to higher levels imbued with syncretism, mythological elements, symbols and mysteries. Much emphasis is put on the lifecycle-theme, with Mother Earth claiming back what is hers, where everything must be held in a cyclic and perpetual balance in the big cosmic circle, in this panta rei where everything flows and returns in reconciliation with eternity. Ari Aster with meticulous elegance masterfully revises multiple themes which further broaden the archetype of the Wicker Man. As much as I adored Hereditary (a movie that you either love or hate, according to what many other people expressed; personally I found it brilliant), Midsommar adds something new to the whole concept: it's a broader work, which similarly to Hereditary bids its sweet time before reaching its acme, but which undoubtedly doesn't leave the viewers indifferent, once the pace unravels from its initially apparent slow rhythm. The final result is extremely disturbing, unsettling, grotesque, evocative and sinisterly bright: in conclusion, sun worship came back to shine. It seems like Ari Aster in the near future is going to embrace the path of comedy, as he finds the genre enjoyable and entertaining. As for the horror though, just to quote another tipically midsommar-feature which is by the way quite familiar to Swedes, the director in my opinion really did make "Bingo!"