A journey inside pagan rituals

Rating: 6/10 (20 November 2019)

Ari Aster makes movies that are not for everyone, even people that love the horror genre, can be bored by its length. This is his style: really slow paced stories, I saw it in "Hereditary", I saw it also here. To fully appreciate his movies you need to like technical stuff, such as the framing and photography. We can almost speak about sperimental cinema, but that sells pretty well, considering the genre. Maybe because is the first director that is bringing something new to horror and thriller, after a long time, and people are simply curious.
The story is really simple: a group of guys is invited by a swedish friend to participate to a pagan festival in his small village, but soon, they will find themselves in a dangerous situation. It seems to stay in a trip: the location is very mystical and dark, even if the director decided to use warm colors: it is a nice contrast, because from one side is reassuring, but shots make often feel you uneasy. There are many scenes that are uncomfortable, and create a lot of tension. However this movie cannot really scare you: it makes feel anxious, it triggers some inner fears, and maybe it was this the purpose of "Midsommar". This is why, at least for me, it is way better than the average horror/thriller production. There are no jump scares (my prayers have been answered, finally). The sound part is very well done, and to fully appreciate this film, I highly recommend to watch it with a pair of good headphones. The sound in fact is very realistic and you can hear every single sound (including music) as the character that appears on screen hears: when the character is far from the music, the music is lower, but it becomes higher and higher while is approaching, or when he/she moves from one place to another, the sound pass from the right channel, to the left one. A nice detail that improve even more the technical quality.
Acting was just okay, the main character Dani, played by Florence Pugh, was convincing and I actually need to praise her job, because there were some scenes that were obviously really hard to shoot, I genuinely believe that she gave the best that she could. Unfortunately I cannot say the same thing about Jack Reynor, as Christian, the bad boyfriend that does not care about the girlfriend. The problem is that is not good in playing him: he seems more a coward that does not know how to reply, when he has verbal confrontations with her. Regarding the rest of the cast, I can't say that I was impressed.
"Hereditary" remains for now the best Aster's job, cast choices were way much better, character were more credible and in general it was scarier and darker than this one. The director decided to take a different approach, but topics are almost the same, in both movie there is a cult, some pagan rituals and witchcraft. The location is different but conceptually speaking are very close to each other. Next time maybe we will be able to see another theme.