Ari Aster's Midsommar is the single most terrorizing and suturing film of all time.

Rating: Null/10 (6 July 2019)

Every summer in Scandinavia, Europeans celebrate the summer solstice with an array of festive activities, such as traditional dancing, gourmet cooking, and lots and lots of drinking. Extravagant clothes are worn, music is played, and sometimes pagan rituals are practiced during the longest day of the year, where sunlight is constant and the celebrations are continuous for weeks.
This ongoing festival known as Midsummer is still an incredibly popular occurrence throughout all of northern Europe, countries such as Sweden celebrating it as their national holiday. This seemingly harmless party was once practiced back before the origination of Christianity, in which brutal acts of human sacrifice and ritualistic violence occurred in order to worship either mother nature or various gods, including Jesus Christ at certain points in human history.
After last year's horror knockout Hereditary, director Ari Aster has topped his disturbing first feature by centering the Midsummer festivals as the topic of his latest horror nightmare Midsommar. This is a film I had been looking forward to seeing tremendously due to how Hereditary shook me to my core and kept me enthralled from start to finish and ended up disturbing me more than any other film, which I mean in the best way possible. Now, with Midsomar Ari Aster has crafted yet another ingenious horror film, this time delivering another brilliant piece of cinema but being too disturbing in his imagery at times.
Let me be frank by stating that Midsommar is the single most atrociously disturbing film I have ever seen, both due to what is and isn't shown on screen. Aster is too liberal in what he shows on the screen, depicting the most gruesome act of violence shown on film that I (and probably anyone) has ever witnessed. While there are only two scenes that actually depict ritualistic violence, Midsommar grabs you by the throat and refuses to let go, overwhelming your senses with a constant shred of dread, yet acting like a car accident that you know will haunt you, yet you can't turn away from.
The film follows Dani, a young woman plagued by an unspeakable family tragedy who travels to Sweden with her selfish boyfriend and his fellow anthropology graduate student friends in order to study the traditional festival in one of their friends' rural communes. Dani and Christian have a failing relationship yet she attends the festival anyway in order to escape from her harsh reality, thinking a peaceful few weeks in the beautiful Swedish countryside will help her move away from her trauma. Turns out, Dani couldn't have been more wrong. She and her American travel companions soon realize that the commune practices ancient traditions in tribute to the circle of life, their culture one of barbaric savagery and evil.
What keeps Midsommar together is actress Florence Pugh's remarkably fierce performance as Dani. Pugh gives her character a defensive charisma that she tries to use as protection against her vulnerabilities, yet the actress is simultaneously able to expose Dani's fears and vulnerabilities. Pugh does a perfect job of expressing raw emotion and is able to act genuinely horrified by what her character is going through, a rare talent found in very few actors in horror films.
It's important to note that this is not a film for mainstream audiences and is definitely not for everyone. If not immediately turned off from the scene I referred to earlier in which we see an atrociously graphic and grisly suicide (two people walked out of the theatre when this occurred), many will be put off by the fragile and delicate pace that Aster composes. Aster wants us to feel comfortable before taking advantage of us as a director. Having his film take place almost entirely in bright daylight while surrounded by beautiful scenery and slowly unfolding the terror allows the filmmaker to manipulate us as an audience and secure a false sense of comfort before overwhelming us in terrorizing bodily horror.
However, Aster uses his pacing to his advantage and makes the film far more effective. By taking the time to get to know Dani, we root and feel for her as a protagonist and are generally concerned for her safety and emotional state. Aster creates a vibe as a director that is intoxicating. We are constantly feeling a sense of uneasiness and are desperately awaiting what is next to come out of fear of being further disturbed. Using artistic editing and stunning cinematography to its advantage, the film presents a visually captivating array of images that wake the purest of emotions in us. I literally felt numb during several moments of this film due to how disturbed and unnerved I was at not only some of the hauntingly realistic and graphic images displayed on the screen but by the constant sense of fearing the unknown of what is yet to come.
It's easy to say that Ari Aster is one of the most effective directors of our time. He's a filmmaker who wants his audience engaged with his work in each and every second, using storytelling techniques such as foreshadowing and connectives in the most profound and creative fashions. Few filmmakers who contribute to the horror genre are able to make their films feel so real, which is why Aster is a natural master of horror. We're terrified and disturbed by his films because they feel like realistic plots, as opposed to obvious fictional situations that, while entertaining, don't resonate and hit home as hard.
I can't say that I can recommend this film due to how hardcore it is and how viciously disturbing it is. While Midsommar was by far one of the most memorable movie-going experiences of my life, most will be mortified by what they see. While I am haunted by some of what I saw in this film, I'm glad I saw it. It's a film that got not only an enormous reaction out of me but kept me more entertained than almost any film I've ever seen. Despite including the most hideously violent scene and the most uncomfortable and warped sex scene in film history, Midsommar is a truly unforgettable experience that will haunt you for weeks. While I felt these two scenes could have been much tamer and less barbaric and strange, Midsommar is even more mortifying than I expected, a description that, while normally would sound like a criticism, is the highest praise a psychological horror film could get.
Midsommar is by all means a messed up and hard to watch film, but it's because of this that it's so captivating and hunting. Simply put, this is one of the most unforgettable films of the 21st century, one I doubt I can handle seeing again, but unforgettable in the purest of senses.