Once upon a time from Sweden

Rating: 10/10 (6 September 2019)

This movie synthesizes Quentin Tarantino and Andrei Tarkovsky's cinematic styles, incorporating, as well, certain flashback elements of Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut (1999). Despite some references to existing movie traditions and acknowledging well-known artists, Ari Aster succeeds in creating a new approach to scaring and terrifying the audience with excessive light and psychedelic visions.
As with the last Tarantino movie Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood (2019), the movie, "Midsommar", refers to the subject of religious totalitarian cults. The attempt to tell a scary story with healthy sarcasm has Ari Aster emulating Tarantino's style, as well as in his use of bloody realistic scenes of murder. Visual elements are applause-worthy. However, in contrast to Tarantino's meaningless killing scenes, Aster justifies murder for spiritual purposes in the cult's creepy community. And using a bright light during the movie adds a metaphysical and divine aura to all the murders and situations (even scenes of intimacy are acted out in daylight, losing any sense of traditional privacy). Bright light is absent in only 2 scenes - death of parents and the assassination in the barn. The absence of light might possibly underscore these events as the result of unexpected actions. Meanwhile, this movie satirizes elements of spiritual manipulation in closed societies, some religious organizations and certain historical societies, using censorship, speech suppression, total submission, ban on disputing anyone in power, while at the same time relying on the triad of food, reproduction and domination.
Following the Tarkosvky tradition, Aster's movie represents the recurring ebb and flow of pain and hope. The persistent anxiety and worries of the main character, brilliantly performed by Florence Pugh, make the story look pictorially like it is told by Andrei Tarkovsky, except that Ari Aster utilizes more light and color. Moreover, the dancing competition and the moving of people around the village (especially, camera motion), also bind this film with Tarkovsky's artistry, focusing on the existential experience of his characters through the specific angle of camera shooting. Ari Asterskillfully submerges the mind of the viewer in a spiritual quest to explore the deep meanings and exaltation of indigenous religions.
Looking at the Midsommars' occult rituals, some of them can be mysterious or profane. However, the hints and allusions contextually explain future events from beginning to the end in the bulk of images: photos, paintings, runes, cloth ornaments and wall decorations. These images predict the developing plot and everything happening in that mysterious forest. The forest is a significant element in enhancing the mystification that surroundings the Bacchanalia in the movie. Aster shoots in the forest and represents "forest" as an alternative metaphor to the Biblical paradise ("garden"). This work with forest as a location and the metaphoric use of forest as some unexplained and unexplored space (by the way, think about "holly wood" in the scenes with ancestry trees) brings together Aster with Tarkovsky (Zerkalo (1975), Andrey Rublev (1966)), Alejandro G. IÃ±Ã¡rritu (The Revenant (2015)), The Shining (1980) (Stanley Kubrick). Nevertheless, a significant portion of the storytelling style in "Midsommar" looks a lot like Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut (1999) focusing on the couple's break up. If Kubrick used dark scenes with original set illumination (reexamine the small lamps and light position in certain scenes), then Aster utilized fully lit sets and colorful pattern. In Aster's filming, light plays a tool of blinding the conciseness of his characters.
Thus, "Midsommar" reconstructs the fears and worries of indigenous traditions and can prevent others from spiritual dangers. Ari Aster is continuing in the tradition of great cinema directors and establishing his own star on the roof of cinematic heaven. After the "Midsommar" his star will never stop shining. And Florence Pugh, with her outstanding contribution in the portrayal of spiritual existence, will be a part of Aster's asterism for the years.