A peculiar yet great film.

Rating: 8/10 (1 January 2020)

To be honest, I had my reservations before watching this film, as I read some comments online and heard mostly negative things about it. The slow pace mistakingly perceived as "boring", the plot being weird and bizzarre, amongst other negative remarks. The film indeed starts slow, but it has to build a story, its characters and everything that drives and motivates them. Dani, the main character (played by a magnificent Florence Pugh) is concerned with her sister's state of mind, as she is not responding messages which keeps Dani upset, having only her boyfriend to rely on, who thinks Dani's sister is being dramatic as she always is. Shocking news come Dani's way as she learns about the decease of her sister and her parents in a strange episode never truly revealed on dialogue. Her boyfriend Christian (Jack Reynor) and his friends are planning a trip to Sweden, to one of the friends' (Pelle, Vilhem Blomgren) village, where everybody is set to celebrate a midsummer festival which takes place once in a lifetime.
The Swedish villagers take part in rather strange and morbid rituals which in their eyes are seen as traditional costumes which have been carried out for many many years. Situations take an even more bizarre turn with some members of Dani and Christian's friends begin to disappear, and from then the narrative takes the viewer through a spiralling down of grotesque scenarios evidently crafted in order to shock and disturb the audience.
Ari Aster knew he didn't want to make just an average conventional horror film, so he used many resources at hand to excel in a genre that often gets depreciated because the lack of quality efforts being put out every year. These filmmaking resources include unusual long takes, sometimes without close-up shots, only long shots or american shots, which gives the film its own distinctive style, combined with the daytime photography which is absolutely breathtaking. Not many films can pull off perturbing and distressing an audience without the always helpful aid of nightime.
These technical tools elevate the quality of the narrative and storytelling, which flows naturally without hurry, taking its time to truly develop cohesively and coherently. Events unfold into aberrant situations such as procreational sex with harmonized moans as part of a fertility ritual to name one. The experience is truly unsettling, an uncomfortable watch that challenges viewers' perception on the abnormal ways of these Swedish villagers, as opposed to what a normal civilization accepts as normal behaviour.
I enjoyed the film, and certainly had a much fitting closure than Ari Aster's previous film Hereditary, which in my personal view was completely off in regards to what came before. Midsommar is an unusual film, with a distinctive directorial style and filmmaking techniques that embellish the final product, which is essentially great, yet misunderstood.