A Love Letter To Midsommar
By: Gregory Cameron
Tags: Midsommar, Horror, Mental Health, Movies, Film

What is a film that holds a special place in your heart? It might not even be a great film in retrospect, but it was one that so deeply connected with you that nothing is able to shake it. Maybe you have more than one. It could be a film that changed how you saw cinema, or maybe one that gave you a new opinion of a genre, perhaps one that moved you so deeply you could never shake off the experience.

For me, Midsommar is one of those special films.

Spoilers ahead!

Ari Aster’s follow up to Hereditary (2018) is a psychedelic wonder. Drenched in beautiful lush colours and a score so triumphant, Midsommar isn’t your typical horror flick. You can read my review HERE.

At its core, Midsommar is a film about ridding oneself of fear and pain. Set around pagan rituals and infused with psychedelics, this film is a cultural experience and a horror film all in one. Florence Pugh’s Dani is burdened with a lot of emotional baggage and it is through her I feel the strongest connection (aside from the fact that she is the film’s lead). Her journey through the film spoke to me in a way I never expected going in.

Image: A24

The film opens with the death of her family. The feelings of loss and grief that the character goes through I felt so intimately. While not an apples to apples comparison, I feel for the longest time as an outsider within my own family. I never had a good relationship with father and when he left, my relationship with my mother changed too. It felt as though I lost both my parents. My sister and I, regrettably were never as close as siblings were meant to be. Even back when things were “better”, I always felt other in my home.

Years and years of therapy made me realise this too and I constantly grapple with it. While my family is very much alive, I grieve for the father I never had, the mother I used to have, and the sister I could have had. The grief I have in me connected so intimately with Dani’s. When Dani screamed, I felt as though her screams were coming out my own throat; her tears felt like mine; and so did her insecurities.

I felt like I was Dani. In the film. Going through all those experiences. From going through the death of her family, to watching the old couple jump off the cliff, to her boyfriend sleeping with another; becoming the May Queen, and all her curiosity; all those emotions I felt so intensely.

Midsommar is a horrific film. There are some truly disturbing imagery and sequences but the entire run time I was transfixed. From the nightmare of an opening to the lush colours of the Swedish countryside, the impeccable cinematography, the glorious score, all flowed right into my very being and filled me with awe — the word alone doesn’t even do justice to what I felt. I was transported, free even.

Image: A24

The culture of the Hårga people is depicted as one that shares. They share in your pain and your joys. I never had someone to share my pain with, I always held back for fear of burdening them with what’s mine. I learnt from a young age to wall off my emotions, I learnt that to feel anything other than what was expected is wrong. My depression is wrong. My anxiety is wrong. My pain is wrong. So I bottled all of it up and threw down a well deep into my being, convinced that it was to protect myself even though it filled me with so much sorrow and made me feel incredibly lonely. There’s a scene in the film when Dani wails and the girls wail with her — as loudly and with as much pain. It was deeply poignant and incredibly liberating. I could feel the pain being shared by all of them, also as if they were taking away part of mine and it brought tears to my eyes.

I have a habit of compromising myself for others, something I saw in Dani too. Nevermind that she’s going through a major loss, she puts that all aside for the sake of the group to protect its dynamics. She looks out for everyone but gets brushed off as sensitive and needy. She is treated as an outsider despite everything she does for the group, who consistently fails to appreciate her. I saw so much of myself in that, and it made me realise how much toxicity I was allowing pour into my life. I allow myself to be walked over because I want to protect the working environment I am in, not ruin the social dynamics I joined into. Dani was shackled, so was I. We needed to be free.

The film ends in what I can best describe as a floral purge. The cleansing of all her pain, the riddance of toxicity in her life. It was cathartic and I felt it so deeply. The weight on my shoulders lifted and burned in the inferno, I screamed at it with the village and Dani, cursed it and felt myself let it go. When Dani’s frown turned around, I felt light as a feather, cloaked in a sea of colourful flora, warm from the heat of what was just ablaze. I felt liberated.

Image: A24

Midsommar is more than just a film to me. It is one of those films that I experience deeply, intimately connected to. It transcended cinema and became so much more, it was ethereal. Midsommar is the first time I’ve left a horror film and not relished in the dread or fright. I didn’t leave the cinema feeling disappointed either. It might sound hyperbolic, but it really isn’t and I don’t know how long this feeling will last but Midsommar changed me, it made me feel new.