Midsommar (Feminist Film Reviews)
By: Rachel Wayne
Tags: Film, Movies, Cinema, Feminism, Horror Movies

Dani (Florence Pugh) adopts splendiferous feminine glory in the face of personal apocalypse.

Horror movies explore the darkest aspects of human nature — and sometimes, that happens in the blinding daylight. That’s the visual premise of Midsommar, which portrays a group of Americans visiting a strange commune in Sweden. As they become entangled in the locals’ violent rituals, their relationships break down. At the center of the plot is grieving student Dani (Florence Pugh), who clings to her dying relationship with her boyfriend Christian (Jack Reynor) after her sister kills herself and their parents.

If this already sounds like it’s ripe for revenge fantasy, you’d be correct. And Pugh does an excellent job of portraying Dani’s depressive fury. Indeed, Dani is the central force in the film. As her grief and anxiety well up toward the film’s explosive climax, she “goes native” and fully embraces the rigid social order and vengeful wishes of the cult.

Director Ari Aster received critical acclaim for his debut feature film Hereditary, which also set dysfunctional relationships against a background of pagan horror. In Midsommar, he continues his idea that cultism and pagan rituals are comparable to human grief and destruction. It’s a problematic take, although certainly not out of place in the horror genre. What makes Midsommar more frightening than Hereditary is that there is no supernatural presence: it’s just people being awful under the guises of religion. Whether Aster, who is Jewish, intends to create a strong contrast between his religious tradition and those of pagans is certainly up for debate. So far, his films have joined The Witch as recent artsy horror films that paint pagans as purveyors of death. (In fact, the “demonic” entity in Hereditary is Paimon, a common villain in recent horror films. In mythology, Paimon is a demon king who offers knowledge and wish fulfillment for conjurers — but a “demon” in the original sense of a magical entity.)

Christian and his friend Josh (William Jackson Harper) are anthropology students who are morbidly fascinated by what they see in the commune. American arrogance is on full display as the two quarrel over who gets to write their thesis on the cult’s strange and murderous rituals. For both, their vices lead to their downfall: one undone by his disrespect for the culture he claims to study, and the other by his lust and infidelity. Both lead to disturbing — and decidedly misandric and racist — ways of dispatching them.

Indeed, Midsommar is a portrait of bigotry on all sides: arrogant young men having their way with whom they believe to be inferior, and vicious cultists for whom vindictiveness and grotesque violence is a sign of devotion to their gods. In Midsommar, there are no winners — except the women who relinquish their earthy, sexual power for something greater.

What truly makes Midsommar powerful, though, is Dani’s vengeful urges. In some ways, her pain and impulsive behavior are stereotypical: she’s the mad-eyed girl that dudebros warn us about. And yet her deliverance from lovelorn to revenge-crazy is the transformation we all crave. It’s a beautiful disaster, a trainwreck of grief, jealousy, and feminine fury wrapped up into an adorable yet fierce package.

Midsommar is a testament to the destructive power of love — especially when it’s unrequited. Dani becomes more than the springtime icon of a pagan cult. She is the manifestation of all gendered anger and the sanctimonious entitlement of American people. In this film, the two run head-to-head, but Dani is the ultimate victor as she fully adopts the ritualistic violence for her own purposes.

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