I like Ari Aster. I think he's at least trying to do something different in the hollywood landscape and that should be commendable. But there seemed to be a disconnect from the first 20 minutes of the film and the overlong disturbing imagery he portrays in the rest of the movie. Anyone else feel this?
Have a short review of this movie if anyone is interested. Enjoy! Review here - https://youtu.be/MKqFdJdIT18
Other reviewers have said the same thing, but I think it is all connected.
shareThe first 20 mins definitely set a different tempo from what you get the rest of the film. My primary point of contention is that it was just too damn long and it ruined the pacing. By the time it got to the meat and bones third act I was already tired of how drawn out it was.
shareTrying to do something new? I don't think so.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gfDIAZCwHQE
Plus, more than half of the shots looked exactly like Hereditary. Lazy, unoriginal.
Haha. Hadn't seen that SNL skit before. Ed Norton does a good Owen Wilson. I liked Midsommar though, but each to their own.
shareEveryone has a spot-on impression except the Baldwin impersonator. He was too over-the-top, and didn't inject enough humor into his impression. Even when they showed him at the end, he was trying too hard to look like the real Baldwin for it to be believable.
shareI'd love to see Wes do horror.
shareIt’s definitely coherent. Clear parallels between the opening suicide and rituals later on in the film.
shareIt’s like he was throwing anything and everything into the plot. Hated it
shareSPOILERS BELOW!
Well, in addition to establishing motivations, backgrounds, and relationships for the main characters, I think the opening also gives us a contrast to the community and the outside world. This isn't just for contrast's sake, but I think it connects directly to the imagery at the end of the film.
Take, for one example, Dani's grief. At the beginning of the film, she is vulnerable and relies on Christian for an "emotional crutch", which is wearing him down. His friends are encouraging him to dump her. When she is delivered the WORST news she could possibly get, she mourns in a keening cry, curling up on a couch in Christian's lap...but while he is holding her, he is just "there".
At the end, when that crutch is removed - rather nastily by the cult - she cries out again, but this time she is surrounded by people who make her grief their grief. They keen with her. They writhe with her. They are becoming her to make her one of them.
To me, one of the weirdest, scariest, and most unsettling aspects of the film was the way this cult/commune took beautiful things like community, togetherness, spirituality, emotional support, and celebrations of life (and dealing with death) and warped it into the horrible, brainwashing, Stockholm Syndrome thing they did.
But, yes, I think the beginning does start the ball rolling on the themes of the film as explored later. We go from a closed society to a "sharing" one, although not in a really feel-good way...
That seems to be how real world cults act as well.
shareOh, absolutely. They're just looking for people who are feeling vulnerable and isolated. Then they provide a "family", tell you you're special (also in Midsommar) right before doing incredibly cruel things to you.
I'm not sure if the filmmakers intended to portray the cult as cruel, though, just as into human sacrifice. I know that probably reads a little funny (human sacrifice = cruel, right?) but I don't think there's sadism here, just horrifying practices.
Yeah, they don’t know they’re sadistic. Wicker Man was much the same way when it came to the island’s cult (although there is a hint that Christopher Lee’s character might have been less sincere than he let on.)
shareWICKER MAN SPOILERS BELOW:
The ones in Wicker Man seemed more like cats toying with their prey. I'm thinking about how they tormented him, flaunting their neopagan schooling and trying to seduce him. Partying to all hours of the night. Hosting orgies on the lawn. Some of that could have been tradition, sure, but a lot of it was specifically targeted at their victim. They were messing with him. Given that he was earmarked from the start (lured there, even), it was even crueller. After all, if he had given in to the seduction, they'd have lost their virgin sacrifice. My suspicion (and, granted, it's only a suspicion) is that, had the officer given in and tried to sleep with the islander, she would have gone just far enough to make him "sin", but not far enough to "spoil" his virginity, thus preserving the sacrifice while humiliating him.
Midsommar is more...matter-of-fact. I'm not sure which is scarier. They come off as single-minded in their devotion to the almost perfunctory cult they're a part of. They're aware of how it looks to outsiders, yet they just shrug and go, "Nah, we're going to keep up with this barbarism". Maybe that's a critique of fanaticism in the modern age, and how it often masquerades as "tradition" or "just what we have to do", with a shrug. Think about people who are okay with shooting cartoonists, bombing abortion clinics, or beating people who have different political views.
Good call. The islanders did toy with the officer a bit and like you said, it's hard to know what was or wasn't tradition for them.
shareI think, like all groups, some individuals might enjoy the horrifying practices more than others. As for overt cruelty, I think the guy who peed on their tree might have been on the receiving end of some cruelty. I don't think Christian's fate was particularly cruel per se, but damn it was horrific.
Maybe it's semantics, but I think if somebody is burning somebody else alive, that's cruel. Maybe not with the two guys who went in there willingly, but certainly if you force somebody to be burned alive, which they did. That's cruelty. Now, okay, they might not think of it that way, but that callous indifference and amoral behaviour is really troubling and awful.
The pee tree guy definitely got the shadiest looks.
Well, I guess it's relative. It is a cruel way to go, but I don't get the sense that Christian's sacrificial death was "applied" in a particularly personal manner. Sort of like, "well, we got a schedule to keep, so time to sew you into a bear suit and immolate you.". OTOH, I got the sense that the death of the pee tree guy was enjoyed on some level as payback.
shareWe see the facts the same. I don't think of them as going out of their way to specifically harm Christian, I'm just applying "cruel" to any non-compliant live burnings. With the incautious urinator, I'm as convinced as you are that they *enjoyed* that death, although I'm pretty certain that it was planned ahead of time as well, and he would have died regardless of his whizzing about.
shareAgreed. Need to rewatch the movie. But, I find Hereditary much more re-watchable. I mean, I have a much deeper appreciation of Midsommar, but let's face it...it IS slow.
shareI haven't seen Hereditary yet, but it's on my list. Midsommar is slow, but a plodding pace has never bugged me unless it's dull. Midsommar is never dull or boring, so I don't mind the slow-speed.
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