- is very much a film where there’s more going on than is apparent to the protagonists, with some kind of horrifying revelation coming at the climax. Think
. They’re the kind of films where everything feels a little strange or off-kilter, but you can’t always put your finger on why until some kind of reveal, which puts everything you’ve just seen into context. It’s a tricky thing to pull off - if you’re too opaque, your revelation feels like it comes out of nowhere and the audience is confused. If you aren’t opaque enough, it’s obvious what’s happening, and you lose the shock of revelation.
So Aster really, really skillfully rides the line, by putting everything you need to understand what’s happening right in front of you, but doing so in such a way that you don’t realize it until it’s all over. This isn’t unique to him, but he’s mastered it in a way that few have. In the case of Midsommar, it’s in service of a story that uses the framework of a fairytale to tell a story of toxic masculinity in at least a couple of different forms - one more obvious than the other.
One thing that distinguishes Aster’s films is the degree to which they are stylized. They take place in real spaces, but everything feels like we’re viewing it at a bit of a remove, as in a play. And if the settings are artificial to one degree or another, the people within them are very natural, complicated relationships portrayed with naked emotional honesty and raw humanity, all messy emotional displays and uncomfortable moments where things go unsaid. So there’s an immediate tension between the stark staginess of what we’re seeing and the people moving through these spaces. If in
it’s a storybook. The film opens with a glissando of strings and a tapestry that, briefly, depicts everything that’s going to happen. The camera doesn’t linger on it, so it works more to communicate this sense that we’re about to watch a fairytale.
Of course, Dani’s circumstances aren’t those of a traditional fairytale, but they aren’t far off either. She’s intensely codependent, dealing with an emotionally unstable sister and a boyfriend who’s unsupportive to the point of almost absence. Christian’s role (or lack thereof) in Dani’s life is communicated early; he doesn’t even have a picture on Dani’s phone - he’s faceless, a cipher, barely there. This positions Dani as sort of a Cinderella character, sacrificing herself over and over for selfish others, doing all the labor to no recognition or thanks. She apologizes constantly to Christian, taking the blame for his neglect, terrified that he’s going to leave her if she’s too needy. And Dani’s behavior could very well be read as neediness, but Christian’s given her no reason to feel secure about their relationship at all. Like Cinderella, Dani’s misery comes in part at the hands of her sister - not a stepsister, but close enough. The labor is emotional, rather than physical drudgery, but it’s the same idea - she is taken for granted, worked to the bone, and never, ever appreciated.
Cinderella’s journey takes her from her cold, miserable house to a glamorous palace, and this is echoed in the transition from Dani’s life in the U.S. to the trip to Halsingland. In the U.S., Dani’s mostly seen in dimly-lit rooms at night, a single shaft of light illuminating the space, and Sweden is bright, colorful, wide-open spaces that are perpetually sunny. Halsingland feels magical, like someplace out of time, where happy, smiling people live in colorfully decorated communal cabins, dance and play. And they’re there for a festival, a celebration like a ball. And just as in Cinderella, Dani becomes the belle of the ball. Everyone’s happy to see her, the women of the village take to her right away (in a manner similar to fairy godmothers), giving her a feeling of recognition and acceptance that she didn’t have at home. As the film moves on, Dani moves increasingly to the center of the frame - just like Cinderella was eventually the most desirable woman at the ball, Dani moves, over the movie’s run time, toward being the center of attention. And although there’s still a reminder of darkness in Sweden as she is haunted by images of her family’s death in nightmares and hallucinations, those move from being more to less intrusive as the film goes on. They never go away, but they move increasingly to the periphery, a memory of an unhappy past. The overall thrust, then, is one of an unhappy young woman transported to a magical place where she is made into the princess she always was.
But here’s the hook - in Cinderella, as in most fairy tales, the princess’ rescue comes at the hand of Prince Charming, a paragon of masculine courage and integrity who takes her away from her life of drudgery. But masculinity doesn’t fare well in this film. Christian’s friends Josh and Mark are openly contemptuous of Dani, seeing her as needy and emotionally unstable, pressuring Christian to leave her. Christian is obviously not invested in his relationship with Dani but doesn’t want to end the relationship because he’s afraid that he’ll change his mind and won’t be able to get her back. He’s staying in the relationship strictly out of a sense of entitlement. He thinks that if he decides he wants to keep Dani around, he doesn’t want to have to exert any additional effort. Dani should just be easily accessible on the off chance that he might want her. Josh and Mark may have the right idea - Dani’s certainly going to be happier without Christian - but their reasoning is awful. They think Christian should be sowing his wild oats, engaging in the sort of dismissive promiscuity that is the masculine birthright. Basically, they’re pigs.
Pelle seems a little more sensible and is less disparaging of Dani - he’s the only one of the four of them who shows any active interest in her life, and he’s instrumental in making sure she comes along to Sweden with the rest of them. Even in terms of the Sweden trip, their motives are all essentially selfish. Josh is there for his thesis, for what these people can give him toward his academic advancement (anthropology being a discipline having to constantly wrestle with the specter of colonization and exploitation of other cultures), Mark’s just going to party and fuck “Swedish milkmaids”, he’s the crudest of the group. Christian splits the difference neatly. He
says he’s there for his thesis, but he has no real ideas or direction of his own. He’s content to coast on Josh’s coattails on that front, content in letting others do the work for him. He’s as passive and entitled in his work as his relationship. But the instant Maga gets his attention, his real energy starts to go into trying to have what he assumes to be consequence-free sex with her, even though his girlfriend is
right there. He just can’t help himself - if there’s someone who wants to have sex with him, he should be able to have sex with them.
Pelle…well, he’s Prince Charming. He’s the Nice Guy. He’s playing the long game. But more on that in a bit.
Ignoring The Bear
None of this is spelled out, it’s more observable in the margins. In
Hereditary, there’s little cryptic things - symbols, words, asides, and everything feels like pieces to a puzzle lacking the one thing that fits them all together until the very end. We’re as in the dark as the Graham family is until the last moment, mostly because you don’t always realize just how fucked up your family is, because growing up it’s all you know. It’s your idea of normal. In
Midsommar, it’s more about the obliviousness of privilege - as the protagonists enter the village, they see a bear, caged, and one of the protagonists says “so we’re just going to ignore the bear?” And that’s pretty much it in a nutshell: This is what happens when you disregard obvious warning signs right in front of you because you’re too focused on your own selfish interests and can’t imagine being in danger. This is what happens when you ignore the bear.
And the bear is in plain sight, at least it is for the audience. Pelle and Ingemar have gone on their traditional journey away from home, and they’ve brought friends from outside back with them. They’re referred to in some contexts as “the new blood.” And the reason for this becomes clear at the end - outside blood is necessary for a couple of reasons. First, blood sacrifice ensures 90 more years of prosperity and safety, and sacrificing outsiders spares the lives of villagers. That’s the obvious bit, and the explicit conclusion at which the film arrives. Second, however, outside blood keeps their gene pool healthy. They’re a small, insular community, and some inbreeding is allowed (in fact, the results of inbreeding are treated as holy), but it isn’t sustainable, so outside visitors are as much breeding stock as anything else. To this end, Maga seduces Christian, their coupling as much ritual as anything else, and Christian’s usefulness is expended immediately afterward. However, there’s also Mark, Josh, and Simon. Why not them? Well, Mark’s kind of an idiot, crass, ignorant, and disrespectful to the ways of the village to the point of pissing on a sacred tree. He is a fool, and his fate is to end up skinned and dressed as a jester (foreshadowed by the children’s game “Skin the Fool” earlier in the film). So…what about Josh and Simon? Well, neither of them are white. Neither is Connie. That is yet another expression of blood as lineage and legacy - it’s never discussed explicitly, but underneath all of this is an unspoken concern with purity of blood - outside blood is necessary, but not all outside blood is equal. The village is entirely white, and it seems as though that is by intent. So Josh, Simon and Connie are fit only to be sacrificed. Outsiders provide their bodies for the village, one way or another. As Pelle tells Mark at one point, “new people are good.”
And the thing is, is a lot of this is visible to us as the audience. When Simon “decides” to leave early without Connie, there’s some objection and some talk about how he wouldn’t do that, and the audience knows Simon has come to a bad end, but nobody investigates further. Our protagonists have their own agendas, they barely know Simon and Connie, and we’ve already established that they’re short on empathy for the most part. Dani’s working out her own shit as well, and she’s not about to make trouble because she’s deathly afraid of causing trouble or even asserting herself. It’s usually really annoying in horror films when people do what is obviously a really stupid or dangerous thing, but here it works because really, the protagonists act like you’d expect privileged Americans to act - without regard for the culture they’re visiting, and with the expectation that they’ll be immune to any consequences - and they’re too focused on what they can get out of being there. Josh wants research, Mark wants to get laid, Christian wants whatever he wants as long as he doesn’t have to work for it, and Dani just wants Christian to pay attention to her and to tamp down the trauma of her family’s death. Everyone’s too busy paying attention to their own needs to see the danger right in front of them. It’s notable that the first people to really twig to how messed up the village is are Simon and Connie - outsiders, but not possessed of our protagonist’s character failings.
In fact, there’s a great visual fillip - since the visitors are the only ones not dressed in all-white, as they start to vanish, there’s a visual shorthand for the number of people from the group who remain, ticking down slowly, and once Dani participates in the traditional May Day dance, she’s wearing white as well - at that point, Christian the only one in the shot not wearing white. The fix is in.
Prince Charming
So, if Christian’s entire usefulness is as a stud for one of their own (certainly he lacks the community-mindedness the village requires) and the other men are unfit, and Connie, by virtue of her ethnicity, is unfit, that leaves only Dani. Dani is white, and more importantly, she is vulnerable. She’s lost her immediate family, she’s in an extremely dysfunctional relationship, and Pelle
sees all of this. The village needs new blood, yes, but Pelle has even baser motivations than that. Pelle is the Nice Guy, someone who sees himself as kinder and more respectful and more sensitive, but who is blind to his own selfishness and manipulation. He sees Dani with someone who clearly doesn’t care about her (not like HE does, so he presumably tells himself). Christian’s a real Chad, a specimen of oblivious masculinity, entitled to the point of passivity, and to the extent that Pelle sees himself as better than that (but doesn’t see his own inability to respect Dani’s agency), he feels entitled to Dani, in a way. He only sees how he’s different from Christian, not how he is similar. And if Dani is the Cinderella of this film, then it can be argued that Pelle sees himself as Prince Charming, come to save her from her life of drudgery. In reality he’s no more noble than Christian or Mark or Josh, but it’s the fiction he applies to himself to justify how manipulative he’s being. So, when she is at her lowest, he encourages her to come someplace where she won’t know anyone else but him - at least, once the sacrifices are over. She’s young, presumably fertile, and she’s white, so the village will love her. And Pelle will have her all to himself.
What makes this so insidious is that in some ways, the film’s climactic reveal - that visitors have been brought from the outside to serve as human sacrifices - is sort of a feint. Pelle’s role in all of this sort of gets pushed to the side while you’re experiencing things in the moment, and it’s only afterward, thinking about how you could or couldn’t see it coming, that you start thinking about how it all started with Pelle. And then you start thinking about how kind he was to Dani, and how he made sure she knew about the trip, and then…well, it’s that slow sinking feeling that you get when you realize you’ve been had. Pelle did all of this because he wanted Dani, simple as that. He felt more entitled to her than Christian, and he did what he needed to get Christian out of the picture and get Dani someplace where she would be more vulnerable to influence. He’s just as manipulative as Christian - and certainly more cold-blooded, given what happens - but he plays it as concern and compassion. It’s not any less calculating at all.
Happily Ever After
All of this means that the ending of the film strikes a wonderfully discordant note - we want to feel good for Dani, she’s someplace where she appears to be welcome and appreciated. In fact, she’s literally put on a pedestal and recognized in a way she never was before, and this makes the decision of Christian’s fate that is put into her hands an obvious one. She is surrounded by people who have shown her more love and attention than Christian ever did, while she’s still gravely wounded by the loss of her family. And Christian is the source of so much of her misery. What happens next is obvious. But there are lies visible here - the other visitors didn’t just go home early, they were dispatched, some on-screen, most off-screen, their ultimate fates only known at the end. The few villagers who are sacrificed are either already dead, or given something to make it painless, but it clearly doesn’t work. They are told they will feel no pain and feel no fear, and both die in visible agony and terror. In the end, it seems, the truth has been withheld - the reason for the invitation, the reason Dani was welcomed so warmly, and the reason Pelle was so keen for Dani to come. What at first looks like Dani triumphant starts to curdle into Dani subsumed, brainwashed, with the vacant smile you see on cultists. She doesn’t really have any more agency in the village than she did with Christian - she’s just exchanged one type of drudgery for another. I didn’t twig to it immediately, maybe the end seemed happy in a blackly comic sense but a little…off around the edges, but I kept thinking about the film, and days afterward, as I considered how much happened in the margins, off-camera, without being said out loud, it started to sink in. Instead of the immediate gut-punch of
Hereditary’s ending, I felt a slow chill settle over me. Even in a film about hidden motives, some were more hidden than others, even though it was all right there in front of me the whole time. There’s seeing, and then there’s knowing, and the artistry of Aster’s two horror films to date is how he’s able to make you see so much without handing knowledge to you, so when you arrive at it, when you put two and two together, the revelation hits so much harder. It’s a fairy tale that’s actually a horror movie, where the princess is spirited away to a magical kingdom full of servitude and blood sacrifice, as her Prince Charming murders everyone who knows she’s there, one right after the other.
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This is definitely the best essay on Midsommar I've read.
ReplyDeleteThank you! I think Hereditary is the better straight-up horror film, but this one really lingered.
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