Midsommar: What A Long, Strange Trip It’s Been

Lots and lots of scary movies take place at night. And that makes sense - the dark is threatening and uncertain, and from a survival standpoint, what you don’t know CAN kill you. As much as we’ve evolved over time, nighttime is still when we can’t see it coming, and darkness is where the monsters lurk, where the hands are waiting to grab us from out of the shadows.

Which makes it all the more impressive that Midsommar manages to wring the dread and uneasiness that it does from the unblinking eye of day. It’s one thing to cloak your nightmares in shadow, it’s a whole other thing to lay them out in plain view. But that’s exactly why this film works - it’s a slow, deliberate exercise in the dread that comes with exposure.

Dani’s having a rough time of it lately - her relationship with her sister is fractious, part of a long and complicated family history, and she’s afraid that she’s driving her boyfriend Christian away with what she perceives to be constant neediness. She’s worried about her sister, who struggles with bipolar disorder, and looks to Christian for support (as one does with their partner), but to her it feels like too much, and so she’s constantly apologizing and accommodating.

And for his part, Christian is…barely there. Over the course of a phone call and a switch in perspective, we learn everything we need to know about him. He’s callow and aimless, a boy in a man’s body, unwilling to or incapable of making not just commitments, but decisions, of taking any direction in life at all. Dani constantly puts her needs aside to keep him around, but it’s immediately apparent that he’s only there until he leaves. His friends are urging him to break it off already, it’s been a year of him dithering and miserable and she’s obviously pathologically needy, you know, what with the wanting reassurance and emotional support and all. But Christian’s afraid of breaking up with her and then regretting it. He can’t stand the idea of making a decision that might make him feel bad.

Dani may very well be clingier than is healthy, and she may very well be asking more from Christian than is reasonable, but Christian is so obviously not the man for the job. Her clinginess stems from insecurity and uncertainty in the strength of the relationship, and if Christian weren’t so shallow, unhelpful and noncommittal, she wouldn’t be so uncertain. it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy, where she’s so afraid she’s driving him away that it drives him away, but nothing about him inspires trust or reassurance. The distance between them is palpable - she pulls and tugs at his arm, he keeps saying he needs to go. There’s almost always space between them, in how they talk to each other, in how far away they stand from each other.

This, then, is our beginning - a couple in the throes of disintegration. And he’s just sprung on her, out of nowhere, that he’s taking a trip to Sweden with three of his friends - one he hadn’t bothered to mention before. Which makes an already awkward situation even more awkward. And then something horrible happens to Dani. Something world-shattering. And so Christian invites her on the trip, out of pity, out of not wanting to make any tough choices. He assures his friends that she’s not actually going to take him up on it. And of course she does.

And so they’re off to Sweden - Christian, Dani, Josh, Mark, and Pelle. They’re headed to Halsingland, the tiny community where Pelle grew up. Christian and Josh are in grad school for anthropology, and Josh is going to do some fieldwork. Christian’s hoping he’ll find something to kick-start ideas for his thesis, because he hasn’t found a topic yet. Mark is, well, a pig. Mostly he wants to fuck some “Swedish milkmaids.” They’ll be arriving in time for the midsummer festival, and this year’s is a special nine-day festival that only happens once every 90 years.

As soon as they arrive, they meet up with Pelle’s brother Ingemar, who brought his friends Simon and Connie from London. Everyone’s really happy to see Pelle and Ingemar, home from their traditional trip abroad. Halsingland is a bucolic rural commune deep in rural Sweden, so far in that the sun only sets a little, for maybe two hours a day. It is a place of wide-open spaces, simple livelihoods, bright colors, and constant sunshine. Everyone’s really happy to meet Pelle and Ingemar’s friends.

They’re so happy for new people to share in their traditions.

So here they are, in a foreign country, in a foreign culture, while Dani’s processing intense traumatic grief on top of a toxic, disintegrating relationship, and everyone’s consuming a lot of hallucinogens as part of the festival, strange customs and rituals under a constant, unblinking sun. The commune at Halsingland is both more than what it seems and also exactly what it seems, and the net effect is less out-and-out scary than it is deeply disconcerting. The constant bright light and bright color starts to feel a little oppressive after awhile, and everyone plays their part in the many games and rituals with wide, sincere smiles and joy. This is a community where these traditions have been upheld for countless centuries, and they don’t see anything wrong with them, it’s the visitors who react negatively. There’s a vein of humor running through the film as well, relying on the American fish out of water- in some ways, this is very much a “wacky teens travel abroad” comedy, just thoroughly recontextualized into horror.

Which, make no mistake, it is. The people of Halsingland have some very specific customs and rituals, and while Dani is working through intense grief (while everyone is tripping balls) and dealing with her failing relationship, that tends to take center stage. The role hallucinogens play is central to this film, blurring the line between real and unreal, bringing up deep-seated fears and emotions, all painted in bright, vivid color throughout. Aesthetically, this film is as far away from the standard horror palette of dark, grimy, decaying and rusty as you can get, and it’s absolutely bracing. Space and composition are immaculate and striking, little details inform everything we see, and it all serves as a backdrop to pageantry, abandonment and betrayal in equal measure, scored equally by charming folk songs and keening, dissonant strings, ancient melodies played on equally ancient instruments. The dysfunction between Dani and Christian - separately and as a couple - is acutely observed and deeply uncomfortable throughout, as provoking of unease as any traditional scares. Her self-negation and his selfish indifference are, at times, really hard to watch. This is a film that puts emotional violence front and center. Dani’s alone and afraid, and Christian’s base selfishness and unwillingness to stand for anything destroys everything around him.

And while it puts those things front and center, the real horror shit lurks in the margins. This film works at this level through sudden juxtapositions and cuts, jarring images presented suddenly, without any fanfare and very odd things put right out in plain sight. Folk art plays a big role in this film, and when you stop to consider what the art’s depicting, it’s sort of a “wait a minute” moment, but then it’s gone before it really has a chance to sink in. Things happen in the background - a look here, a conversation there, a distraction, a dismissal - but it’s so protracted that there isn’t a lot of tension built up. Everything’s weird, because it’s a small commune in a foreign country and everyone’s tripping, and it’s only gradually that the weirdness reveals its stakes. Really it isn’t until the very end that it all comes together, Dani’s journey through grief, the cost of community and tradition, and Christian’s fecklessness leading to something truly awful. But it’s less of a punch in the gut than something that lingers, like the remnants of a serious drug trip or a very bad dream.

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