Sorry, But You Will Feel Pain And Fear
‘Midsommar’ is a darkly funny horror movie about trust
My favorite moment in the horror/comedy movie Midsommar comes at the very end. That is the only spoiler warning you’re going to get. If you haven’t seen ‘Midsommar’ I highly recommend it. I promise you’ll feel really weird afterward.
It’s directed by Ari Aster whose last movie, Hereditary, was a pretty straight-forward horror movie inspired by modern classics, like the 1968 Satanic domestic nightmare Rosemary’s Baby. He is an unpredictable director who is not afraid of long scenes that slowly build into pandemonium. His movies are like being hypnotized by a smiling creep.
But there is nothing straightforward about Midsommar. The movie is about a traumatized young woman, played with intelligent vulnerability by Florence Pugh, who tags along on a research trip with her boyfriend and his college buddies to a remote Swedish commune celebrating an ancient weeklong festival. You may find yourself shouting ‘it’s a cult!’ while watching.
Midsommar is both darkly funny and terrifying. I call it a horror/comedy because it has elements of both, although the ratio of horror to comedy is probably 3 to 1. There’s an old Mel Brooks saying that goes: ‘Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you fall into an open sewer and die.’ I think that applies to the fine line separating horror from comedy. I, mean, for almost three-quarters of every Nightmare on Elm Street movie Freddy Kreuger is having a knee-slapping good time. He’s living a comedy while sleep-deprived teens run for their lives down the corridors of their subconsciouses.
In Midsommar, it’s the men who fall into open sewers and die. Arrogant men. Horny men. Insensitive men. Men who are bad boyfriends. To those characters, Midsommar is definitely a horror movie about overly polite Scandinavian savages. And yet, the movie ends with a serene smile.
I do not want to give away too much about Midsommar. The movie definitely takes its time but rewards viewers with gratuitous gory head smashings. The opening sequence is a wordless masterpiece that tells the story of why Pugh’s character is so damaged. The movie is a sun-drenched panic attack. You will probably look at any local Oktoberfest events differently once you’ve seen it.
The male characters, like Pugh’s character’s two-faced boyfriend played by Jack Reynor and William Jackson Harper’s know-it-all anthropologist, are not sympathetic. But as I have mentioned, this is their horror movie. Midsommar is also Pugh’s character’s horror movie up until, suddenly, it isn’t. Turns out pagan death cults are fun if you’re not the one being disemboweled and stuffed full of straw.
Therein is an important life hack: no matter how much you love your pagan death cult, no matter how ecstatic that single-minded community makes you, never, ever volunteer for the ritual blood sacrifice that concludes any religious ceremonies you may be attending.
They are both stoked to go out in a blaze of glory.
Midsommar is a movie that could be turned into 10,000 GIFs. But the moment that really got to me is tangential to the main plot. During the entire movie, I struggled to identify with the lead characters, especially the men. It’s not that I’ve never been arrogant or horny or insensitive. But I’d like to think I would be more understanding if someone I’m dating is struggling with a violent family tragedy. Enter two men, Ulf and Ingemar, both members of the village who lure unsuspecting tourists they can drug, fuck, and sacrifice. They are both stoked to go out in a blaze of glory.
Honestly, who isn’t?
These two men enthusiastically offer up their lives because they believe in the wisdom of their elders, and the elders before them. Or, at least, I’m guessing that’s what happened. There wasn’t a meeting scene where an elder asked: “Yeah, so, who wants to burn to death for our god Tyr in the nice Kill Shack we built?”
It should be noted that only young men are killed in the Kill Shack. Young men are expendable and that is true of death cults and America, a country that is not a death cult but has death cult tendencies. America sacrifices its young men, both directly and indirectly. When we’re not shipping young men off to endless wars, we’re either excusing their mistakes and stunting their emotional growth, or demanding they ‘man up’ when suffering.
Don’t get me wrong: you can’t have an evil fertility rite without sperm but after that is extracted all bets are off.
The two volunteers are led into the Kill Shack and are sat on hay bales against one of the walls. They both seem happy and excited to be part of something really big. Fanatics love with their whole hearts and are more than happy to rip it out of their chests as proof. An elder tells one “Take from the Yew tree, feel no pain” and swipes the inside of his mouth with what looks like sap on the end of a stick. The elder turns to the other and does the same, saying “Take from the Yew tree, feel no fear.” Once the Kill Shack is set on fire, Ulf and Ingemar both scream in pain and fear as they die.
Religions lie. Governments lie. Capitalism tells you “Make money, feel happy” and that’s a goddamn lie. I think it’s best to assume authority figures are always lying, too. Maybe some think they have just reasons but most of the time I think they lie because after the sacrifice there’s an orgy.
I have fallen for the old ‘sap of the Yew tree’ trick. I have blindly trusted clergy and teachers and politicians. But when powerful men tell you to feel no fear and no pain what they’re really saying is get ready, it’s coming.
