What’s up, Wisecrack? HOST again. Director Ari Aster stunned and delighted horror fans
with his 2018 familial horror film Hereditary, so expectations for his followup were understandably
high.
And according to contemporary horror king Jordan Peele, Aster more than met those expectations,
creating quote “the most idyllic horror film of all time.” Now, Peele enjoys his
horror films served with a healthy side of social commentary and deep meaning, as we’ve
covered in our videos on Get Out and Us. So his response got us thinking… Is there something
meaningful going on in this gnarly vision of the Swedish countryside? Or is it all bear
carcasses and no substance?
Let’s find out in this Wisecrack Edition on Midsommar or Mid-summer? I’m just gonna
call it Midsommar: Deep or Dumb? And, as always, spoilers ahead.
But, before we get into it, I wanna give a shoutout to Skillshare. Skillshare is an online
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Alright let’s dive into a recap: Midsommar introduces us to twenty-something Dani and
her douchey boyfriend Christian, who’s about to dump her. But when Dani’s sister kills
herself and her parents, Christian can’t exactly peace out. Motivated by guilt, he
unenthusiastically invites her to tag along with him and his anthropology grad school
bros on a trip to Sweden for a special, once-every-96-years Midsommer festival. They arrive at an idyllic
Swedish commune, and shit almost immediately gets weird. Two old people jump off a cliff
in a hari-kari-esque ritual, this chick puts a pube in Christian’s pie, and people dance
and moan while tripping balls. These British people are reasonably like, “we’re out”
and promptly disappear.
“Has anyone seen Connie?”
Things get progressively creepier and the grad school bros are subsequently killed one
by one, in creatively horrifying fashion.
But things are going comparatively better for Dani, who wins an all-girls stoned dance
competition, gets crowned May Queen, and is celebrated by the whole community. Then, Christian
gets roped into a weird sex ritual that Dani sees through a keyhole. But she doesn’t
have long to mope because there’s about to be a cool human sacrifice, and she gets
to select the ninth person to be set on fire. She picks… you guessed it, Christian. Dani
smiles as he and his fellow sacrificial lamb-humans burn. The end.
To figure out if this film is deep or not, we first have to decipher Aster’s bloody
depiction of a Midsummer festival. It’s important to note that this film is not overly
concerned with total anthropological fidelity. Midsommer, though an iconic Swedish holiday,
is not a blood bath where grandpas jump off cliffs or hapless foreigners are put in funny
hats and burned to a crisp. According to Po Tidholm, author of the book Celebrating the
Swedish Way:
He notes that it is:
and involves dancing around maypoles, decorating everything with ferns and plants, and visiting
holy springs.
As for that death ritual - Tidholm also clarifies that, to the best of his knowledge:
And what about the weird sex stuff? That was completely the twisted brainchild of Aster.
However, baby making is a big part of Midsummer, which is why a lot of Swedes are born a square
9 months after the sexy solstice. Cool. And about those psychedelics... Apparently celebrating
Swedes are far more likely to get boozy than they are to trip balls. Duly noted.
But don’t go thinking that Aster made everything up during a particularly industrious acid
trip. Dude did his homework, spending months researching and eventually drawing from Swedish
traditions and folklore, as well as Norse mythology. Indeed, Harga is a real rural village,
and much of the film’s imagery is consistent with real Swedish Midsommar celebrations,
complete with a maypole. Similarly, the somewhat creepy paintings on the barn walls are true
to real agrarian Swedish societies. The crowning of the May Queen is also a thing, it just
typically occurs on May Day rather than Midsommar. People really do eat herring and wear flower
wreaths. Aster also plucked other religious traditions, like the blessing of the crops,
from a famous 19th-century anthropological study by James George Frazer. These lighter
details, all faithful to Swedish culture, are complicated by the film’s darker turns,
but we’ll get to that later.
Aster even went so far as to learn the Scandanavian runic alphabet, which was used to write Germanic
languages in Northwestern Europe before the adaptation of the latin alphabet. He told
The Ringer that every item of Harga clothing is decorated in specifically chosen runic
symbols or a different hieroglyphic language they invented specifically for the film. A
notable example comes when Christian dons a white robe before entering the world’s
weirdest fertility ceremony. The robe is decorated with the upwards arrow “Tiwaz” symbol,
associated with the Nordic god Tyr, who represents bravery, masculine energy and virility. Fittingly,
Tyr sacrifices his arm to save the world, which is appropriate for a dude whose about
to be, well, sacrificed. Dani, in contrast, has two runes on her dress that showcase her
character’s duality- an R-shaped Raido, which symbolizes “journey” and an hourglass
shaped Dagaz rune, which could mean “new beginning” or “loss of hope.” Both symbols
are up for interpretation, but each feel relevant to Dani’s journey.
As far as the death stuff goes, Aster was likely inspired by long-debated Viking mythology
and folklore. Certain written and visual accounts from the prehistoric Viking period depict
sacrifices of horses, dogs, birds and, yes, humans, which apparently occurred every nine
years. These accounts have been disputed by scholars, but they pretty much agree that
if human beings were sacrificed, it probably happened before 1050 AD. So, regardless, some
creative liberties are being taken.
Other striking moments are also infused with elements of Norse mythology. For instance,
Christian is put inside a bear carcass before being burned alive - Bears are significant
in Norse mythology - Viking men donned bearskins before battle, and some even believed that
the skins protected them from fire. Perhaps even more grotesque is the fate of Simon,
the British guy who Christian finds splayed open, his lungs somehow still breathing. This
gruesome sight is a reenactment of the “Blood Eagle” a Viking torture ritual that involves
inside-outing a dude. The Blood Eagle was first documented in 865, but scholars are
unsure whether it’s possible, and none have exactly volunteered to be the guinea pig.
Then there are the Harga love rituals, some of which also bear resemblance to reality.
For instance, we see the Harga young women picking different types of flowers - in real
life, they would pick seven kinds of flowers and put them under their pillow to conjure
dreams of their future mate. Instead, Christian’s seducer, Maya, places a carved love rune under
his bed. In a more shocking moment, Christian discovers a pubic hair in his pie, a love
spell Aster insists comes from “actual Swedish folklore.” At a different point, Christian’s
drink is slightly redder than the others - suggesting that there’s menstrual blood in there, which
Aster also says comes from lore. We’ve had trouble confirming either practice, and attempting
to made the people at the library think we’re weirdos, so don’t say we don’t make sacrifices
for you guys.
Anyway, the point is that Aster had fun combining truth and fiction, old and new, mythology
and history to build his creepy haven of cell-phone-free agrarian life where ritualized human sacrifice
is as normal as sourdough bread. That’s certainly not a criticism - If every horror
film was confined to reality, the genre would be pretty boring. But in using this potpourri
of references, is Aster trying to make a deeper point? Let’s look at two very different
ways the film’s “outsider” characters react to these rituals.
We’ll start with Dani, who despite the demented arsony that’s going down, ends the film
with a smile. What are we supposed to make of this? Has Dani become evil? Or is there
something more to it? We think so, and her character arc proves it.
Dani begins the film pretty firmly ensconced in a cold, alienating secular society filled
with icy, lonely city streets. The colors are muted and we get the sense that this is
not a happy world. After losing her entire family, nobody really comforts Dani, and her
shitty boyfriend only stays with her to seem like a good guy. Her world feels pretty absent
of community and emotional support - She’s shown alone in her house, with phone calls
providing much of her communication with the outside world. Her detachment is apparent
in her first phone call with Christian. The camera is set squarely on her face, without
a single cut to him, implying that she’s talking to somebody who isn’t fully present.
“I’m very lucky to have you.”
Several other conversations are shown in mirrors, which could imply that people aren’t really
connecting, and are only seeing each other’s superficial “public” face. Her boyfriend
is constantly trying to get away from her
“I was just gonna go to that party for 45 minutes.”
forgets her birthday and pressures her to take hallucinogens, despite her recurring
panic attacks. Early on, their Swedish friend Pelle tells her that, despite being orphaned
as a child
“I have always felt held by a family, a real family. Which everyone deserves. And
you deserve.”
It’s clear what she’s lacking: love, empathy, and community.
And that’s exactly what she finds when she encounters the Harga people. Now although
she spends the first half of the film extremely weary and frightened of them, she’s eventually
seduced by the warmth of their community. Plus drugs. The Harga even seen to move in
tandem, as if they are all dancing to the same piece of choreography. They behave like
different parts of the same organism. The idea of shared catharsis, both in pain and
pleasure, is present throughout the film. When this old man survives his leap off a
cliff, the rest of his tribe moan in unison, as if experiencing a collective pain. This
is repeated in the final ritual sacrifice. Similarly, during Christian’s hot date,
we see the women moan in unison with Maya, as if sharing her pleasure. Every feeling
experienced is shared by the community - As Aster puts it:
At first, Dani’s intimidated by their sense of unity - feeling too scared to join the
ritual dancing.
“You guys should join.” “Oh, no, I’m too scared.”
However, she does appear to be struck by the connectedness of these people, staring closely
during ceremonies. After the horrific sacrifice scene, Dani is visibly stunned and devastated
- but she listens attentively as the elderly woman explains:
As someone who recently lost her whole family, the idea of life being a circle of rebirth
HAS to be attractive.
We see Dani become increasingly more immersed in the Harga culture, as she starts to find
the cult, uh community, she craved. Most basically, this is shown in her costume, which transforms
from her dark, real world clothing to an apron and eventually a full dress and flower wreath
before the may pole dance. Here, she takes more hallucinogens, but this time in a ritualized
motion, sharing the experience first with one Harga girl and then with the entire circle
of them. Though she’s slightly off rhythm, she can't avoid being led into the dance,
and the dizzying experience is the first time we see her truly smile - she’s finally moving
as part of the singular Harga organism. As she grows dizzier, she starts blending with
images of other Harga girls, as if her painful individuality is disappearing.
But the most important moment of the film happens after she sees Christian having sex
with rando Swedish girl. She bursts into uncontrollable tears, echoing the way she cried after learning
about her family’s death. Except this time, she’s surrounded by a group of Harga women
who cry in tandem with her, as if sharing her emotional load and completely empathizing
with her pain.
Interestingly, Dani’s increased inculcation into the cult is mirrored by her increased
immersion into nature. This begins psychedelically, when she hallucinates her hands growing grass,
and then her feet turning into grass. Over the course of her May Queen rulership, she
becomes covered with more and more flowers to the point of absurdity. By the end, she
has almost entirely disappeared into a gown and crown of bright blossoms, symbolizing
her surrender to nature, and this agrarian society.
We see this new fidelity to the Harga society when she picks Christian, rather than a Harga,
to be the ninth sacrifice. As she watches the burning, she experiences pain, but like
the Harga, also experiences joy. She’s watching the vestiges of her former life crumble, and
can’t help but smile, as she is free to start anew in a community where she can belong
and be seen. It’s creepy as HELL but makes for pretty great cinema.
But if you’re not interested in joining a community of happy inbred blonde people,
there’s another option. Enter: Christian and the dude bros. They approach the Harga
people with the condescending distance of anthropology students working on a thesis-
sneaking into temples to take photos of secret religious texts or watching the rituals as
if surveilling animals at a zoo. The crazier the animals act, the better a peer-reviewed
paper they’ll have. Meanwhile, Mark, the unabashed fool, is more preoccupied with banging
Swedish chicks and could care less about their beliefs, as demonstrated when he pees on a
sacred tree and can’t comprehend their reaction. In general, they approach the Harga culture
with the same detached shock and intrigue as us- an audience so alienated from the value
of ancient rituals that we’re willing to buy in to the idea that they could be THIS
horrific; or at least buy in enough for it to effectively scare us. What is Aster doing
here?
The way we see it, the film is constantly playing into and subverting our modern, secular
aversion to mystical traditions. Religious worship has become increasingly alien to many
of us, leading theologian David Bentley Hart to write that:
We tend to see ritual acts as primitive, and potentially barbaric. That this film’s particular
boogeyman takes the form of very religious Swedes, rather than say, a sadistic escaped
serial killer or a shape-shifting clown speaks volumes about our society’s fear of and
aversion to ritual.
At the same time, Aster depicts the Harga clan as the precise answer to everything wrong
with Danni’s life. She is offered complete acceptance, genuine reciprocity, and total
empathy. Thus, Midsommar is a shocking reassertion of the value of ritual. No matter how irrational
these acts may seem, they have a very rational purpose- to build community and a sense of
belonging. We’d go ahead and say that’s Wisecrack Certified deep.
But what do you guys think? Is Midsommar a compelling horror show that comments on our
increasingly secularized society? Or is it just “Pagan people = weird”? Let us know
what you think in the comments. Thanks to all our patrons for supporting the channel
and our podcast. Go ahead and hit that subscribe button and, before you go, I want to give
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Join the classes and communities that are right for you, today, by clicking the link
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thanks for watching guys, peace.