Midsommar – Passion Blog 2

Midsommer is a daylight thriller horror movie by Ari Aster, the famed director of Hereditary. The movie follows the main protagonist Dani (played by Florence Pugh) as she struggles with her own mental health in a series of unfortunate events that cultivate into a spectacularly strange and eerie movie. If you have not already watched the movie and are a fan of horror and being unsettled, then I cannot begin to recommend this movie enough. Upon my first viewing of it, I couldn’t get it out of my head for weeks. It masterfully pushes to the furthest extent of psychotic behavior without becoming nonsensical to create an extremely disturbing movie experience. I won’t be doing a full breakdown of the movie, but I will be talking about the main underlying storyline of the movie, so be warned of spoilers.

The movie opens with a strange mural with a style that becomes prevalent throughout the movie that actually tells the entire story of the movie before it happens, alluding to the idea that it was all planned from the start.

The main character Dani begins worrying about an ominous message from her bipolar sister, that seems nothing out of the ordinary to anyone else, but feels different for Dani. We eventually find out that her sister committed murder-suicide through smoke suffocation, and killed herself and both of her parents. We learn that the relationship between Dani and her boyfriend Christian is on its last legs, and has been for a while, but Christian finds it to be too cruel to actually break up with Dani after her tragic loss. Out of pity and remorse, Christian decides to stay with Dani, but there is an obvious distance between the two. My favorite representation of this is the awkwardly shot scene of Dani talking with Christian on opposite sides of the room, and we are only able to see Christian through the reflection of a mirror, illustrating the discomfort and separation between the two.

After some time, Dani finds out about a trip to Sweden that Christian was planning on taking with his friends to visit the ancestral commune of their shared friend Pele. Dani is begrudgingly invited in yet another awkward series of events, much to the dismay of all of Christian’s friends, all except for Pele. Once arrived at the Swedish commune, they are welcomed by other members of Pele’s commune, as well as some other visiting members. They are almost immediately given psychedelic mushrooms that become a major part of the unsettling visuals of the rest of the movie. Dani begins having a panic attack after she takes psychedelics, and is haunted by the image of her dead sister in the mirror of the bathroom. Images of her sister are seen throughout the movie, showing her lingering distress about the situation.

Throughout the whole Midsommar celebration of the commune, many strange things begin to occur. There are missing people, strange circumstances, and unsettling events that all lead Dani to believe it would be better to leave the celebration early than to wait. Christian and his friends decide to ignore her though and decide that it isn’t enough to justify leaving. Through several particularly deranged events, each character is killed except for Dani and Christian. Throughout the film, Dani felt separated and alone, struggling to deal with the mental blow that her sister had left her, all while her seemingly uncaring boyfriend provided no comfort. After slowly becoming integrated with the Swedish commune, she is given a much-needed feeling of belonging and is ultimately decided to be crowned the May Queen for the whole celebration. In the end, Dani is given the option to either stay with Christian or ultimately integrate with the community, and she decides to stay. With the ending shots of the movie, Dani begins to smile, signifying her acceptance and adoption into the commune, like she had needed it the whole time.