Taglines: Let the festivities begin.
Traumatised and still struggling to come to terms with an appalling family tragedy, the American graduate student, Dani, turns to her self-centred and distant boyfriend, Christian, against the backdrop of an inescapable break-up. In high hopes of repairing their disintegrating relationship, Dani tags along with two of Christian’s fellow students and their cryptic Swedish friend, Pelle, to attend a once-every-ninety-years summer solstice festival at an isolated pagan commune in rural Sweden.
Now, for the first time in a long while, Dani feels happy; however–in this friendly and verdant haven of peace, harmony, and constant sunshine–the welcoming community’s peculiar traditions start to blemish the folkloric utopia, allowing the uncomfortable feeling of uneasiness to creep up on Dani and her friends. In the eyes of the uninitiated newcomers, the naturalistic rituals seem brutal. Could a numbing truth be hiding in plain sight?
Midsommer (English: Midsummer) is a 2003 psychological horror film directed by Carsten Myllerup and written by Rasmus Heisterberg. The story revolves around a group of Danish students who celebrate their graduation in a Swedish forest, when they encounter a supernatural presence seemingly connected to a friend who recently committed suicide. Six months after the film’s release in 2003, the film rights were purchased by Bill Block for an American remake.[3] The American version was reset to a Louisiana bayou and released in 2008 with the title Solstice.
The film received generally positive reviews from the Danish press. The Berlingske Tidende awarded it 4 out of 6 stars, praising the films lighting, acting and effectiveness at providing surprising moments of fright, but criticized the rushed and confused quality of the film’s latter half. The Politiken appreciated the filmmaker’s success in elevating the film beyond the typical teen horror flick but found the abundance of mysterious happenings to be over-the-top.
A song from the soundtrack, “Transparent and Glasslike” by Carpark North, won the award for Best Song at Denmark’s 21st Robert Awards. The film also received both the Older Jury Award and Audience Award at the Leeds International Film Festival.
Film Review for Midsommar
Midsommar is the latest film by American director Ari Aster, who signed many works but made his horror movie with the title Hereditary. It also has the feature of being the last horror movie he made. It has many features that distinguish Hereditary and Midsommar from other ordinary horror movies and make them stand out and raise their directors. Sub-text, not using jump-scare, directing, cinematography and stage design are the main lines that are enough to put both films into the first-class film category. Other details that are far from cliché (except the cliché of the house that is not necessarily entered) are other details that are already in their own level.
The only thing I don’t like is that there are similar issues in both films. Even though I was concerned about a pioneer who was chosen to be chosen throughout the film, the disciples who worshiped the pioneer and the problematic family environment, I thought of the other directors who went on certain topics, and I thought that a director who had a wonderful appearance in Hereditary a few years later, I saw the other things coming more harshly and developing his own work even more. I don’t mean Haneke’s Funny Games look like a look again, it’s more like the job of getting things done and setting the point.
Before I start filming, I would like to briefly talk about the Midsummer Festival and its features, which are celebrated as a tradition in some countries. We can think that the festival, which symbolizes positive features such as love, fertility, and yield, which dates back to ancient times, is celebrated exactly like the movie, except for blood and hardness. The festival, which is depicted every 90 years in the movie, is a version that lasts for 9 days (the number 9 appears in a few more points in the movie). Although it is explained differently in different sources, the main purpose is to celebrate the arrival of summer.
The symbol I put the real and movie versions above; It consists of a triangle, a stick with 2 rings and a symbol-specific symbol letter. If we look deeply; We can see that Darren Aronofsky has a meaning similar to Mother’s. The symbol, which is basically defined as the increase of soil yield with the combination of creative and soil mother, also summarizes the festival. In addition, we can specify that fertility and the life cycle, which is emphasized in the film, are tried to be symbolized by rings.
The 9 victims presented at the end of the movie are also special versions of the animals normally sacrificed at the festival. Normally the bear is not sacrificed after all (mostly livestock). We can explain the bear incident in Greek mythology by considering the bear as an ancestor of human beings and trying to identify with the ancestors by dressing bear skins and liberating the soul inside the bear and thinking that man will be free. Well, in this case, no matter why you call the bear in a cage, it may be due to the effort of a freaked group determined to cut the bear, to hold the bear, or to put everything in the free will head and actually do whatever they want (just like the clothes that Christian wore but had the symbol of sacrifice on himself. as).
Midsommer (2019)
Directed by: Ari Aster
Starring: Florence Pugh, Jack Reynor, Vilhelm Blomgren, William Jackson Harper, Will Poulter, Ellora Torchia, Archie Madekwe, Gunnel Fred, Isabelle Grill, Julia Ragnarsson, Anna Åström
Screenplay by: Ari Aster
Production Design by: Henrik Svensson
Cinematography by: Pawel Pogorzelski
Film Editing by: Lucian Johnston
Costume Design by: Andrea Flesch
Set Decoration by: Klara Alfredsson Jofs Svensson, Zsuzsanna Svertecki
Art Direction by: Csaba Lodi, Richard T. Olson, Nille Svensson, Eszter Takács
Music by: The Haxan Cloak
MPAA Rating: R for disturbing ritualistic violence and grisly images, strong sexual content, graphic nudity, drug use and language.
Distributed by: A24 Films
Release Date: June 24, 2019
Visits: 134
