One of the best and most disturbing films this sommar
After just how good Hereditary was, expectations were high for Midsommar. Ari Aster had done a stellar job of crafting a horror that was both beautiful and terrifying. With his sophomore attempt, he decided to go a different route and while it’s not as scary, it’s beautiful in its own way.
The story follows a young couple who travels to Sweden to participate in a midsummer festival with some friends. While everything starts out fine, things start to take a strange and twisted turn as the days go on.
Midsommar is one of those movies that will both captivate you to the point that you can’t stop watching and disgust you to the point that you want to stop. It’s this internal clash throughout most of the film that brings a sense of dread and disturbance to any innocent soul who goes to watch this, especially in theaters.
And it really is beautiful. Midsommar is hands down one of the best movies I’ve ever seen visually. The way they use light and color along with special effects here and there just adds a sense of dream-like quality to all the weird happenings throughout. It feels like one big drug trip that gets more intense as time goes on. This coupled with the masterful usage of sound that Aster has become known for creates an experience like no other.
But boy do they go hard on the gross imagery. There’s not a huge amount of it besides small things here and there that unsettle you, but they don’t hold back when things start to get going. The gore is extreme and there’s one sex scene that is so unsettling, it’s hard to describe in words. Apparently the movie was rated NC-17 for a few weeks before Aster convinced the MPAA to knock it down to R and I don’t doubt that fact one bit.
Just don’t go in expecting Hereditary. Midsommar is an extremely slow burn that gives you so many thoughts and feelings that it’s hard to register what you saw coming out of your first showing. This is one that you’ll need to see two or three times to truly appreciate everything that Aster put together in his latest creation. It’s slow, a bit too slow at times, but when everything starts to come together in the end for one grand conclusion, it’s all worth it.
Midsommar is one of the best movies this year and there’s no question about that in my mind. It’s certainly not for everyone, and many won’t get what all the hype is about, but it’ll go down as a masterpiece of filmmaking from our era. If you have the patience and the stomach for it, go see Midsommar in theaters before this sommar is over.
The Movie Hall 
Leave a comment