Midsommar (Director’s Cut)

Dani’s received a concerning email from her sister and now can’t get hold of her or her parents. There’s a tragic reason for this: her sister had decided to commit suicide and in the process killed her parents as well through carbon monoxide poisoning.

Dani’s boyfriend, Christian, was being goaded by his friends to leave her. They can all see that he’s just going through the motions with the relationship and that Dani is manipulating him due to her mental health issues. Just as he’s got the confidence up to confront her about their relationship, she calls telling him about her sister and parent’s deaths.

Of course, Christian can’t leave her now but does become more distant even attempting to go to a party on his own while Dani is still grieving. Dani — because she either wants something to take her mind off of her tragedy or is so insecure she can’t leave Christian alone for 5 minutes (and I lean towards the latter )— tags along with him only to overhear that the group are planning a to head off to Sweden in a couple of weeks.

Christian is adamant that he’d told Dani about the trip, which she begrudgingly admits he had but that she didn’t think he was actually serious about going. She then begins to break down and have a panic attack which forces Christian to ask her to join them, saying he was planning on making it a surprise and that she’d ruined it.

He was not, dear Reader, planning on asking Dani to join them but was forced into it by her circumstances and manipulation.

The lads are obviously none too thrilled that Dani is tagging along — this was supposed to be a boys trip where they could let loose for a couple of months before they had to knuckle down working on their PHD theses.

It was Pelle who had suggested the trip as he comes from Halsingland in Sweden and is a member of the Hårga community, which he describes as a “commune” and doesn’t really have much to do with the outside world. They’re due to be celebrating their midsummer festival which is a 9 day event paying homage to their Gods.

Josh has jumped at the chance to go as he’s been studying European folk traditions and this will fit in perfectly with his thesis, Mark is just going along to have a good time, as was Christian until Dani agreed to take the trip which he wasn’t expecting her to do.

The commune is in the middle of nowhere, in an idyllic setting surrounded by nature — just fields and woods as far as the eye can see. Before the ceremonies gets going, all of the returning inhabitants get together and take magic mushrooms. Dani didn’t want to and says that she’ll wait until she get acclimatised with the place, Christian says that they should take the trip together but Dani is adamant she isn’t ready for it yet. Mark intimates that they’re both already ruining the trip before it’s even got started so Dani agrees.

Dani’s shroom trip seems quite peaceful and she sees grass growing out of her hand which she seems to find comforting in a way, but soon though she gets visions of her sister and parents and runs away from the group, past some others who she thinks are laughing at her. She’s found by the others the following day and she doesn’t have many memories of the trip or falling asleep.

The group are shown around the commune, it’s a pretty basic affair with wooden buildings, small single beds and (from the looks of it) only one outhouse, but the people seem friendly enough and the location appears calm and restful.

And it is restful, until the group are taken to the first ceremony which is nothing like the maypole dancing, alcohol imbibing, drug taking trip they thought they would be having, instead it’s something much more sinister and deadly.

Mark has missed all of his as he decided to have a nap and seems quite upset that no one woke him so he could watch the events, Josh is fascinated by the ritual aspects of what just happened, Christian initially seemed disturbed by the events but then starts to see the potential of a thesis in the ceremonial practices of the commune.

And Dani? She seems numb as to what just transpired but later realises that there’s something not right with the people here and begs Christian to leave. He’s too enamoured with how good a project this is going to be (despite Josh’s complaints that he’s copying him) and refuses to listen to her.

Ättestupa (which sounds lovely but isn’t) isn’t the only ceremony that they will witness or be asked to take part in and, as the days progress, they get more involved in the commune and are drawn deeper into its inner workings.

As people start disappearing Dani once again begins to wonder what is happening at a place that looks so innocent and peaceful. The question is, can Dani see past the ritual and pageantry to the darkness within the commune or is it feeding something within her that she has been desperately searching for?

Round The Maypole? Or Should That Be Round The Twist?

🎃Warning! Spoilers for Midsommar ahead! 💐

I’m going to get this out of the way to before I start in case my feelings taint what I have to say and aren’t clear: There isn’t a single likeable character in this film.

Dani is needy, manipulative, controlling and possessive. Christian doesn’t have a backbone, blames Dani for the way he treats her (although there is some validity in that) and is self centred and absorbed. Mark is a hedonist who can only think about the fun he wants to have. Josh is so wrapped up in his studies he doesn’t care about the bigger picture even though he can see what’s happening. And Pelle? Well there’s a special place in hell for him, isn’t there?

I don’t know if it’s the fact that I am English and grew up with Maypole dancing — we had to do it in primary school, it was a big deal when I was a kid — so I have a knowledge of what “typical” spring/solstice-like traditions are, but I am pretty certain if I saw an elderly couple yeet themselves off a cliff to be dashed on a rock below I would say to my other half “I am getting out of here” and if they didn’t come with me immediately, well that’s on them isn’t it?

You wouldn’t see me for dust.

Now I can see why the ättestupa ceremony (literally translated to clan precipice so if they looked it up in a dictionary they would have had a clue as to what was about to happen) drew Josh and Christian in, but Dani? I mean she was fragile enough as it was. To stay after witnessing that just shows how reliant she is on Christian — and why his later actions were so devastating to her.

And that character trait in her really annoys me. She’s not the final girl, she can’t be. She relies on Christian throughout the film and is only able to survive through happenstance by somehow becoming May Queen (which also saved Pelle as a by-product) otherwise she would have been sacrificed like the others.

At the end of the film, after witnessing a drugged out Christian having sex (with a 15-year-old but Pan says it’s allowed so that makes it okay I guess), Dani collapses and the young women of the commune surround her and grieve with her. It’s probably the only time in her life she’s felt a connection like this. At the start of the film, as she’s grieving the death of her family, Christian is perfunctorily stroking her back but he’s not sharing in her grief, he’s just there because it’s what is expected of him as Dani’s boyfriend.

You could argue that this closeness with the commune’s young women is what breaks the bond between her and Christian but when we see her adorned in flowers during the sacrifice ceremony she’s still numb, dead behind the eyes and isn’t strong.

Side note: That flower dress? I could never! With my allergies? I’d probably ask to be sacrificed if they made me put that on, actually I’d already be dead at that point due to a pollen overdose but that would still count towards the 9 sacrifices, wouldn’t it?!

While we never explicitly see her choose Christian, it was obvious it was going to be him, right? I mean she’s not going to pick some rando over a guy who’s been treating her like crap for 4 years, can’t remember how long they were dating, forgot her birthday, was doing to dump her but for the death of her parents and shagged a teenager.

While I enjoyed Midsommar, I kept feeling like it was missing something but I didn’t know what. It wasn’t until I’d sat with my thoughts on it a bit that I realised it was because I didn’t care about any of the characters at all. Anyone of them could have ended up in that bear carcass and I wouldn’t care. Heck I would have chucked Dani into the fire for good measure May Queen or not because she was a snivelling bitch — and she did give Christian those flowers pointedly because he forgot her birthday, I don’t care what she says.

So yes, the film was good, the storyline was interesting and the cinematography and photography were gorgeous. I felt the editing and plot was a little slow to begin with. The first 2 hours of the film dragged so hard — I really don’t think I could have sat through it at a cinema. But once we got into the last hour of the film when things really started to kick off, it flew by.

I understand they were trying to set up the characters and the tension, but It was 40 minutes too long in my book, but then when I checked it’s because I’d actually watched the director’s cut of the movie which adds an extra 23 minutes to the theatrical release – whoops! But that’s still an extra 20 minutes that could have been left on the editing floor to tighten up the pacing and keep the audience’s attention.

Speaking of director: The film was fine but there were a couple of odd choices. The one that stuck out most was the use of an upside down shot as the car was heading into Halsingland. In the scene we follow the car along a road and just as it gets to a banner that reads “Halsingland”, the camera inverts and then rights itself.

Now, I know this is to symbolise Dani and the other’s world being turned upside down but it’s just used the once. Why not bookend the film with it? At the end when we see Dani looking at the flaming temple with her friends bodies and a live Christian inside, why not flip the camera again and then right it to see her smiling face? That way she’s basically done a full 360 and is now right where she’s meant to be.

Just a thought.

Apart from that the direction was fine if a little stilted and static which was especially noticeable as the setting was such a wide open space.

Personally, if I were to pick a folklore film to watch, it would be The Wicker Man over Midsommar, although we will be watching the Nicholas Cage version of The Wicker Man soon so I might change my mind!

Overall, a pretty reasonable film with some good acting which was marred somewhat by the poor pacing and unlikeable characters.

Watch Misdommar if you can’t go outside during the spring/summer due to allergies and have forgotten what real flowers look like.

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