|
I could see them getting away with the last one they did in 1929, but in 2019 it would be pretty hard to pull off. Especially if they let the same lovely liar talk to the police who tried to convince Connie that Simon left her.
|
#
?
Jul 6, 2019 04:15
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 4, 2024 20:29 |
|
|
I enjoyed watching this, but it's kind of like if The Shining petered out after the room 237 scene. It needed to be either more emotionally involving or way more bugnuts. One of my biggest issues was how much of the film the characters spent tripping out, which meant it was difficult to connect with them in terms of their actions and decisions.
|
|
#
?
Jul 6, 2019 04:18
|
|
|
Well yeah pulling people from American University is definitely dumb as hell. It would've had an even darker subtext and made way more sense if they preyed on Hondurans or something.
|
|
#
?
Jul 6, 2019 04:21
|
|
|
Groovelord Neato posted:
Very much so, which made me think of how I felt after watching a film like, say, Rosemary's Baby. It's such a deliciously evil way to make horror more horrible
|
|
#
?
Jul 6, 2019 04:23
|
|
|
veni veni veni posted:I realize I'm just nitpicking here if want pointless nitpicking lets talk about how dumb it is to hold a sex ceremony to conceive a child with a woman on her period I suppose she could always kept some old menstrual blood around for punch spiking but it seems unlikely Mel Mudkiper fucked around with this message at 04:57 on Jul 6, 2019 |
|
#
?
Jul 6, 2019 04:53
|
|
and probably just ignore this post because it's dumb, but there is no way in hell they would have gotten away with this for more than a week or two after the movie ends.
|
I feel like flaws in the cults plans are not flaws in the movie. The cult really isn’t shown as being perfect or all powerful or anything. Like their holy scriptures are literally idiot scribbles. They get by by living in a really nice place that provides well for them, more than having a tight perfected system.
|
|
#
?
Jul 6, 2019 05:17
|
|
|
Mel Mudkiper posted:if want pointless nitpicking lets talk about how dumb it is to hold a sex ceremony to conceive a child with a woman on her period Maybe it was from a broken hymen?
|
|
#
?
Jul 6, 2019 05:38
|
|
|
Coffee And Pie posted:Maybe it was from a broken hymen? That's absolutely what it's from
|
|
#
?
Jul 6, 2019 05:40
|
|
|
Since we are on the punch spiking thing, I thought one of the most disappointing parts of the movie is when they slam you over the head with that. I noticed within about a second that his juice was pink and sat there trying to figure out why, once I realized what it was I was so proud of myself and then 2 seconds later the movie is like "HEY THAT'S WHY IT'S PINK!!!! REMEMBER THE THING FROM EARLIER!?"
|
|
#
?
Jul 6, 2019 05:46
|
|
|
Coffee And Pie posted:Maybe it was from a broken hymen? https://youtube.com/watch?v=cUvghGuYbh0
|
|
#
?
Jul 6, 2019 05:54
|
|
|
Anybody else get powerful Monty Python vibes from this whole thing? The sex scene, the cliff scene, the maypole scene. All genius absurd comedy. The intro illustration in particular was pure Gilliam. There was something there which was present in Hereditary: I wanna call it the deconstruction of classic Greek concepts of tragedy and comedy. Like Hereditary talks a big game about being a tragedy the whole time, but ends with the main character surviving horrible circumstances to be crowned king, i.e. a comedy. Midsommar's a little tougher to nail down. It seems even more like comedy, except classic comedies are supposes to end with a marriage and this ends with the opposite I guess. Someone smarter/greeker than me please chime in. Anyway, I liked this a lot. I think Ari Aster is still working out the difference between style and shtick but overall I love the guy and will watch everything he does.
|
|
#
?
Jul 6, 2019 05:58
|
|
|
Don't have much to say that hasn't already been said, other than this is the best score of the year by a country mile.
|
|
#
?
Jul 6, 2019 06:09
|
|
|
I also like how the representation of patriarchal abuse is named Christian, and he gets roasted by a bunch of Norse pagans. Like hell fuckin yeah you guys.
|
|
#
?
Jul 6, 2019 06:28
|
|
|
I really liked this and thought it was better than Hereditary which I also liked a lot but which had a very significant flaw I found hard to overlook. I will say, if you decide to see this in a theater, go to one with a good sound system. The sound engineering and design is utterly amazing. I don't know about you guys saying it wasn't scary in the least. I thought this was very scary but just not in the way Americans typically associate with horror films. A consistent and very high level of tension and dread are built up just about from the time the characters arrive in Sweden. The musical score helps a lot with this. The fact that everything is going on in bright sunlight makes it all the worse IMO. The lead actress nails the most important role. Dani is super emotionally needy in kind of an unpleasant way but is sympathetic and conveys grief and distress really well. Her wail over the telephone in the early scenes is really chilling (if you've ever heard a parent or relative wail with grief over an unexpected death, it's something that will stay with you forever). The explanation posted earlier about her smile at the end is great and pointed out an aspect I hadn't realized, the bit about the cult society readily and externally sympathizing with your emotions. The foreshadowing dialgue from Pelle is great, my eyebrows picked up and I did a bit of an internal  when he talked about his parents dying in a fire.
|
|
#
?
Jul 6, 2019 08:37
|
|
|
I think I've found my take on the movie: it's like if a surrealist director was given a teen slasher script and told he couldn't change a word. Honestly, I think you could keep the script the exact same and basically turn it into a shlocky 80's slasher flick.
|
|
#
?
Jul 6, 2019 09:17
|
|
|
What I am curious about is what happens if Dani didn't select Christian at the end and I suppose also if Dani didn't become May Queen. As the ritual seemed pretty specific about four outsiders, one that was a May Queen selection and four locals I might have missed it but is there any indications that the May Queen is a human sacrifice as well? Or are we to assume that she's integrated in the Harga society and can go back to university with Pelle. The ending kind of paralleled The VVitch for me and I'm surprised I haven't seen that brought up more as a comparision/ I think my greatest frustration was probably how little agency it felt like Dani has but that's absolutely intentional.
|
|
#
?
Jul 6, 2019 10:45
|
|
|
Paragon8 posted:I might have missed it but is there any indications that the May Queen Nah, they mention the people helping her dress up at the end are the past may queens. They don't seem to be a group of anyone special. Remember that this year's festival is different and more special than most. There is some indication that they do the big event more often than every 90 years, but they certainly don't do it every year. Most years may queen eats a fish, takes a little ride then buries some seeds and probably not much more.
|
|
#
?
Jul 6, 2019 13:07
|
|
|
Man, after reading the thread I feel like I gave Christian way too much sympathy during my first viewing.
|
|
#
?
Jul 6, 2019 14:59
|
|
|
Coffee And Pie posted:Maybe it was from a broken hymen? I was referring to that she spiked the juice with menstrual blood the day before
|
|
#
?
Jul 6, 2019 15:00
|
|
|
Mel Mudkiper posted:I was referring to that she spiked the juice with menstrual blood the day before I thought that was just urine.
|
|
#
?
Jul 6, 2019 15:06
|
|
|
Found this lost on Reddit comparing the script and the film which might fill in the gaps on what’s in that cut hourquote:- at the beginning of the movie when dani christian and them were driving to the village they were supposed to pass a giant tree filled with hanging dead boars. That scene was cut. Mel Mudkiper posted:I was referring to that she spiked the juice with menstrual blood the day before Oh...chalk that up to good timing I guess? Or maybe just the fridge. Nobody so far has mentioned my favorite gag, “The kids are watching Austin Powers” which goes uncommented upon, though you can see a “what the gently caress” look on everyone’s face.
|
|
#
?
Jul 6, 2019 15:10
|
|
|
Paragon8 posted:What I am curious about is what happens if Dani didn't select Christian at the end There's some debate about that because Pugh played it one way but Aster seemed to have intended it to be the opposite. https://www.indiewire.com/2019/07/midsommar-ending-ari-aster-florence-pugh-disagree-1202155909/ (Major spoilers here) I think it works either way but I prefer Aster's read, personally. It seems that the 25ish minutes cut from the movie sheds some more light on it.
|
|
#
?
Jul 6, 2019 15:11
|
|
|
I saw this yesterday and loved it, although I don't know if it'll stick with me the same way Hereditary did. One thing I was talking about with the people I saw it with regarding Dani's integration into the cult was the contrasting significance of her family's deaths and those that we see over the course of the festival. While the opening murder/suicide presents as a sudden pointless tragedy, the ritual suicides and sacrifices have a deep significance and purpose within the group's logic, especially in how they relate to the continued health and coherence of the community. I wonder if that ultimately appealed to Dani given how she's still struggling with the trauma caused by her family's deaths.
|
|
#
?
Jul 6, 2019 15:52
|
|
|
Magic Hate Ball posted:I enjoyed watching this, but it's kind of like if The Shining petered out after the room 237 scene. It needed to be either more emotionally involving or way more bugnuts. One of my biggest issues was how much of the film the characters spent tripping out, which meant it was difficult to connect with them in terms of their actions and decisions. Yeah, my reaction was very similar. It needed to go more bugnuts or tie somehow very darkly into Dani in a way more satisfying than infidelity. Which wasn't even hinted at as an issue so the ending just feels chocked up to "drugs made the choice". I did totally connect with the inclusion and sharing of her pain the the village demonstrated though. Who was the second person in the yellow house and which people did he bring? I don't remember another set of confused outsiders. Also, it seemed like a fluke that our groups Pied Piper was spared (what are the chances an outsider wins May Queen?), so there would most likely have been three living Pied Pipers in the house, two effigies, the same number of murdered outsiders, and one May Queen chosen so too many people. I get that Dani being a last minute addition allowed her to be a new villager and that Christian was always going to be the burning bear, but her friend should have assumed he was going to die in the fire as he only brought enough people to fill the yellow house.
|
|
#
?
Jul 6, 2019 15:56
|
|
|
Oh interesting. If the scene from the script with the mass animal throat slashing was cut, then I think I can stomach seeing this in the theater.
|
|
#
?
Jul 6, 2019 16:13
|
|
|
Ape Agitator posted:Yeah, my reaction was very similar. It needed to go more bugnuts or tie somehow very darkly into Dani in a way more satisfying than infidelity. Which wasn't even hinted at as an issue so the ending just feels chocked up to "drugs made the choice". I did totally connect with the inclusion and sharing of her pain the the village demonstrated though. The second guy didn't bring anybody, he was just a volunteer and I don't think he had any significance otherwise. Ingmar brought Connie and Simon. Those two + Josh and Mark were the four sacrificed outsiders. Then the two volunteers + the elderly suicides were the four from the camp and Dani's choice makes 9.
|
|
#
?
Jul 6, 2019 16:14
|
|
|
I liked a lot of the "village as family" stuff - one of my favorite moments (outside of the Austin Powers line) was the mutual groan, and then the amiable laughter after the bit with the herring, which felt true to a loving group of people.graventy posted:Man, after reading the thread I feel like I gave Christian way too much sympathy during my first viewing. The film loads things a little bit in his favor towards the beginning (though his first line is literally something like "I'm doing resin with the guys" before offering her emotional advice, presumably while stoned), and he's never really made into a villain, which kind of leads to the mixed catharsis at the end. On the one hand, hooray! She has a family and is now rid of her doofus manipulative deadbeat boyfriend. On the other hand, she just killed a guy for being a selfish moron on mushrooms. I like the idea that becoming a part of the commune is basically taking the easy way out, but I wish they'd done a better job of emphasizing their relative positions.
|
|
#
?
Jul 6, 2019 16:22
|
|
|
Henchman of Santa posted:The second guy didn't bring anybody, he was just a volunteer and I don't think he had any significance otherwise. Ingmar brought Connie and Simon. Those two + Josh and Mark were the four sacrificed outsiders. Then the two volunteers + the elderly suicides were the four from the camp and Dani's choice makes 9. It seemed like they said the two of them brought outsiders with the knowledge that their lives were forfeit
|
|
#
?
Jul 6, 2019 17:43
|
|
|
Which is probably why he lightened up so much when she said she wanted to come. Oh yes, please come, that way I probably won’t be burnt to death!
|
|
#
?
Jul 6, 2019 17:47
|
|
|
Magic Hate Ball posted:Which is probably why he lightened up so much when she said she wanted to come. Oh yes, please come, that way I probably won’t be burnt to death! That's a kind of nice take. I was thinking that there is a bit of an "other cultures" argument going but as you note they do intentionally bring 5 people with the express intention of murdering them. Even at a cost of two (or three) of their own, it's still involuntary murder. With his plan he was definitely going to die as he brought nobody eligible for the May Queen challenge.
|
|
#
?
Jul 6, 2019 18:20
|
|
|
I don’t think we were supposed to be completely without sympathy for Christian. He was progressively more selfish and distant towards Dani and about the least loyal friend you could imagine, but these aren’t damnable flaws. He certainly got it worse than he deserved, no one should have to spend their last hours of life in a panic of confusion, paralyzed, sentenced to death by your girlfriend of 4 years and then sewn up in animal skin and burned alive. Had we seen the story through his eyes I think it would have been an entirely different experience. But this wasn’t Christians story, it was Dani’s. I guess my take away from her decision was not as cut and dry as “was it because he cheated or not?” Her birthday was obviously a huge deal to her. She mentioned that they would be arriving on her birthday before they even left. Then when she was trying to talk herself down from a panic attack during their first trip she said to herself “don’t think like that. It’s almost your birthday”. As if it would be her special day and everything would be okay. Then Pelle was the only one who remembered and gave her the sketch that was “just something I do for birthdays” showing that he valued them as she does. She saw him having to remind Christian after she said “I should have reminded him, it’s my fault” and then he gives her a half hearted apology and lovely little bunt cake. It’s never brought up again. She later gets her big day though and all the attention is on her. Except Christians. She still asks for him to come on the May Queen ride, but probably more to get him to stop focusing on Maja. Then the turning point for her happens. I don’t think it was when she saw him, that was just the catalyst to a complete emotional outpouring. He was all she had left and was the closest thing she had to family, so even though their relationship was hollow his betrayal broke her completely. Every other panic attack we saw her have was as restrained as possible, usually cut immediately after an intense inhale. This time she let it all out and the community absorbed it for her, and encouraged her to keep letting it out and it was probably the first sense of relief she’d experienced since the tragedy. This is what will keep her there. These people were healing her and they made her a god for a day. Christian was her only tie to her previous life and the pain that she could never possibly reconcile, so she used the god power they granted her to cut that tie. In the final shot when she sees them thrashing and screaming for the pain of those burning alive, she smiled knowing she’d made the right choice. tonedef131 fucked around with this message at 18:34 on Jul 6, 2019 |
|
#
?
Jul 6, 2019 18:28
|
|
|
Best Birthday Ever!
|
|
#
?
Jul 6, 2019 18:45
|
|
|
christian was a lovely boyfriend but i don't think you're supposed to see it as him deserving it. the ending is supposed to be horrific (the guy screaming even though he gave up his life is the most obvious tell) but aster does the genius thing of framing the horrible ending as triumphant. it's what made hereditary's ending extra awful. where are people getting that the people bringing the sacrifices would be sacrificed themselves? i just took as ingemar personally wanting to sacrifice himself, having nothing to do with his bringing two sacrifices. also if you google "midsommar cast" they have will poulter mistagged. 
|
|
#
?
Jul 6, 2019 18:45
|
|
|
One thing that slightly confuses me is that I am not sure what is different about it being the "90 year" anniversary. It sounds like everything they do they do every year is it just the sacrifice that is every 90 years?
|
|
#
?
Jul 6, 2019 18:47
|
|
|
Yeah the explanation of the rules of where the nine sacrifices come from went by a little too suddenly for me. The only thing that seemed clear is, four from the village (the two elders and the two younger volunteers), four outsiders, and the May Queen's choice. I'm assuming the May Queen's choice could be either an outsider or a villager? Since there were going to have to be two volunteers from the village it doesn't seem to make sense that Pelle bringing five outsiders would make a difference in that fact. The part that I didn't catch was whether bringing the outsiders meant you had to be sacrificed yourself. Obviously not in Pelle's case. Why did he get that award/distinction tho and Ingmar did not?
|
|
#
?
Jul 6, 2019 18:50
|
|
|
Zwabu posted:I'm assuming the May Queen's choice could be either an outsider or a villager? yes. Mel Mudkiper posted:One thing that slightly confuses me is that I am not sure what is different about it being the "90 year" anniversary. It sounds like everything they do they do every year is it just the sacrifice that is every 90 years? yeah that's what i took away.
|
|
#
?
Jul 6, 2019 18:54
|
|
|
Zwabu posted:Why did he get that award/distinction tho and Ingmar did not? I’m starting to think the every 90 years part is just the 9 days of feasting. Obviously they have an attestupa whenever people reach 72. They have breeding ceremonies much more often because there was people of all ages living there. Even the burning sacrifice seems more often if Pelles parents were volunteers for that.
|
|
#
?
Jul 6, 2019 18:58
|
|
|
So if I didn't like Hereditary because the trailer sold me on a spooktastic ghost movie and what I got was a very long and gorgeous dysfunctional family drama with an insane final 20 minutes would I like this? A friend of mine is trying to talk me into going tonight and it looks good. I just don't want it to be a repeat of Hereditary which left me more bored than anything
|
|
#
?
Jul 6, 2019 19:01
|
|
|
Len posted:So if I didn't like Hereditary because the trailer sold me on a spooktastic ghost movie and what I got was a very long and gorgeous dysfunctional family drama with an insane final 20 minutes would I like this? i would say you probably wouldn't. tonedef131 posted:I’m starting to think the every 90 years part is just the 9 days of feasting. Obviously they have an attestupa whenever people reach 72. They have breeding ceremonies much more often because there was people of all ages living there. Even the burning sacrifice seems more often if Pelles parents were volunteers for that. you're right. though i thought christian was going to be forced into the commune because of maja getting attached to him and you'd want more kids and one gently caress probably isn't gonna do the trick to even get the first one.
|
|
#
?
Jul 6, 2019 19:01
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 4, 2024 20:29 |
|
|
Based on the interviews leading up to this movie, where Aster said he was going through a breakup when writing this, I would imagine the director also sees Christian as something of a self-insert character. He represents all of us in the ways we can be casually cruel when we’re in a relationship. He did very bad things but I don’t think it’s out of the question to have sympathy for him.
|
|
#
?
Jul 6, 2019 19:01
|
|
