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Honestly and non-ironically my favorite part of this movie by far is how bad or secretly good the extra direction was. Virtually every scene had like half a dozen people in the background and none of them ever seemed to know what to be doing on camera. So almost every scene has people in the far distance either repeating an action, pausing for a second and then doing the exact same action again or else holding a prop which they are sort of vaguely investigating or obviously miming use of. Like there is so many scenes where you can see someone in the background just hugging over and over and over or like lifting up a wooden frame, rotating it 90 degrees then putting it back down repeatedly. In literally any other movie this would just seem like they did a bad job, but something about it in this movie felt inspired. Like it felt perfect for a movie about a cult. Like no one 100% knew what they were doing but they were all doing it with perfect conviction. Like most cult movies have everyone super choreographed and all the cult members have a psychic connection to know and perform everything just right, this felt like a lot of people fumbling through something they recognized as really important. This movie had a bunch of scenes where way in the distance you could see a guy wearing like, a weird hat or something then people milling around them sort of appearing to be doing some nonspecific thing and that feels exactly how a real cult like this would go. Everyone knows they are doing something very very important but no one being perfectly keyed in on how it goes.
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Jul 4, 2019 01:23
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Thom and the Heads posted:uh i think that's the point. i think the extras in this movie are very deliberately supposed to be behaving strangely and almost robotic Having all the extras be super confused and unsettled seems very intentional, it seems less clear if he hand directed them how to act confused or if they really were thrown on camera with little direction to organically make everyone act strange and like they only partially know what they are doing.
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Jul 4, 2019 04:09
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Captain Magic posted:
I think the prophet is important because with stuff like the old people suicide the cult seems to have a point, it's shocking and gruesome but they make a reasonable and plausible case that is just their culture. Learning their holy scripture is just a madman's literal scribbling is where you kinda see everything going off the rails. like we as an audience watching a horror movie don't REALLY need to wonder if it's going to be an evil cult or not. but the scripture thing is where it shifts from culturally different and upsetting cult to literally no one behind the curtain might do anything cult.
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Jul 4, 2019 13:40
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Yeah, this movie isn't any sort of ultra woke feminist masterpiece or anything but I feel like reading reviews a bunch of the ones that didn't like it are written by guys that are more like christian than they'd admit and to some degree people's enjoyment of the movie is gonna fall on a line divided by if you relate more to the woman being guilted into taking mushrooms or the guy guilting her and acting like she's being difficult for not.
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Jul 4, 2019 16:06
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this is the painting over dani's bed at the start of the movie:
Owlofcreamcheese fucked around with this message at 17:04 on Jul 4, 2019 |
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Jul 4, 2019 17:02
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They have photos of may queens from every single year and all the past may queens are the people helping her get dressed and stuff so may queen is just a regular old function they do every year. They have a midsommar celebration every single year and I think eating a gross fish and blessing the earth is probably as far as it goes most years. I think 90 years is some sort of confluence on their weird astronomical calendar and the reason every single ritual they seem to do was all happening at once on the same day was it being a big year. Like maybe the sex ritual normally happens every 30 years and the burning house thing happens every 45 years or whatever and this year was the lucky year it all lined up . Like it seemed way more like 90 years was special that everything was happening at once, not special that it's traditions that had never happened before in anyone's lifetimes.
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Jul 4, 2019 17:32
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flashy_mcflash posted:
It’s a horror movie set at night but in daylight
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Jul 5, 2019 12:37
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Mr Ice Cream Glove posted:What do you all think about the theory absolutely not. Unlike pretty much any other movie about a cult this one seems to have no indication that the cult is actually supernatural or that the cult is any sort of massive network of masterminds. I think the cult is very happy they got the right number of people but there is no indication they did anything more to do that than send some 18-36 year olds to go ask people politely to come. I don't think they had any sort of shadow plans or anything past that. If the day was getting too close they'd probably just tell the exchange students to ask more people more nicely.
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Jul 5, 2019 13:50
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Mr Ice Cream Glove posted:Yup, definitely agree. I guess people wanted it to also go the Hereditary route of things occuring due to a plan. The cult in general didn't seem like it had any real reach or malice. They have their rituals and I am sure they really want them to go off right but I didn't ever get any indication that if everything had gone wrong they'd do much more than go "aw, nuts" mark it as unfavorable and try again next time. Like almost everything went so well for them, but there was never an indication they had any far reaching or supernatural power to make that happen, they just kinda had things go their way mundanely. Like with the fish, they asked her to, told her she had to, then sorta manhandled her to do it, but that was it, she spit it out and they moved on, their tradition says that is bad luck for the year or whatever and they tried their best to get it to work, but with limits. If they couldn't get enough people or the right people it feels way more like they'd have asked their exchange students to try harder, then to lie more, but if no one came it seems like they'd use a goat or something and accept their ancestors and the stars were displeased with them and maybe do some atonement or something and promise to do it better next time.
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Jul 5, 2019 15:37
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Henchman of Santa posted:That scene doesn't only set up the grief, it's the entire setup to how terrible Dani and Christian's relationship is! I am going to say again that I really do think a lot of people viewed christian as a second protagonist and had any actual meaning or themes to this movie kinda go over their head. Like not claiming anyone that disliked this movie for any reason is a sexist or whatever, but there is a clear feeling I have heard a lot of conversations about this movie from people that viewed christian as fundamentally sympathetic and brush dani off as being "kinda bitchy" in a horror movie character way. Like in this movie mark is acting like a typical horror movie idiot but I get a feeling that some people watched this movie like everyone in it was that and viewed dani and christian's behavior as basically random and stupid and didn't see them as having any sort of progression or theme or reason to why they did things. Like you would cut that stuff setting up their relationship because that wasn't a big part of the movie in their version of the movie through the lens they viewed it in. like I have seen suggestion from people that the whole depth of why she picked him at the end over a stranger is that he had cheated on her and that's it. no big arc spanning the whole movie and her whole character, no running themes of belonging vs alienation, just "she saw him cheating and she got revenge" and in that movie of course you'd cut all the useless scenes with emotional stuff
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Jul 5, 2019 17:06
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Erethizon_dorsatum posted:Can anyone clear up how Christian was emotionally abusive? My take was more that he was dumb and selfish, but I may have missed something. Nearly every action he took in the entire movie was him manipulating people. He wasn't particularly mean about it most of the time but that is absolutely abuse. Our culture likes to normalize that sort of thing for men in movies, but his whole interaction with pretty much anyone the entire film was various versions of him telling people one thing disingenuously to try to get another result. From fake inviting her, to pressuring her to take mushrooms by telling her not to, to making her apologize he forgot her birthday, it wasn't just him being some big galoot dummy, it was his method of dealing with people to get what he wanted. He didn't care one bit about dani, but he knew how to get her to give him whatever he needed no matter how trivial while giving her the least he physically possibly could (while making sure she felt like she was the villain or it).
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Jul 5, 2019 21:48
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RichterIX posted:Yeah, he is constantly gaslighting Dani into doing what he wants her to do by pretending to be the victim every time they have a confrontation. The fight about the trip especially, where his position is basically "I told you about it why are you attacking me" the first scene with the mushrooms is the most succinct version. She legitimately does not want to take mushrooms right then, he immediately launches into saying she doesn't have to in a way that very clearly is him telling her she has to or he'll be offended, then she does, he immediately loses interest and lets her wander off alone and afraid then when she wakes up he berates her for taking them. Nearly every interaction he has with anyone the whole movie is greater or lesser versions of that pattern.
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Jul 6, 2019 00:55
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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.
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Jul 6, 2019 05:17
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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.
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Jul 6, 2019 13:07
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a new study bible! posted:What happened to all the other outsiders that were shown in the first commune scene? Not outsiders, just not dressed up yet. They aren't a full time primitivist cult, even during the holy days they were watching austin powers and stuff. A majority of them probably wear regular clothing day to day when it's not the holidays.
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Jul 7, 2019 16:38
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Magic Hate Ball posted:I read his attitude as assuming that they would be doing it in a way that was more like paying homage to the original tradition He asks “an actual one” and gets the response “pretty darn actual”. I think it’s just not the sort of thing you can prepare for.
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Jul 8, 2019 18:02
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Magic Hate Ball posted:Shari Lewis. And bram
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Jul 9, 2019 01:42
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Blast Fantasto posted:The movie definitely sought out to make you feel like something inevitable was going to happen, then having that thing happen. This is reinforced by the mural in the intro basically showing the full plot of the movie. The movie had definite intentional themes about the inevitability of death. Like one of the most memorable scenes being about the idea of death of old age and that part presenting it like a legitimate question on if their way was better or worse than our way. Compared to most of the movie where it was just "yeah, this stuff is bad".
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Jul 9, 2019 03:40
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Blast Fantasto posted:‘neat, this is a good omen’ The fish really is the clear example of how they treat tradition. They asked her to eat it, then told her too, then physically tried to make her. But like there is no scene of her tied to a chair with them forcing fish into her mouth. They will put their thumb on the scale to make things happen, but to a point and they really do let fate decide.
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Jul 10, 2019 00:18
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veni veni veni posted:One thing I wonder about is that, if I'm not mistaken this ritual has not been performed for 90 years. So none of the cultists have ever done anything like this. Presumably they see people jump to their deaths every year (semi voluntarily) , but kidnapping outsiders and even using their own members for brutal human sacrifice is new territory. But everyone seems totally fine with it, giddy even. like it's just another yearly festival. You'd think once poo poo got real and people were being skinned and burned alive it might trigger some pretty big issues amongst the group once they witnessed how hosed up what they were doing was. I think the festival in general happens more frequently but it landing on the true equinox this year made it the biggest one in a century. Like how in our calendar equinoxes drift around the calendar on a 400 year cycle and easter, which was at one point a celebration of the vernal equinox shifts around between like 30 dates on a big complicated pattern of like 150 years (and never will actually fall on the equinox). Like leap years and the indivisible length of solar years or lunar months makes astronomical holidays drift around. Just assume whatever calendar they use rarely has their midsommar fall exactly on the equinox. The same way this is the formula to find the date of easter and assuming you knew the true date of jesus's crucifixion and rebirth (and that it was one of the possible dates) that easter would only be hitting that every hundred and something years and if people knew that they might want to extra celebrate the years it was march 23rd or whatever: 
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Jul 10, 2019 02:11
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Bloodcider posted:Dani is suffering a conga line of trauma but is also incredibly overbearing. Like she's literally not that. That is like, what christian would say.
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Jul 10, 2019 22:34
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The step up in internet tough from telling everyone you aren't scared of horror movies is telling everyone about how you like to go to horror movies and laugh loudly at the horror elements to make sure everyone can know you are the toughest and least effected guy.
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Jul 13, 2019 15:00
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Yew bark is asprin. It's a pain killer, but like, it's asprin not morphine
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Jul 20, 2019 04:29
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veni veni veni posted:Are you sure you weren't reading the Hereditary derail? We have had a couple people in this thread read literal meaning into her being able to understand swedish around the maypole and someone doing some sort of sci-fi style hive mind thing to explain why they cry together.
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Jul 29, 2019 16:55
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Donovan Trip posted:Alex Garland isn't interested in doing the Annihilation sequel which makes me That seems extremely good. I read the books before the movie and I liked them fine but they are really just roadside picnic and not much else. The movie figured out a really powerful set of imagery and themes to lay over the first book and made something really special. But you aren't going to squeeze another movie out of that mold. The plots of the second and third books just aren't about what the first book was made to be about in the movie. Nothing would follow in any way I care about. Like I wanted to read about the director of the program in the books because that fit with what the book was doing, it was very process oriented and cared a lot about the overall mystery of the world and the organization of the study, I absolutely have zero interest of any kind of annihilation 2: now it's about the director of the project. Nothing about that sounds even remotely good.
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Jul 29, 2019 21:59
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Crimpolioni posted:Am I wrong in saying the discussion about Christian cheating or not seems like a very american one? I mean, he was clearly unambiguously raped in any standard if you took this movie to trial court. But in horror movie logic and language a guy starting the movie wishing he was sleeping with other girl ending the movie sleeping with other girls, but in a dark cult ceremony is supposed to form a story arc and not be two unrelated events. He got exactly what he wanted, but dark and twisted. Since he's in a narrative fictional story. If this was just an arbitrary set of real events then it's unconnected and he was just regular raped since the cult wouldn't know he had wanted to go to sweden and sleep with other women.
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Aug 4, 2019 16:37
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