Dr_Grip
Made from concentrate
- Joined
- Jul 8, 2008
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- 15,207
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Midsommar.
No matter whether you see it as a meditation about trauma, abusive relationships and how to overcome those or as a more straight "rural cult" horror movie like the original Wicker Man, this is an amazing film.
The story is as straight as it gets: After her sister killed herself and her parents, anxiety-prone traumatised college student Dani joins her illoyal, emotional abusive PhD candidate boyfriend and his stoner buddies on a road trip to Sweden, where one of them wants to research the Midsummer festivities in an exchange student's home town for his PhD thesis. Arriving at the ass-end of nowhere where the sun never sets, the group is welcome by a slightly-too-friendly technology-free paganist community, who also really love psychoactive drugs and hand them some 'shrooms as a welcome present. Starting on the nine-day Midsummer festival that's only being held every 90 years, the group struggles with internal conflicts while slowly realizing they might be a more important part of the festivities than they signed up for...
The set design is really weird, implanting you in a cult setting that is surreal yet believable. Multiple layers of unreliable narration are added (as all protagonists are on mind-altering substances), making you wonder which amount of the events shown really took place and how. Very disturbing things happen (there is some sudden graphic violence and some highly unsettling sex). The film manages to be a traditional horror movie and break most horror movie rules at the same time, fulfilling and defying expectations simultaneously.
With a 147 run time after cuts to ensure a release-friendly rating it's a long movie but it does not feel long. I can't wait for the even longer festival cut coming out on Blu-Ray to add even more weirdness and a deeper dive into the cult's belief system.
No matter whether you see it as a meditation about trauma, abusive relationships and how to overcome those or as a more straight "rural cult" horror movie like the original Wicker Man, this is an amazing film.
The story is as straight as it gets: After her sister killed herself and her parents, anxiety-prone traumatised college student Dani joins her illoyal, emotional abusive PhD candidate boyfriend and his stoner buddies on a road trip to Sweden, where one of them wants to research the Midsummer festivities in an exchange student's home town for his PhD thesis. Arriving at the ass-end of nowhere where the sun never sets, the group is welcome by a slightly-too-friendly technology-free paganist community, who also really love psychoactive drugs and hand them some 'shrooms as a welcome present. Starting on the nine-day Midsummer festival that's only being held every 90 years, the group struggles with internal conflicts while slowly realizing they might be a more important part of the festivities than they signed up for...
The set design is really weird, implanting you in a cult setting that is surreal yet believable. Multiple layers of unreliable narration are added (as all protagonists are on mind-altering substances), making you wonder which amount of the events shown really took place and how. Very disturbing things happen (there is some sudden graphic violence and some highly unsettling sex). The film manages to be a traditional horror movie and break most horror movie rules at the same time, fulfilling and defying expectations simultaneously.
With a 147 run time after cuts to ensure a release-friendly rating it's a long movie but it does not feel long. I can't wait for the even longer festival cut coming out on Blu-Ray to add even more weirdness and a deeper dive into the cult's belief system.
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