“Midsommar”: one of the most shocking horror films of the decade

Horror cinema is a genre as popular as it is dozenado. It keeps releasing films, franchises, sequels and remakes, and repeats formulas and styles. But every few titles appear that make a difference. A film that complies with terror, violence and blood, but at the same time offers an original and surprising story. A film like Midsommar.

The young protagonists of the story are Dani (Florence Pugh) and Christian (Jack Reynor). They are going through a severe crisis in their partner that endangers their relationship. Dani carries on her shoulders a brutal trauma resulting from the death of her family. Christian's friends believe that the relationship is no longer fixed and they let them know. But Christian decides to invite Dani to a trip that was going to be just to share with his group of friends. It's the way to give the couple one last chance. Not too happy, Dani's friends accept.

Everyone travels to a retreat on an idyllic Swedish island where the relatives of one of them live. It will be the holidays where things regain their order. Viewers recognize the perfect starting point for a horror film. Ari Aster's film doesn't disappoint.

The trip is on the date of a summer festival held every 90 years in a remote village. Although it is a holiday, young people, all of them students, have an anthropological interest in the strange customs of the place. Christian and Josh see in the archaic custom a perfect theme for the thesis they are preparing. This side of researchers will be what opens the door for the most interesting notes in history.

Experimenting with drugs, the group of young people is even more vulnerable to the environment; the cultural relativism they hold overrides the alarms that begin to sound increasingly louder. One of the big questions that people who watch horror movies usually ask themselves is why the protagonists don't run away when something isn't right. Here the answer arises perfectly, in addition to providing a sharp interpretation of human behavior. Dani has no anthropological interest but is so hurt by her family tragedy that she is fragile in the face of the forces that manifest before her eyes.

In Midsommar there is also a great political reading of the present and a subtle and sharp sense of humor to ironize the civilized world, increasingly surrendered to violent and irrational groups.

The director handles dramatic growth very well and manages to terrify gradually and in broad daylight. Daytime horror is a variable of the genre that requires a lot of pulse and enormous security when it comes to narrating. Everyone is afraid of the dark, but during the day you have to build something much more sophisticated. Aster's previous film, The Devil's Legacy (Hereditary, 2018), had already placed him as one of the great contemporary filmmakers, something that is confirmed here.

And we shouldn't take credit either from the protagonist, Pugh, whose career has been so meteoric that it seems to be decades old. Her first major role was in Lady Macbeth (2016) but was followed by several popular films, reaching a particularly important 2019 with Fighting With My Family (Fighting With My Family), Midsommar and Little Women (Little Women), three roles so different that many viewers may not have noticed that she was the same actress. In 2021 he was already working on Black Widow, a Marvel blockbuster. But of all his roles it is possible that Dani's is the most intense and difficult of his career.

The version that arrives on Netflix and that was released in cinema has a duration of 147 minutes. There is another montage, made by the director, of 171 minutes. There are several differences between the two films, but the most significant thing is that the longer version has scenes that are quite difficult to tolerate because of their violence and blood.

Aster has been criticized for an excess of aestheticism, not only violence, but in any case they are flaws linked to his style. A horror film that scares, has style and a great protagonist is not that easy to achieve.

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