Long post about Midsommar (!) ahead. I don’t think I’ve posted on Tumblr properly in over a year.
I think one of the things I absolutely adore about Ari Aster’s mind — even with the supposedly few questionable decisions he makes — is that he is unmistakably invested in exploring the dark and upsetting elements of familial and romantic relationships. This isn’t to say other filmmakers before haven’t attempted to play with the same parts but it is to say — without any apology —that Aster is able to breathe fresh and unprecedented life into a genre nearly dead. The thing about horror as a genre is that it is incredibly profitable but extremely risky. For that reason, horror doesn’t really get funding as much as other genres do.
Action movies, on the other hand, get financed for various reasons, including one that still surprises me: because Chinese consumers on the other side of the world often don’t speak English, they’re riveted by western action movies and thrillers simply because the body language — sheer physical movement — captivates them and informs them of the plot as opposed to, say, a drama or subtle horror film that requires more of an understanding of the spoken language the characters deliver.
One of the most interesting things about Aster’s pitching style is that he doesn’t necessarily pitch his films as horror; he pitches them as drama. He said that much during an interview about Hereditary. And when the project of Midsommar came up, Aster was asked by a company to make the film and he was initially reluctant. Horror fans know that cults are convenient and frequent matter to work with. To truly invest in it, Aster asked the company (a Swedish one, if I’m recalling correctly) if he could somehow inject a breakup into the story. He later on told the press that he was going through one at the time of writing the script (which I’ve read four times and still get disturbed by).
I’ve never really felt compelled to talk about a filmmaker (apart from, say, people like Tarkovsky or Parajanov [who also inspired Aster]) because I don’t leave their films feeling stunned or etched. I don’t feel the breath knocked out of me. When Toni Collette’s character is shrieking at her son (who I dressed up as last year for Halloween), there’s a kind of horror about that entire scene in Hereditary that’s not fantastical. It’s so banal and relevant to so many viewers; a parent obliterating their child’s sense of security through sheer verbal assault. I remember watching that film five times and feeling very disturbed and hurt every single time that scene happens. It takes a very observant filmmaker to zero in on the sheer horror of an all-too-common split to bring it out on screen and make people viscerally remember: “I felt this, too.”
Of course, there’s some criticism about Midsommar but I have yet to read a single argument that compels me to think, this is a weak film. That said, Aster does use a few tropes (I can count on one hand) — and who doesn’t — to make his film jarring for a certain kind of viewer. But that’s about it. The rest of the film is a beautiful, terribly bright, awful nightmare that has one hooked. The are not enough solid arguments to break Midsommar’s case, in my opinion. Perhaps one of the most powerful arguments in favor of Aster’s Midsommar is that he uses the antithesis of horror’s most common element — physical darkness and shadows that can be used to obscure and play with the audience’s imagination — and turns it into something horrific. The brighter the film is, the harder it is to hide. The sun is constantly present. There are less than ten scenes where it’s night in Midsommar.
I’m South Asian and someone I know here in Los Angeles asked me how I felt about the South Asian woman in the film. I said I felt fine. I think it’s insulting to a viewer to coddle a certain person in a film about deathly cults. I’m not interested in representation on screen because in the three decades I’ve lived on earth, I have seen negligible material improvement for the minority group being represented (hopefully I will be proven wrong one day). Others had trouble with one of the tertiary characters who had a physical detail about him (I won’t reveal here) that made people justifiably think, “Why even put this here other than use someone’s physical form to freak people out?” And that’s a valid question. But one of the inconvenient truths about horror is that a lot of people, well before fiction even took on film form, are rattled by difference — simply difference — and some filmmakers like to lay that bare on screen. It’s a different and absolutely interesting debate on whether that is a limit of the filmmaker’s imagination or a cynical urge to exploit people’s biases.
I’d love to go on. I might be talking about Midsommar at an upcoming reading here in the city. But for now, I just want to say I’m beyond happy Aster exists and I think he does my favorite genre absolute justice. I’ve been watching horror films since I was seven. I’ve watched and read it so much that I can easily spot horror motifs (which can suck occasionally because I’ll have a pretty good idea of what’s coming) so it’s always a great surprise when a filmmaker steps in the arena and jolts me awake with their vision. Don’t reblog because I’m planning to delete this. Also, it’s great to see some of you still here.
