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March 28, 2024, 10:24:58 AM

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Midsommar

Started by St_Eddie, March 06, 2019, 03:54:42 PM

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St_Eddie

From the Hereditary thread, comes this trailer for the new film from writer-director, Ari Aster...

Quote from: chveik on March 06, 2019, 02:31:31 PM
dunno if this deserves a new thread:

trailer for his next film:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I0UWIya-O0s

looks promising

I didn't care for Hereditary much myself but none the less, it was an interesting film and the trailer for this looks promising.  I dig the cinematography; it has a very dreamlike quality to it and somewhat reminds me of Ben Wheatley's High-Rise (of course, the cinematography in Hereditary was outstanding too, which makes sense given that the cinematographer for Hereditary also worked on Midsommar).  I'm also picking up on a strong The Wicker Man vibe from it, which is never a bad thing (unless it's the remake that's being referred to, of course).

Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth


Glebe


VelourSpirit

I really like the white bars framing the trailer
I need to get round to watching Hereditary, it's on Prime now

Pseudopath

Quote from: TwinPeaks on March 06, 2019, 08:04:00 PM
I really like the white bars framing the trailer

Someone in the comments (who purports to have worked in the editing team) reckons the white bars are also in the theatrical release, but I'd probably take that with a pinch of salt. It looks bad enough with YouTube's Dark Theme enabled, so it must look fucking awful in a darkened cinema. Perhaps they're planning to install floodlights in every auditorium?

Wet Blanket

Hereditary had some pretty flashy visual touches, I can definitely see Ari Aster being the type of director to add white bars to his film as a flourish, although why I don't know.

I didn't think Hereditary was all that but I liked it enough to be interested in seeing this.

VelourSpirit

I think it makes it unsettlingly ethereal. Beautiful looking film, all oppressive whites and golds. I didn't think they'd do it in the cinema though, that's interesting. Makes me think, should every film be watched in a darkened room? This might be better in the Fortress of Solitude

St_Eddie

Quote from: TwinPeaks on March 07, 2019, 03:49:33 PM
Makes me think, should every film be watched in a darkened room?

No.  Most films are best viewed in the living room during a Summer afternoon, curtains open, with the sun glaring upon the TV screen and kids noisily kicking a football around outside.  Fact.

MiddleRabbit

Do you think he might have seen 'The Wicker Man'?

St_Eddie

Quote from: MiddleRabbit on March 09, 2019, 12:41:22 PM
Do you think he might have seen 'The Wicker Man'?

Any resemblance to The Wicker Man is purely coincidental.  At least that's what the blurb at the end of the credits is likely to say.

Puce Moment

This came out in some cinemas yesterday - anyone catch it?

From what I can see, it appears to have polarised audiences in a similar way to his first effort. Nice ideas, badly executed - laughable moments that are probably not meant to be funny.

I think I will give this a go today but I know it will annoy the fuck out of me.

Sebastian Cobb

Screening from tomorrow here, might give it a go.

Puce Moment

I'm pretty surprised at the muted response to this coming out given that he was the darling of last year. Maybe the subject matter is too obscure.

St_Eddie

Quote from: Puce Moment on July 04, 2019, 03:16:46 PM
I'm pretty surprised at the muted response to this coming out given that he was the darling of last year. Maybe the subject matter is too obscure.

He also sounds like he might be a bit of a one trick pony; guy who has exactly one idea within him, blows his load in terms of presenting that single idea within his debut feature and then proceeds to just keep on making the same film over and over again but with ever diminishing returns (see also; Neill Blomkamp).

Sebastian Cobb

Also going to watch that In Fabric tonight, which has been described ads 'Susperia meets are you being served?' seeing as it's relevant. Might make a thread if I decide it's not wank.

BritishHobo

I went to a screening last night, and loved it. I could see how it might be unfavourably said to be very similar to Hereditary - on a fundamental level, it feels like it leaves you in pretty much the same place as Hereditary did - but I found it to be more than distinct enough. Sort of a look at similar themes but from a different direction. Likewise, while it covers the Wicker Man territory that a fair few films have done recently, it does feel like it has something different to say with it. It's also really really fucking funny. Nobody else seemed to be amused, but I was laughing near-constantly. Will Poulter makes for a good comic relief dickhead without it being lain on too thick. I think the writing behind the relationships of the main group were really well done. The very early conversations about the main relationship (along with Aster nailing the depiction of grief again), and all of the awkward friend group/girlfriend balancing, especially the drug-taking, felt so painfully authentic. That's one thing I did miss in the second half of the film.

phantom_power

Quote from: MiddleRabbit on March 09, 2019, 12:41:22 PM
Do you think he might have seen 'The Wicker Man'?

I think any film set amongst a remote cult will be compared to TWM

Puce Moment

Quote from: Sebastian Cobb on July 04, 2019, 04:20:50 PMAlso going to watch that In Fabric tonight, which has been described ads 'Susperia meets are you being served?' seeing as it's relevant. Might make a thread if I decide it's not wank.

https://www.cookdandbombd.co.uk/forums/index.php/topic,73408.0.html


mjwilson

Preferred this to Hereditary (partly because I don't like the way Hereditary chooses to go in the second half).

Puce Moment

Quote from: Sebastian Cobb on July 04, 2019, 07:04:58 PMDidn't read, don't want to spoil it. Worth a punt though yeah?

Absolutely - it has also received mixed reviews but I loved it. Not straight away, but it has grown on me tremendously.

garbed_attic

I left it feeling utterly bemused - kind of fascinating that a film with so many horrific moments never/rarely feels horrifying in a horror movie sense. I appreciated that it was critical of the way that Sweden (and other Scandinavian countries) are often regarded (esp by progressives) as beatific, which neglects the racism which undergirds much of that image.

Wet Blanket

I liked it much better than Hereditary too. That film seemed to be throwing loads of ideas into the mix, not all of which worked, and descended into a bit of a mess, whereas this seemed to apply the more outre elements more judiciously, even if it did meander a bit  (it's at least half an hour too long I reckon).

I did enjoy how very tongue in cheek it all seemed. Makes me interested to revisit Hereditary, which struck me as much too self serious at the time but might have been more deliberately absurd than I gave it credit for.

Ari Aster certainly has an inventive mind for gross and unsettling imagery. The woke cunt within me isn't entirely comfortable with his use of deformity for a bit of uncanny frisson, mind. Also he seems to think naked people are inherently scary.

Still I think Midsommar deserves a solid four Wicker Mans out of five

BritishHobo

Glad I'm not alone, I did find the use of the deformed child stuck out as quite lazy and tasteless. Maybe there's some clever deeper point I missed, but to me it did just come off as bunging the shots in to go 'look how creepy this place is!!!!!'

I'd argue the deformed person wasn't used lazily. There's the obvious surface metaphor of this pristine, beautiful community having someone who isn't so surface level beautiful placed at the heart of the community, he's a metaphor for the ugliness at the heart of the community. Which would be quite lazy if he was also used for the scare moments, but he isn't, he's never presented as a scare figure and I don't think the shots of him are any more pointed or ominous than any other and he's a very minor figure. But we're given a community who base their spiritual practises on the paintings of someone who was born with severe birth defects because he's the deliberate product of incest. He's showing the viewer exactly how twisted their religion is. If he'd been a Leatherface figure then I'd agree that it's tasteless, but as it was I think he was used as a product of this fucked up community. After he dies they'll just replace him through more inbreeding. Also when we're told he's a product of deliberate inbreeding it comes right after we're told that the community brings in outsiders because they respect the incest taboo, so it's an early example of the community lying to the group. So I think he was definitely serving a purpose in the film.

Twit 2

Hereditary had its moments but was all over the shop and the second half just deteriorated into shite.

This looks a lot better, he's more than earned a second go from me due to some great individual moments in Hereditary and his clear technical skill.

Puce Moment

#26
Saw this yesterday in an almost completely empty Vue. Although it was very warm and sunny outside. I really did not like Hereditary at all, although I did respect how much Aster commits to the supernatural weirdness in the final 15mins. I really did like the audience-annoying exposition at the end, but found the rest of it pretty plops. So, I went into this feeling VERY pessimistic, and assumed it would be a mix of the worst parts of Hereditary, the most obvious aspects of The Wicker Man mixed with that shitty Ti West film The Sacrament. It's not, thankfully.

SPOILERS AHOY!

The film is officially released so can't be arsed with spoiler issues.

Overall I liked it a great deal. The time and attention given to the design of the film was great, in particular the drawings in the bunk house were wonderful. I also really loved the way that they were not presented as lovely, lovely people who then expose themselves in the final act. From the get-go they are druggie weirdos who have suicide ceremonies. I thought it was clever to include the British couple as the LITERAL voice of reason ("this is fucked up, we are leaving right now"). It needed that, as the anthropological tolerance angle did not quite account for how calm they seemed to be after seeing that ritual.

Even though it is radically different to Hereditary it shares quite a number of similarities in terms of story structure and tone. In particular, the final few minutes felt quite similar. I will say that for me it had very little in the way of tension or fear, but instead I was kind of watching it like A Field in England, in as much as I was simply enjoying the world that had been created by the film which is very immersive.

Stray observations:

- Did the Swedish guy always plan to bring Dani over to the festival to become the May Queen? I couldn't work out if the whole thing was a bluff, similar to who the chosen one is in Hereditary. I always assumed the cult wanted Dani, and probably killed her family to lead her to need a new family. The guy notes that it is her that he is really excited to bring over. However, by the end of the film I thought the whole thing was really, quite simply, organised to bring Poundland Chris Pratt over there to shag one of the girls to avoid inbreeding.

- Poulter hardly features in this film at all. I find that odd and I strongly suspect he was edited out of a lot of the scenes because his character's wise-cracking just became a little too Jar-Jar Binks. I can see how his brand of humour could destabilise the tone of the film - even some of his funnier lines are buried in the sound mix. Towards the end of the film I also noticed that the girl who flirted with him and led him away had fresh cuts on her face. Was that supposed to be a subtle allusion, or has a scene been cut? ALSO, the moment where he asks Christian to look at his thesis, but is clearly going to bollock him for inviting Mourning Meg to Sweden. Surely that was cut?

- The two funniest moments (for me) are during the sex scene. First the singing, then the bum pushing.

- Not keen on some of Aster's signature moves - in particular the occasional, unflinching focus on extreme gore seems quite boring and childish. However, I actually rather like the inclusion of naked older people. I don't know why - it's not scary. Just surreal because we are exposed to that so seldomly in cinema (or anywhere).

- The music is fantastic and adds a huge amount to the feel and tone of the film. Haxan Cloak once again excelling.

- The special effects used when Dani becomes the May Queen and is sitting at the head of the table are trippy as fuck.

- The way the cult mimic people is a really clever and original little detail that gives the sex scene, the Dani freak-out scene and the final sacrifice scene a really wild feel of pure fucked-up strangeness.

- A lot of people are going to dislike this film, particularly coming off the hype of Hereditary. It's not tense and scary enough for the Insidious crowd; it's too weird and freaky for mainstream film people (in particular those who hated the ending of Hereditary); it's perhaps too mainstream/plot-based for people looking for a freaky, drug soaked cult film; and I would say that some people will hate the last few seconds (I loved it).

mjwilson

I have read that there is a whole bunch of stuff cut from the script, some people are speculating we might get an extended cut on Blu Ray.

garbed_attic

Quote from: Puce Moment on July 06, 2019, 04:04:19 PM
I also really loved the way that they were not presented as lovely, lovely people who then expose themselves in the final act. From the get-go they are druggie weirdos who have suicide ceremonies.

For what it's worth, I was sympathetically inclined towards them until the incest revelation - I thought the 'care homes probably seem horrible to them' was an absolutely fair point. With the drugs, it was only when it became apparent that they were spiking people that it bothered me at all!

amputeeporn

No one thinks this is weirdly anti-european then?

Not a film that's quite afraid of travel and pits 'foreigners' as cultish murderers? One that's fairly conservative in its presentation of other cultures?

I mean, we're supposed to be afraid of what here, Sweden?

I won't suggest how problematic this film's pessimism would be when set in, say, Africa, but my gf is Swedish and I must admit it queers it a bit for me...