Post by Zeb31 on Oct 18, 2019 3:43:51 GMT
It's a devilishly slick and entertaining slice of nothing, which I ultimately liked way more than that might make it might sound.
This is Aster reaching hard into the same bag of building blocks he made Hereditary out of: grief! family trauma! cults! bodily mutilation! immolation! naked old people showing up out of nowhere for, idk, scare factor!. With both films I think he proves himself to be a very strong director who can deliver what's on the page with significant panache and confidence, but also a screenwriter who sets up more interesting ideas than he has the discipline and sense to really follow through on.
Both scripts are set up as character studies centered on the horrendous ugliness of loss and grief, and both are derailed by halfway swerves that introduce parallel narrative elements that take away from that central focus instead of adding to it. Hereditary was a deeply confounding experience for me, one that I struggled to make sense of the more I thought about it; it opened as a deeply affecting exploration of the devastating legacy of mental illness, with a first act that stood out as some of the most genuinely disturbing horror of the past few years; then about halfway through it turned out that what all of that was really building towards was a diet version of Rosemary's Baby, with Aster not only abandoning his most interesting plot threads but actively contradicting himself and negating most of the lore that he'd alluded to and built up. Which isn't to say that it isn't a good film; it is, I liked it a lot. It just fused two different projects into one without really making the most out of either.
Now with Midsommar he basically does the same: this begins at the same starting point and hits the same initial plot beats as Hereditary (Aster's gladly providing the fuel for accusations that he's a one-trick pony here), and then introduces a separate story line that does nothing to complement the foundation that he laid. With his previous effort, the separate storyline was Ye Good Old-Fashioned Satanic Cult Hail Paiman Your First Born Male Shall Be the Vessel for the Antichrist Amen; this time it's shitty relationships, the cowardly complacency of self-serving men, and a healthy portion of gaslighting on the side. Midsommar opens with half an hour of Dani going through grueling trauma and mental distress, and then at some point around the hour mark it becomes Aster's own self-flagellation party to process his own guilt for (judging by the interviews he's given) presumably cheating on some perfectly nice girl who didn't deserve it.
The ordeals that Annie was put through in the first half of Hereditary mattered only tangentially by the time we got to the ending; Aster was no longer interested in exploring the fascinatingly fucked-up family trauma and genetic inheritance that made the opening stretches so gripping, because a separate set of forces had come into play at that point. Likewise, at the end of Midsommar, Dani's grief and loss matters only tangentially, because the film has become about something else entirely. Her grief is not sufficiently explored; she's absent for large stretches of the film; and while the ending is undoubtedly a cathartic release, Dani's internal journey from point A to point B isn't covered much at all. So once again the film's flaw is the same: Aster doesn't really have much of substance to say because he can't pick one of these two lanes to commit to and stand by. Might as well take these screenplays and stuff them into a disemboweled bear carcass.
With all of that in mind, I'll refer back to what I said at the beginning: Aster's scripts are thematically confused, but there's merit in the execution. What Midsommar lacks in substance it makes up for in style; it's not particularly nutritious, but it's a damn good snack. It's a hypnotic watch, one whose 145 minutes fly by, mostly thanks to Pugh greatly elevating her bare-bones role and the impeccable visual and sound design (THE COLORS!). It doesn't quite reach the same heights as Hereditary, but it also doesn't falter as much, because the more it progresses the more Aster gives in to the humorous absurdity of his premise, thus making things increasingly amusing as they go along. It's a surprisingly funny film, from the
So yeah. The humor, performances and techs keep things engaging even if it leaves no real mark and has nothing of consequence to say.
@ariaster for your third film, get yourself a co-writer and try writing something that doesn't involve weird cults and family members getting offed in the first 40 minutes. I know you can do it.
This is Aster reaching hard into the same bag of building blocks he made Hereditary out of: grief! family trauma! cults! bodily mutilation! immolation! naked old people showing up out of nowhere for, idk, scare factor!. With both films I think he proves himself to be a very strong director who can deliver what's on the page with significant panache and confidence, but also a screenwriter who sets up more interesting ideas than he has the discipline and sense to really follow through on.
Both scripts are set up as character studies centered on the horrendous ugliness of loss and grief, and both are derailed by halfway swerves that introduce parallel narrative elements that take away from that central focus instead of adding to it. Hereditary was a deeply confounding experience for me, one that I struggled to make sense of the more I thought about it; it opened as a deeply affecting exploration of the devastating legacy of mental illness, with a first act that stood out as some of the most genuinely disturbing horror of the past few years; then about halfway through it turned out that what all of that was really building towards was a diet version of Rosemary's Baby, with Aster not only abandoning his most interesting plot threads but actively contradicting himself and negating most of the lore that he'd alluded to and built up. Which isn't to say that it isn't a good film; it is, I liked it a lot. It just fused two different projects into one without really making the most out of either.
Now with Midsommar he basically does the same: this begins at the same starting point and hits the same initial plot beats as Hereditary (Aster's gladly providing the fuel for accusations that he's a one-trick pony here), and then introduces a separate story line that does nothing to complement the foundation that he laid. With his previous effort, the separate storyline was Ye Good Old-Fashioned Satanic Cult Hail Paiman Your First Born Male Shall Be the Vessel for the Antichrist Amen; this time it's shitty relationships, the cowardly complacency of self-serving men, and a healthy portion of gaslighting on the side. Midsommar opens with half an hour of Dani going through grueling trauma and mental distress, and then at some point around the hour mark it becomes Aster's own self-flagellation party to process his own guilt for (judging by the interviews he's given) presumably cheating on some perfectly nice girl who didn't deserve it.
The ordeals that Annie was put through in the first half of Hereditary mattered only tangentially by the time we got to the ending; Aster was no longer interested in exploring the fascinatingly fucked-up family trauma and genetic inheritance that made the opening stretches so gripping, because a separate set of forces had come into play at that point. Likewise, at the end of Midsommar, Dani's grief and loss matters only tangentially, because the film has become about something else entirely. Her grief is not sufficiently explored; she's absent for large stretches of the film; and while the ending is undoubtedly a cathartic release, Dani's internal journey from point A to point B isn't covered much at all. So once again the film's flaw is the same: Aster doesn't really have much of substance to say because he can't pick one of these two lanes to commit to and stand by. Might as well take these screenplays and stuff them into a disemboweled bear carcass.
With all of that in mind, I'll refer back to what I said at the beginning: Aster's scripts are thematically confused, but there's merit in the execution. What Midsommar lacks in substance it makes up for in style; it's not particularly nutritious, but it's a damn good snack. It's a hypnotic watch, one whose 145 minutes fly by, mostly thanks to Pugh greatly elevating her bare-bones role and the impeccable visual and sound design (THE COLORS!). It doesn't quite reach the same heights as Hereditary, but it also doesn't falter as much, because the more it progresses the more Aster gives in to the humorous absurdity of his premise, thus making things increasingly amusing as they go along. It's a surprisingly funny film, from the
botched sacrifice of the elders
(was I supposed to have laughed at that? Because I certainly did) to the extended bit with Christian impregnating Maja and Dani finding out,
namely that minute or so with rhythmic moaning alternating with rhythmic crying/screaming in the two shacks. If Aster's not gonna give us a satisfying character study, at least I'm glad he gave us that.So yeah. The humor, performances and techs keep things engaging even if it leaves no real mark and has nothing of consequence to say.
@ariaster for your third film, get yourself a co-writer and try writing something that doesn't involve weird cults and family members getting offed in the first 40 minutes. I know you can do it.