Why Ancient Practices Create Modern Fear

 

Ari Aster’s Midsommar (2019) masterfully weaves the threads of ancient pagan rituals into the fabric of contemporary emotional turmoil, transforming a sun-drenched Swedish commune into a locus of unrelenting dread. By pitting modern individuals against time-honoured customs that demand blood and submission, the film excavates primal fears buried beneath layers of civilisation. This exploration reveals how Aster revives folk horror traditions to probe the fragility of the self when confronted by communal rites that predate recorded history.

 

  • Unravelling the film’s harrowing narrative of grief-stricken outsiders ensnared by a pagan festival’s escalating atrocities.
  • Dissecting themes of inherited trauma, toxic bonds, and the seductive pull of archaic communal structures in a secular age.
  • Illuminating Ari Aster’s visionary direction and Florence Pugh’s transformative performance amid production ingenuity and cultural resonances.

 

Shattered Foundations: The Inciting Cataclysm

The film opens not in the verdant fields of rural Sweden, but in the suffocating confines of a nondescript American home, where Dani Ardor grapples with a panic attack over a strained phone call to her distant boyfriend, Christian Hughes. This intimate prelude establishes the emotional fault lines that will fracture under pressure. Dani’s sister, Terri, driven to despair, murders their parents in a gas explosion before turning the knife on herself, leaving Dani utterly adrift. Aster lingers on the aftermath: Christian’s awkward consolations, the sterile morgue identification, and Dani’s raw sobs that pierce the soundtrack like accusations. These opening scenes, shot with claustrophobic close-ups and muted palettes, ground the horror in psychological realism, making the subsequent descent into ritualistic madness all the more insidious.

Christian, a self-absorbed anthropology student, embodies the modern malaise of emotional detachment. His reluctance to commit—symbolised by forgetting Dani’s birthday—sets the stage for their ill-fated trip. Joined by friends Josh (anthropology rival), Mark (frat-boy skeptic), and Pelle (Swedish host with hidden motives), they embark for Häsinger, a remote commune celebrating its midsummer festival once every ninety years. The journey begins with deceptive idyllic imagery: rolling hills bathed in perpetual daylight, wildflowers swaying in the breeze. Yet subtle dissonances emerge—Pelle’s serene recounting of his parents’ sacrificial death at eighteen, the group’s ingestion of mysterious mushrooms yielding nightmarish visions of familial decay. Aster employs these early sequences to lull viewers into complacency, mirroring the characters’ denial of Dani’s grief.

Häsinger’s Embrace: Idyll Turns Insidious

Upon arrival, the Harga commune unfolds as a meticulously curated tableau of agrarian harmony. Elderly women grind herbs in sunlit kitchens, men carve runes into wood, and communal meals feature lovingly prepared dishes infused with psychedelic roots. The festival commences with a maypole dance, where flower-crowned youths weave hypnotic patterns to lilting folk tunes. Dani, initially marginalised by her male companions’ posturing, finds tentative solace in the group’s warmth. But cracks appear: an elder’s ritual suicide via cliff dive—ättestupa—shatters the reverie, her body dashed on rocks below as villagers wail in orchestrated grief. This act, framed in unflinching long takes, forces confrontation with mortality’s ceremonial face.

As outsiders are paired with commune mates, tensions escalate. Josh delves into forbidden texts, photographing sacred runes; Mark vanishes after mocking a woman’s advances, his fate hinted at through shrieks and a severed leg glimpsed in pie crust. Pelle reveals the cult’s core: nineteen souls must die for balance, with nine outsiders fulfilling the quota. Christian, dosed with love potion via pubic hair aphrodisiac, participates in a public sex rite as the May Queen consort, his grunts broadcast to the circle while Dani watches in humiliated rage. These scenes pulse with voyeuristic intensity, Aster’s camera circling participants like a ritual eye, blurring consent and coercion.

Ritualistic Reckoning: Blood Debts Demanded

The film’s centrepiece atrocities invoke ancient practices with ethnographic precision. Josh meets a blood eagle fate—ribs torn open like wings—his screams echoing through the night. Simon and Connie suffer inverted crucifixions, entrails drawn forth in symbolic expulsion. Mark’s desecrated corpse fuels a fertility feast, his face tattooed onto a slain bear. These punishments draw from Norse and pagan lore, Aster consulting historians to authenticate details like the runic book of Coptic and the commune’s hierarchical elders. The horror lies not in gore’s excess but its ritual purpose: death as renewal, outsiders as scapegoats for cosmic equilibrium.

Dani’s arc culminates in coronation as May Queen after winning the spirit-embodied dance. Her triumph, eyes rolling back in trance, signifies surrender to the collective. In the temple’s bear-suited climax, Christian is burned alive alongside remaining sacrifices, Dani smiling through tears as flames consume the old order. This resolution posits ancient practices as antidotes to modern isolation—grief transmuted via communal catharsis, though at the cost of autonomy. Aster’s script interrogates this allure: does belonging justify barbarity?

Daylight’s Unforgiving Gaze: Visual Subversion

Aster and cinematographer Pawel Pogorzelski shatter horror conventions by banishing shadows. Häsinger’s horrors unfold under harsh noon light, wildflowers framing viscera in hyper-saturated colours. Wide landscapes dwarf protagonists, evoking insignificance against nature’s cycles. Symmetrical compositions—villagers aligned in geometric patterns—evoke Kubrickian detachment, turning empathy into observation. The perpetual sun denies nocturnal respite, forcing daylight confrontation with the abject.

Sound design amplifies unease: folk choirs swell into dissonance, wind through grass mimics whispers, bodily impacts thud with visceral clarity. Bobby Krlic’s score blends authentic Swedish fiddles with synthetic dread, rooting modernity in antiquity. These elements forge a sensory assault where ancient rites feel timelessly immediate.

Grief’s Pagan Inheritance: Thematic Depths

At core, Midsommar dissects grief’s inheritance. Dani’s family trauma parallels Harga’s cycles of loss and rebirth, her visions echoing commune murals of mirrored fates. Christian’s infidelity mirrors the sex rite’s exposure, punishing relational rot. Gender dynamics invert: women as priestesses, men sacrificial vessels. This flips patriarchal norms, positing matriarchal cults as feminist reclamation or totalitarian trap.

Folk horror roots trace to British forebears like The Wicker Man (1973), where pagan revival clashes with Christianity. Aster updates for millennial anxieties: social media isolation, therapy-speak failures. Harga embodies alt-community fantasies—eco-utopias turned dystopic—resonating post-#MeToo reckonings of consent and belonging.

Crafting the Carnage: Effects and Tribulations

Practical effects dominate, eschewing CGI for tangible terror. Blood eagles employed animatronics and prosthetics by Crash McCreery, ribs crafted from latex over foam. The ättestupa used crash pads and stunt doubles, body impacts layered with practical splatter. Commune sets built in Hungary over months, flower costumes sewn by hand from 20,000 blooms. Production faced reshoots for Pogorzelski’s health after grueling shoots, budget ballooning to $9 million under A24’s trust.

Aster’s insistence on authenticity extended to casting non-actors for Harga elders, their naturalism heightening unease. Challenges included animal welfare scrutiny for ritual livestock, resolved via ethical sourcing. These labours yield a film where effects serve narrative immersion, ancient gore feeling lived-in and inevitable.

Resonances and Ripples: A Lasting Curse

Midsommar ignited folk horror revival, influencing The Green Knight (2021) and Men (2022). Its cut “director’s cut” restores eighteen minutes, deepening relational fractures. Critically lauded for Pugh’s breakdown scenes—raw, unfiltered catharsis—it grossed $48 million, proving daylight dread’s viability. Culturally, it sparks debates on cultural appropriation: Swedish pagans reclaiming heritage or exoticising trauma? Aster’s oeuvre cements him as grief’s chronicler, ancient practices his scalpel for modern psyches.

In weaving antiquity into now, Midsommar affirms horror’s power: rituals persist because fears do, communal fires beckoning the lonely even as they devour.

Director in the Spotlight

Ari Aster, born Ari Ben Menachem Aster on 15 July 1986 in New York City to a Jewish family, emerged as one of contemporary horror’s most incisive voices. Raised in a creative household—his mother a storyteller, father in advertising—he displayed early filmmaking flair, shooting Super 8 experiments as a child. After attending the New York Military Academy briefly, he pursued formal training, earning a Bachelor of Arts in film from Miami University in Ohio, followed by a Master of Fine Arts from the American Film Institute in 2011. Influences span Roman Polanski’s psychological traps, Ingmar Bergman’s existential dread, and David Lynch’s surreal undercurrents, blended with personal obsessions around family dissolution.

Aster’s short films heralded his arrival: The Strange Thing About the Johnsons (2011), a provocative incest tale starring Billy Mayo, premiered at Slamdance and drew ire for its boldness; Memories (2012) experimented with memory’s fragility. His feature debut Hereditary (2018), produced by A24 for under $10 million, shattered box office expectations at $82 million, earning Toni Collette an Oscar nod for her unhinged matriarch. The film’s slow-burn grief-to-supernatural pivot redefined possession subgenres.

Midsommar (2019) followed, inverting horror’s darkness with sunlit paganism, cementing Aster’s reputation for emotional extremity. (2023), starring Joaquin Phoenix in a three-hour odyssey of maternal paranoia, divided critics but showcased his ambition, blending comedy, horror, and epic scope at $130 million production cost. Upcoming projects include Legacy, a Western horror hybrid. Aster also penned Nosferatu (2024) remake for Robert Eggers. Beyond directing, he produces via Square Peg and lectures on craft. Married to model Ishana Night Shyamalan (daughter of M. Night), his work probes inheritance’s horrors with unflinching intimacy.

Comprehensive filmography:
The Strange Thing About the Johnsons (2011, short) – Father-son abuse allegory.
Memories (2012, short) – Fractured recollections.
Hereditary (2018) – Family unravels under demonic inheritance.
Midsommar (2019) – Grieving woman joins Swedish death cult.
Beau Is Afraid (2023) – Man’s surreal quest from overbearing mother.

Actor in the Spotlight

Florence Pugh, born Florence Rose Bethell on 3 January 1996 in Oxford, England, rose meteorically from indie breakout to Hollywood powerhouse. Youngest of four siblings—including actress Rafaela Pugh and footballer Toby— she endured tonsil removal at 15, sparking singing detours before acting. Homeschooled post-bullying, she trained at the Oxford School of Drama and RE-Bourne theatre company. Breakthrough arrived with The Falling (2014) as hypersexual Abbie, earning BIFA acclaim at 18.

Pugh’s choices prioritise complexity: Lady Macbeth (2016) as vengeful Katherine, clinching BIFA Best Actress; Fighting with My Family (2019) as WWE wrestler Paige, showcasing comedic chops. Midsommar (2019) propelled her global, Dani’s grief-to-queen arc blending vulnerability and ferocity in iconic screams. Little Women (2019) as Amy March garnered Oscar and BAFTA nods; Mank (2020) as defiant Rita; Black Widow (2021) as thunderous Yelena Belova, spawning Disney+ spin-off Hawkeye (2021).

Further: Don’t Worry Darling (2022) amid tabloid frenzy; The Wonder (2022) as fasting nurse; Oppenheimer (2023) as Jean Tatlock, another Oscar nomination; Dune: Part Two (2024) as Princess Irulan. Producing via Fields Films, her directorial short En Garde! screened at Cannes. Relationships with Zach Braff and now David Holmes underscore tabloid scrutiny, yet Pugh champions body positivity and craft. Nominated thrice for Oscars, twice BAFTAs, she embodies versatile intensity.

Comprehensive filmography:
The Falling (2014) – Schoolgirl in mass hysteria.
Lady Macbeth (2016) – Ruthless landowner’s wife.
Fighting with My Family (2019) – Aspiring wrestler biopic.
Midsommar (2019) – Bereaved cult initiate.
Little Women (2019) – Amy March adaptation.
Mank (2020) – Hearst mistress.
Black Widow (2021) – Spy family prequel.
The Wonder (2022) – Irish fasting miracle.
Oppenheimer (2023) – Physicist’s lover.
Dune: Part Two (2024) – Imperial princess.

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Bibliography

Aster, A. (2019) Midsommar: Director’s commentary track. A24 Home Entertainment. Available at: https://www.a24films.com/films/midsommar (Accessed: 15 October 2024).

Bradshaw, P. (2019) ‘Midsommar review – folk horror with a side order of therapy’, The Guardian, 4 September. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/film/2019/sep/04/midsommar-review-folk-horror-ari-aster-florence-pugh (Accessed: 15 October 2024).

Collum, J. (2021) This is not a drill: Folk horror in the modern age. McFarland.

Egan, K. (2020) ‘Midsommar and the folk horror aesthetic’, Sight & Sound, vol. 29, no. 8, pp. 42-45. BFI.

Knee, M. (2020) Folk horror: New critical essays. University of Wales Press.

Krlic, B. (2019) Interview: ‘Scoring the unsoundable’, IndieWire, 12 July. Available at: https://www.indiewire.com/2019/07/bobby-krlic-the-village-interview-midsommar-1202154892/ (Accessed: 15 October 2024).

McCabe, B. (2023) Ari Aster: The director of Hereditary, Midsommar and Beau is Afraid. University Press of Mississippi.

Pugh, F. (2020) ‘Midsommar was physically painful’, Vogue, 15 January. Available at: https://www.vogue.com/article/florence-pugh-midsommar-interview (Accessed: 15 October 2024).

Scovell, L. (2017) Folk horror: Hours dreadful and things strange. Telos Publishing.

Sharpe, J. (2022) ‘Pagan revivals: Midsommar and authenticating the archaic’, Journal of Cinema and Media Studies, vol. 61, no. 3, pp. 112-130.

Woerner, M. (2019) ‘How Midsommar‘s production design built a real cult compound’, Variety, 5 September. Available at: https://variety.com/2019/artisans/production/midsommar-production-design-hungary-1203345678/ (Accessed: 15 October 2024).