Midsommar is a 2019 Swedish American folk horror film written and directed by Ari Aster. It is based on the well-known Midsummer festival celebrated mostly in Sweden in order to mark the arrival of summer, which is believed to be deeply rooted in Viking customs associated with childbirth. Frances Pugh plays rescue Dani Ardor, who learns that her deranged sister has murdered not only herself but also their elderly parents.
In concrete terms, Dani’s ashen face is awash in pain and trauma and thus all she wants is to heal in the arms of her boyfriend, Christian (Jack Reynor). However, the arms are no longer all that welcoming. There is almost a universal agreement amongst them that their romantic relationship is not tenable anymore. For almost a year, he has been attempting to extricate himself from it, but he is unable to do so. Christian ignores their breakup and false hopes, allowing her to accompany him to Sweden for a boys’ trip.
How does Dani make her way to Sweden?
Christian and his friends have organized a trip to Sweden for the coming midsummers with their friend Pelle. Mark and Josh are Christian’s friends who completed their undergraduate studies with him. So when Dani finds out, it’s only natural she is unhappy. So Christian in that case invites her to the trip with hopes that she will be turned down. Dani’s partner is not with her and she feels too fragile to be by herself. And she thinks a change in environment might help her better. So she decides to go with them.
What is the Harga?
Dani and the guys reach Pelle’s birthplace which is a village in Halsingland. The Harga, also known as the Hårga, is a remote village often referred to as a commune, or an isolated, self-sustaining community, where villagers primarily engage in farming, cattle rearing, and handicrafts. It is an insular community.
There is one giant family, a single economic unit, in the Hårga. There are no family units or domestic houses. The community as a whole, will assist in the upbringing of the children. They are able to live without disturbing the balance of the world, technological or otherwise.
What is the Midsommar Festival?
When the tourists reached Pelle’s village, they found the festival ready to begin. Their first views were a most positive impression due to the transparent beauty of the locality and its pristine nature. It’s rather like visiting in the past summer in Sweden with sunshine and no civilization no electricity, television, cellular phones and Internet.
This popular Midsommar festival is a nine day celebration of folk customs, songs and dances, lasting for nine days and repeated once every ninety years. Yes, it has quite a number of ceremonies and a great show of it all but not all of its practices are attractive, let alone legal, as the outsiders soon learn.
What is Attestupa?
On the second day, during Midsummer, Dani and her friends participate in what is called the “Attestupa” ritual during which a Hårga elderly couple are presented with honors that are accompanied by rituals and a feast. And then, they rather commit suicide by hurling themselves down a cliff. Tourists are shocked.
As the matriarch Siv, who has been performing Hårga customs for ages, explains, this is a normal practice. This couple had come to the end of the life cycle of the Hårga. And this was something they performed voluntarily. As for Siv, she states that she would gladly adjust when her hour comes. To the Hårga, life is a loom life is not lived but recycled. And instead of aging and dying with all the excruciating pain and the embarrassment of weakness and dependency, they just give up life. Death is inevitable. And when one tries to resist it, one’s mind becomes sullied.
What happens to Mark and Josh in the end?
Teenagers in America can be real pain sometimes. Will Poulter’s Mark is hardly any different below par. Coming to Sweden for a vacation, he cannot easy understand Hårga’s traditions and significance of them doing what they do, and probably even cares less. To Mark, it hardly matters.
In one scene, Mark is seen polluting the remnants of a great and dead tree and is thus unaware that it may be a sacred tree for the ancestors. He screams in pain and is beaten up. In no time after, Mark is approached by a beautiful Hårga girl and disappears from sight altogether.
One night, the research fellow, Josh (William Jackson Harper), breaks into the holy structure and begins to snap photos of the codes with his mobile phone, cognizant of the prohibition. Paragon029 kills him in cold blood, looking like a man who has the head of Mark that was torn off his body.
Why is the Maypole Dance so important?
It is all the girls of the village who get to conclude the Midsommar festivities with a dance around the Maypole. Dani is asked to join the fight. But before the dance begins, an old woman called Irma says, “In the past, the Black One took the youth of Harg and danced them long, perhaps even to bone. Today, they will dance to please us until they go down. Finally, the last girl who still hasn’t danced will be given this crowning ceremony and will be called the May Queen.”
This ritual is motivated by the ‘Dancing Plague’, a remarkable occurrence in the Medieval Europe when for no apparent reason most people would start dancing themselves into a frenzy for several days, sometimes to death. The reason still remains a mystery. Wow such a colorful rich history. Now let’s fast forward as the ritualized dance begins. Surrounded by girls echoing and twirling in succession, Dani alone is left, claiming the title. She is then christened the May Queen, much to her surprise.
What is the deal between Christian and Maja’s relationship?
The Hargas are described as a tight-knit clan, where ‘mating customs’ breed in with the inhabitants, and overseen by the elders. Engaging in incest is frowned upon. And missionaries are ‘invited’ to promote a diverse genetic structure. Maja (Isabelle Grill), a Hårga’s young woman, is infatuated with Christian. So, she places a love rune under his bed at night and makes him drink love potion (a very vile thing to do, too) to induce love for her.
And all this is done under the graceful permission of Hårga elders. Christians is then given a sacrament, a drug which is bound to make him feel lighter. He’s taken away in the same manner as a sacrificial bull, O father, to a holy cottage of mass structure, where he is ‘forced to have sex’ with Maja in front of the older naked women, ‘elders’ and the act devoid of orgasm has become copulation. Christian is not a man but a mere beast. And when he has did his job, he is no longer needed.
What is the tale revolving around Rubin?
The Hargsa Holy Book called the ‘Rubi Radr’ is not an ‘ in a state of publication’ book and always has scopes. The version existing today is said to be composed by Rubin, who also is the Oracle. The Oracle, Rubin (Levente Puczkó-Smith) is one extremely physically deformed and mentally ill baby boy.
The Little boy has the ability to be free from what is “normally” believed. This is the very reason why he can be a source. He sketches and the brothers decipher. In fact, Rubin, like all Oracles in Hårga before him, is a product of Said inbreeding.
And what do the Hårga want to achieve?
The Hårga is not an oversexed, rabid, satanic cult. However, it has some rather disgusting rituals that would be frowned upon today. Hårga has an Old Norse Religious belief system. There scriptures and writing system of the ‘Elder Futhark’, the oldest of the Runic alphabets, traces back to Old Norse heritage.
And like their Viking ancestors, the Hårga believe that for Nature to stay bountiful, they need to give back to nature. So, human sacrifice is an important part of their practice. The one that makes possible for them to practice human sacrifices is important in making them an inspired community. And the key to their survival and way of life is isolation and secrecy. Anyone who steps into the village does not return back.
The youth of the village take a ‘journey’ to the world beyond, as a part of education and even invite people from outside to help spread the Hårga culture. The peak of Midsommar reaches its most chilling point, which is the ritualistic killing of nine individuals. Four volunteers from the community and five volunteers who came from outside the community. Respectively, even their deaths are symbolic in their allegory and their connection to nature’s features.
Simon is experiencing the ancient Norse tradition of the ‘Blood eagle’, where the lung conveyances are exposed, alongside the neck opening; this is meant to represent its wings. A sacrifice that is considered one of the most gruesome ways to die, depicts the ‘air element’ in terms of symbolism.
He is later on found with only his legs out with his lower half horizontally positioned onto the ground like a stem of a plant.
He gets completely skinned and stritreched, as it is witnessed through the eyes of Hårga youths during the ‘Skin the fool’ game.
The fifth sacrifice is done by the May Queen who was supposed to choose him and she ended up selecting Christian, as he was out of commission. Enclosed within the hollowed out body of a bear, the immobilized Christian is put in a sacrificial hut with others and is burnt alive after being placed in a dissevered bear’s body.
Why do you think Dani ends up killing Christian?
Dani is feeling more grief and anger due to the fact that Christian appears indifferent towards her. This is very different from Pelle who is kind and even thoughtful enough to buy her a birthday present, something that Christian has forgotten about.
However, Pelle falls in love with Dani, telling her he understands her pain, as he too was small when he lost his parents (most probably they were ‘sacrifices’). But, the society sheltered him they gave him the attention of a loving family and he never felt lonely.
Dani comes to the realization that the Hårga consider her as part of their family when she is made to wear the crown of the May Queen. The love and respect she receives from the whole community stands out while Christian, who is always wishing he never met her, is not even looking at her. He does not even look in her direction after she wins the Maypole Dance.
Dani’s last straw is seeing Christian partake in the mating ritual. He doesn’t care less about the infidelity taking place, but the Hårga women seem to sympathize with Dani and weep along her, which allows her to share her grief with them. So, in the end, when the preference is given to her, she accepts the Hårga people and sends Christian to be burned. In any case, even if Dani had spared him, it is highly unlikely that Hårga would have allowed him to escape alive anyway.
It is worth mentioning that the very last victim of the pagans Christians Hughes was sacrificed as well, this time by being set on fire, this practice was quite popular among the Christians in the Middle Ages.
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