Midsommar

Ari Aster's second feature, Midsommar, transplants the horror genre from shadowy basements to the perpetual daylight of a Swedish summer. The film follows Dani, a young American woman played by Florence Pugh, who joins her boyfriend Christian and his anthropology classmates on a trip to a remote commune called the Harga. There, they witness a midsummer festival that occurs only once every ninety years. What begins as a picturesque field study soon reveals itself to be something far more sinister.

Released in July 2019 by A24, the film was shot on a $9 million budget and grossed over $48 million worldwide. Aster, who also wrote the screenplay, drew on his own experiences with grief and toxic relationships to craft a story that uses folk horror as a vehicle for psychological exploration. The score, composed by Bobby Krlic (The Haxan Cloak), blends folk instruments with electronic drones to create an unsettling atmosphere. Cinematographer Pawel Pogorzelski, a frequent Aster collaborator, shot the film in Hungary, using natural light to emphasize the unnerving brightness of the setting. [edit]

Dani Ardor is a graduate student in psychology living in the United States. Her sister, who has bipolar disorder, kills their parents and herself in a murder-suicide, leaving Dani alone with her grief. Her boyfriend Christian, an anthropology student, has been considering ending their four-year relationship, but he stays with Dani out of obligation. Christian's friends Josh and Mark are also anthropology students, and they are planning a trip to Sweden with their friend Pelle, who comes from a remote commune called the Harga. Pelle has invited them to attend the Harga's midsummer festival, a rare event that takes place only once every ninety years.

Dani decides to join the group, hoping the trip will provide a distraction from her trauma. They arrive at the Harga village, a lush, isolated community bathed in the midnight sun. The villagers welcome them warmly and invite them to participate in the festival's rituals. The first major ritual involves an elderly couple who, upon reaching the age of 72, voluntarily leap from a cliff to their deaths. When one of them survives the fall, a villager kills him with a mallet. The group is disturbed, but Pelle explains that the Harga see death as a natural part of life. The festival continues with communal dancing, flower ceremonies, and the consumption of hallucinogenic mushrooms.

Dani experiences a terrifying vision of her dead family during a mushroom trip, but she also begins to feel a strange sense of belonging among the Harga women, who share her grief openly. Christian grows increasingly distant, and his friends become suspicious of the Harga's intentions. Josh sneaks into a sacred building to photograph forbidden texts and is killed by a Harga elder. Mark is also killed after urinating on an ancestral tree. The remaining outsiders, including a British couple named Simon and Connie, meet similar fates. Dani, unaware of these deaths, is crowned May Queen after winning a dancing competition. The Harga elders tell her that as May Queen, she must choose a sacrifice to ensure the community's prosperity for the next ninety years.[edit]