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by Blender Dumbass

Aka: J.Y. Amihud. A Jewish by blood, multifaceted artist with experience in film-making, visual effects, programming, game development, music and more. A philosopher at heart. An activist for freedom and privacy. Anti-Paternalist. A user of Libre Software. Speaking at least 3 human languages. The writer and director of the 2023 film "Moria's Race" and the lead developer of it's game sequel "Dani's Race".

I was introduced to Ari Aster with Beau is Afraid, which is a very strange kind of comedy-adventure film which uses the cinematic language of horror. Midsommar is kind of similar. On the very basic surface level it could be read as a horror film. It is slashery in nature. It has very gruesome body mutilation scenes. But the film feels less of a horror and more of something like Nicolas Winding Refn's film Only God Forgives. Only this one has Ari Aster written all over it.

Both movies seem to be less interested in the horror aspect and more in the trauma the main character had gone through. Winding Refn does it by making the main character of his film, this dude who will refuse relationships no matter what, yet will pretend to be in one. And it has something to do with his mother. And perhaps Refn argues that the main character has a fetish for his mother. Ah... Yeah... It's Nicolas Winding Refn, what do you want? In Midsommar it is similar though the nature is less explicitly Freudian. It is about the main character dealing with her trauma, which is unrelated to sex, but which manifests itself as this sexual deprivation leading to emotional breakdown. And the strange folk setting with horror elements are there just to accelerate the psychological changes.

Ari Aster is very good at building and maintaining tension. In Beau is Afraid he over-done it, making a movie so paranoia-inducing it is unbearable. Midsommar is not as hard on tension, but is very high up there. It is properly gripping. Ari Aster is not yet flexing here. He is just doing his job very well.

I have a problem with Florence Pugh. Her face reminds me a lot of of one of my little brothers. And that is distracting. The only time it didn't do that was in Dune 2 where she wore a face thingie that made her look different. That said, she is really good. As in, in every movie I've seen her in. And she delivers here too. There is a shot toward the beginning where Aster was ballsy enough to make her go through a range of emotions while talking on a phone. She has perfect timing tears and stuff. Phenomenal performance.

Another performance that I did not except to be that good came from Jack Reynor who you may know as a not ageist guy from Transformers 4. I guess I cannot go a single step today without bouncing into Michael Bay. There was a shot after his character took drugs, where another character clapped his hands in front of him, making his drugs kick in so much harder. I forgot for a moment that I'm watching a movie. I thought I'm looking at somebody really really high.

I'm both afraid and excited for anything Ari Aster does next. So far he didn't produce a single bad movie. ( Though I still didn't watch his first film, and I'm scared to watch it ). If you don't get spooked by corpses and want to see an interesting psychological thriller, watch Midsommar.

Happy Hacking!!!

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