"Let the festivities begin."
Several friends travel to Sweden to study as anthropologists a summer festival that is held every ninety years in the remote hometown of one of them. What begins as a dream vacation in a place where the sun never sets, gradually turns into a dark nightmare as the mysterious inhabitants invite them to participate in their disturbing festive activities.
Florence Pugh
Dani
Jack Reynor
Christian
William Jackson Harper
Josh
Will Poulter
Mark
Vilhelm Blomgren
Pelle
Isabelle Grill
Maja
Gunnel Fred
Siv
Ellora Torchia
Connie
Archie Madekwe
Simon
Several friends travel to Sweden to study as anthropologists a summer festival that is held every ninety years in the remote hometown of one of them. What begins as a dream vacation in a place where the sun never sets, gradually turns into a dark nightmare as the mysterious inhabitants invite them to participate in their disturbing festive activities.
Hey, honey - let's take a trip to a surreal drug-fuelled Swedish festival with cruel pagan tendencies? Yes, I know - it all sounds too bonkers; and yes, for the main, it is. I think you have to be in the zone if you are going to get anything from this otherwise it could fairly be described as nonsense. There are shades of "The Wicker Man" here, but this is nowhere near as well written or as scary. Florence Pugh and Jack Reynor try their best but this just doesn't really work. On the plus side - it is beautifully shot - the purity of the light is amazing.
This place raises more red flags than Summerisle, an overlong film and the characters are as thick as pigsh*t. I was so hoping the finale would deliver the goods but it ended up as a less memorable 'The Wicker Man'. But, but, but I do admire it.
Of course creators of this movie are big fans of the wicker man movie(excellent 60's movie). Very slow action. Didn't got bored ,but in the end not fully satisficed.
**Not what it appears to be... I really did not-see this coming...** This is one of those horror movies that is actually really deep and symbolical and works on multiple levels and has multiple stories hidden within the surface narrative and in this case it's actually 3 stories that are told at the same time, though only the surface narrative is picked up consciously, the other 2 are picked up subconsciously and that's what makes it disturbing. Be sure to watch the extended cut, because only there does it really become apparent what the other 2 stories are about. So, here go the spoilers, cause now I am gonna say what I believe those 3 themes are. Obviously on the surface it's a horror movie, but beneath that it's a drama about relationships and about breaking up - some people pick up on that first hidden theme/narrative and so they find it boring because they expected a horror movie, but what they get is an emotional drama. But no one has consciously picked up on the 3rd narrative - or at least I have never seen anyone mention it - even though it's very obvious when you watch the extended cut. The third genre of movies is that it's a movie about the 3rd Reich and related National Socialist propaganda, ideology and atrocities committed and that's the aspect everyone only picks up subconsciously and that makes everyone feel uncomfortable watching this movie, but without really knowing why. Which also explains some of the criticism, such as Swedes and Pagans complaining that their culture and ideology isn't portrayed accurately. Of course it isn't, because that's not the culture or ideology it's trying to portray! So the 4th and ultimate genre is that it's really a biting political satire that uses all the other genres as cover. It's like the travel movies that the Soviet Union published that make the Soviet Union look like some kind of socialist Disneyland. And as long as you were a tourist who was willing to only go to the places he was told to go and to just gloss over all the labor camps and atrocities, it kinda was! And so what those movies were for socialism, this movie is for National Socialism - a sorta satirical video travel guide into a promised National Socialist fantasy land and Utopian paradise that never existed and that only a complete psychopath could ever try to propagate as something desirable.
**It starts with good premises, but is lost due to a miserable script and a direction that needs direction.** Ari Aster is not a director that I consider good. This is his second feature film, and he didn't show great talent for directing here. However, worse than his direction is his absolute lack of writing skills: the script he wrote here is mediocre, to be nice, and completely kills the film. What I liked most about this film was the extraordinary cinematography, full of color and light and joy that makes us feel the warmth and natural vibrancy of the beginning of Summer. By largely setting his film in a rural ambience, Aster was almost able to demonize urban life, portraying urban environments as gloomy, dark, sinister and depressing. In fact, he even creates a link between the main character's agony and the depressive environments of urban life: there is not a sole positive or warm image before the characters set foot on the fields of Sweden... or rather Hungary, the country where most of the filming took place, perhaps taking advantage of the tax benefits that were given to foreign film productions there. The sets and costumes could not be more appealing, especially to audiences who are already interested in Nordic traditions, witchcraft, Wicca or new age paganism: we have runes, we have hippie-style flowers in their hair, we have people in white and barefoot dancing around poles, we have fertile and sexually desirable youngsters, we have the recreational and ritualistic consumption of drugs and hallucinogens, we have happy people living in a community, with no private property and in polyamory... it seems like a John Lennon dream. This is beautiful, attractive and seductive in the same way that it is unbelievable and contradicts the basic human instincts: the appetite for violence and the desire to have things. Unfortunately, and largely due to a poorly written script, the film is no more than that. The director/screenwriter was unable to give the film a conclusion or create a credible threat. Clearly inspired by another film (“The Wicker Man”), it lacks a good ending, there are too many stupid scenes (for example, when one of the characters cries heartlessly and is surrounded by a choir that almost turns it into a song) and there are too many loose ends in this story, which becomes more and more idiotic. To make everything more ignoble, there is a subliminal anti-Christian message that becomes clear when we see that the most vilified character is named Christian... The actors are not to blame for the misery that this film was. Florence Pugh is the actress who stands out the most and does the most interesting work, but Vilhelm Blomgren also offers us a well-done performance. Will Poulter, one of the actors I know best here, seems underutilized, with a character that only appears occasionally and is irrelevant to the plot. William Harper also does what he can, but he doesn't have the space or material to show what he's worth. In the European cast, Isabelle Grill and Gunnel Fred are the actresses who deserve the most attention: each of them, in their own way, tried to be mysterious and unsettling, and they achieved this in the way they had imagined.
69/100 A group of friends go to a secluded village in Sweden to experience the Midsommer festival. Little did they know... Chopping out about 45 mins of film may have given it some much needed energy. Despite the long-winded nature of belaboring a few points beyond their need, this was an immersive and mesmerizing clash of cultures and how it affects the newcomers who're completely out of their depth. This is not a horror film, per se, but there's no denying the ever present insidious tension and anxiety in an apparent Utopian paradise. Gorgeous photography. -- DrNostromo.com
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