Warning: Spoilers Ahead
Midsommar (2019) is a folk horror film directed by Ari Aster, also known for his popular film, Hereditary (2018). The story follows Dani Ardor and her emotionally distant boyfriend, Christian, who go on a trip to Sweden along with friends. There, they celebrate midsummer traditions at one of Christian’s friend’s ancestral commune. This film has been critically acclaimed this year, doing great at the box office and scoring an 83% on Rotten Tomatoes. It’s safe to say that this film is well-deserving of its hype.
Usage of Pastel and Warm Colors
Leaving the movie theater in utter shock from all I had seen, I came to the realization that Ari Aster and his team managed to make an entire horror film with a pastel color palette. As it neared the end, the colors turned warm, but they remained mostly pastel and featured a lot of white, especially when all the unusual activity was going on. This was very interesting to me because the classic palette for horror films goes from warm tones to dark ones, red and black being the most popular. The darkest palette in the whole film appears at the beginning, and it lasts only a few minutes. Just looking at the theatrical release poster, one would never think it belongs to a horror film.
Foreshadowing
Foreshadowing is a device used in films in which specific events give out important details for later scenes to come. In Midsommar, the foreshadowing is crazy. With the use of art, the filmmakers tell us what will happen in the movie from the beginning. From banners to tapestries, to paintings in the bedroom walls, every event is presented before the real unusual activity unfolds; from the rituals to the love potion in Christian’s drink, to his end inside the dead bear. This device is an interesting choice for the film because, as we see other types of horror films, what most scares us is never really knowing what will happen next. Being kept in the dark powers devices commonly used in horror films like jump scares; you never really see it coming. However, when we see Midsommar and pay attention, the confirmation of all the previous little details still manages to shock us, especially as we connect the dots. We continue to watch on edge, looking forward to seeing if what we have picked up before will happen next.
Type of Horror
After thinking about the type of horror shown in this film, I thought about another classic film: The Shining, directed by Stanley Kubrick. This one is another horror film in which we don’t really encounter the classic jump scares one can expect when watching any other horror film. The plots are not similar at all, but the horror in both films are worked in a way that unsettles you. Midsommar’s imagery, although it got gory, was disturbing on its own.
Midsommar has been hyped all over social media, firstly because people know Ari Aster delivers from having watched his previous film, Hereditary. As more people watched it, the hype grew because yet again, the filming crew managed to bring to the big screen a horror movie unlike any we’ve seen before, with unusual devices and color palettes, a unique plot, and smart camera techniques. For all these reasons, I believe Midsommar deserves all the hype it’s gotten.