Midsommar

I watched this at home on BluRay from my public library, not my wife's type of movie.

This was made by the same writer/director that brought us "Hereditary" a year earlier, I like this one much more. It is confusing much of the time but when it is all over you realize it is a fable of sorts for the lead character, Dani, to come to some resolution from the loss of her family and coming to terms with her dud of a boyfriend.

Look up the entire lyrics of 'Hotel California' by The Eagles, with this movie in mind you can find many parallels.

I already was a Florence Pugh fan from her roles in Lady MacBeth (2016) and Fighting With My Family (2019). Here she is Dani who tragically loses her sister and parents, in grief accompanies her boyfriend and three other guys to Sweden in late June to witness, and ultimately participate in, a ritualistic Pagan festival. But it also goes deeper, to the core of the group's beliefs. By the end Dani achieves resolution, the other four are not so fortunate.

This is a really strange movie once they get to Sweden, there is very explicit and gory violence, there is a big non-erotic sex scene with a number of nude characters. Everything is designed to shock the senses of the viewer. I would not like to see movies like this on a regular basis but as a one-off experience I found it a totally worthwhile 2 1/2 hours.

Since I'm swedish I found this really funny and absurd, the wierd traditions were obviously inspired from The Wickerman more than the actual swedish tradition, Midsommar. I'm also really glad I watched it in my home and not at the cinema with other people, because there were scenes I laughed at and I didn't want to laugh at scenes with others, becuase it wasn't really funny. I coudn't help laughing, but at the same time feel really uncomfortable. I enjoyed this movie a lot, every scene made me intrigued and dumbfounded. Sry about the spelling and what not, first rating an all.

Be first thing I wanted to do after leaving the cinema, was to discover what the swedish thought of this film, in general they saw it with humour, and an open mind, as I expected.

It's pretty much split right down the middle, first half, dare I say it, normality, drama, with a heavy focus on grief, and the harsh way it can affect someone, particularly if there's trauma involved. The second half is very trippy, and we delve into the world of pagan ritual and bizarre rights, which makes The Whicker Man look like a tea party.

The main leads, Florence Pugh and Jack Reynor, were terrific. Pugh had impressed previously in The Little Drummer Girl, it was obvious she was destined for big things, she played Dani with a real sense of torment, very impressive. The cast had a realism, it was refreshing not to watch a cast that look set for a Dior catwalk.

It won't be for everyone, and I must point out that some scenes are painfully long, needlessly. Some amazing special effects.

Violence and nudity, but neither are gratuitous or simply for shock. A few laughs, several times the cinema erupted in laughter.

Very good. 8/10

I'm not sure how but the movie had me on edge the entire time. You have to enjoy cinematography to really enjoy this. I left the movie like I just came down from a high. The whole thing felt like a bad trip afterwards, I was pleased and not at the same time but I think that's how we're meant to feel. It's a good change from super hero movies and terribly made horror movies.

The movie starts out promising and with the interesting backdrop of a Swedish pagan cults. However, it succeeds only in shocking with horrifying imagery of bursting heads/faces and other violence that serves only to hide the fact that this movie is bad at everything else. The character development is extremely bad. We are supposed to care about the main character so the writers came up with a shocking and sad beginning. But we still dont develop much sympathy because the main character (yes I already forgot the name) acts unreasonably and there are no real moments where we get close to her. The plot is extremely foreseeable. Without wanting to spoil much, all characters from the group going to Sweden have happen exactly what you'd expect to happen to them. There is no finesse in story-telling at all and instead cheap attempts at foreshadowing end up as just another horror-movie cliche. The camera work is OK but often too bright and sometimes turns for no reason. It is an attempt of foreshadowing or setting the atmosphere but it is lost on me.

All in all, this movie might be for you if you like to be shocked by violence in a novel setting. Don't watch this with kids or anyone remotely sensitive to violence. Also don't watch it if you care for character development, plot-depth or have good taste in movies, generally.