On another note Christian's actor pushed for himself to be nude when he left the shed. He said in many horror films women get their final scare or are killed while nude or otherwise not covered and he thought it was only fair that the same thing be done to him
That's very sweet and knowledgeable of him to do that. I only wish more people saw that scene and what further happened to his character for the seriousness that it was.
So the guy is just a jerk in the movie 😭 aww that was a great thought and addition he brought to the film! It definitely made me feel like he was truly vulnerable, the way we see women in these films
Even more horrifying is when they're putting Christian in the bear, you see them measuring his legs. When they show the bear again you see that they are going to have to cut his legs off to fit in the bear. So that means he is already in agony before they even set him ablaze. And he's too drugged to even scream. I mean, damn.
About white supremacist imagery: it's not just dog whistles or "bad vibes", there's literally a road banner they drive by that reads "Stop the mass immigration to Hälsingland, vote for a free North this autumn". The mental gymnastics people go through to try and portray the cult as this new family and support system that Dani always needed is truly disturbing.
When I saw the nazi book I thought there was gonna be a plotline that the Harga were founded by Nazi mystics (since the Nazis were a bunch of fucking nerds and weirdos on top of genocidal fascists)
I honestly don’t see the white supremacy stuff..... Sweden has always had blonde haired and blue eyed people. Long before hitler.... it has to do with the Nordic dna and stuff that they have. Also Sweden was very much impacted during ww2 and so obviously those aftershocks would still be felt in modern times. They were occupied at one point I’m pretty sure. On that point however I find it more interesting that hitler was a leftist and more people share in his political views than they care to admit. I’m waiting to see someone do the math, and I’m sure they have somewhere, on the correlation between these groups of people. The people I personally know who thought this was a good ending for Dani and would want to be with the cult share almost all of hitlers political beliefs outside of the evolutionary science. Some actually do though.... the scary thing is they have no idea until I bring their attention to it ,and they only slightly freak out before saying I’m lying to them about the guy. That’s scary. They don’t even know but they vote and influence others around them. I’ve heard so many say “the means justify the ends”...... regardless of how many people died in this movie
Midsommar is one of those films where the audience response is almost as much a part of the message as the actual film itself. That so many people are charmed by the cult despite the horrific acts of violence they commit exemplifies how white supremacist groups are able to recruit intelligent, seemingly good people.
And the crazy thing is, I can see Ari Aster being frustrated yet finding it predictable that most people missed that message in his film. He was practically beating the audience over the head with it. I only saw bits of the film and I noticed that before the video essays came out so how on earth are so many blind to its obviousness?!
Still don't get the white supremacy connections. Of course there are no black people in the rural countryside Swedish cult. It's a rural countryside Swedish cult. They probably haven't even seen black people before. Race is hardly brought up from what I've seen. I mean, they gave the white man here a worse death than the colored people. I think the message is more 'cult' focused and other cult like organizations. Which white supremacy organizations do fall under, but there are also like, dozens of other comparable organizations like black supremacy groups that'd fit too. I just don't get how it specifically is about white supremacy.
@@arieson7715 they didn't say that the people in the movie were white supremacists or the person who made the movie made it to symbolize white supremacy . they said that film reminded them of how white supremacy works and recruits people. And don't call people of colour , "colored people"
@@arieson7715 did you miss the part where she mentioned the book in the directors cut or are you actively choosing to be dense. that was a decision made by the director so how can you deny that it doesn’t apply?
Facts! One of my favorite parts of this movie is that the audience is represented by Dani. Both walk into the story of midsommar knowing the evil that cults can commit and knowing they’re brutal and manipulative, having been raised in a modern society. Yet both exit the story believing that it has a happy ending. The fact that this film showed the power of manipulation via cult mentality by successfully manipulating not only Dani but the REAL WORLD AUDIENCE. I’ll never stop raving.
@@turnleft967 The amount of people I saw saying it has a "happy" ending was concerning to me. Like, please, do not go walking into any organization that says we want to be a family, while have exactly 3 blinks per minute.
@@turnleft967 I can't handle horror very well so I don't plan on seeing this movie, but watching reviews on the film are so interesting. Just like you said, the audience is being indoctrinated, we are getting brainwashed with Dani, we smile and thinks it's a happy ending because that what the cult told us to do! I saw a review that pointed out a possible reason why people are happy after watching this film is the spike of dopamine you get at the end from all the small answers that show up. "What's the bear for? Oh, that's what the bear's for. What happened to the black guy? Oh that's what happened to him. What do they do with the yellow house? Oh that's what they do with the yellow house." After the hours of watching this being tense and paranoid, just that little bit of release is enough rush to convince us we're "happy" even though you're nowhere near.
@@mellymel8876 I had that happy ending thought until a good night's sleep. Then I realized the trauma of it all. I think it just exposes the minds of others. A weak minded person would be quick to be manipulated by the movie into desiring Dani's ending but a stronger minded secure person would see very quickly all of the horror and terror here.
I wasn't scared by this movie, but now I understand why someone would be scared. I just feel like watching a cult documentary or looking at the reality in the world right now is a better way to convey that concept. The movie itself failed at connecting with me personally, so I disliked both Hereditary and Midsommar. I thought the director did a bad job at developing everything. Hereditary is just a rehashed version of Rosemary's Baby which was done better, and Midsommar took a concept that's used a lot and somehow was turned pretentious and dull. That's just my opinion though.
One of the most disturbing things about this movie to me is when, at the end, the local sacrifices were given a drug that was supposed to have resulted in the lack of any pain, and the participants believed it!! The shock in their eyes when they could feel themselves burning was so saddening but unsurprising to me, that they had such faith in people who were willing to kill them. The realization that they’d been lied to their whole lives was far too late, and they were so surprised. Also, I never picked up on the concept that Pelle’s parents died in a fire… does that mean they lied about the ritual happening every 90 years??? Idk, very interesting movie😬😶
Oh wow! Your so right! Maybe they aren’t lying about the fire but Pele could be older than he seems! Kennie did say from 18-36 they travel so he could be much older.
That part was really interesting to me because it seems as though in order to mimic the screams, the audience has to believe the people inside are screaming in “solidarity” as well, or are choosing not to question why tf they’d be screaming if they couldn’t feel it…. In regard to Pepe’s parents dying in the fire, we do not know anything about the 4 sacrifices that were selected to match the outsider sacrifices. Nor do we know the age(s) at which people are chosen to procreate. Nor do we know how old Pele is. We ASSUME he is the same age as people in college at the time but he could be as old as 36. We also don’t have any insight into the other rituals that occur that could have similar (sacrificial) aspects as this one. I DO believe it is to be insinuated that his parents died as sacrifices, but that is all we can conclude.
I feel that they lied about the ritual only happening every 90 years. If you look at the pictures Dani looks at with the former Midsommar queens, it is far more frequent than that and the Midsommar queen is supposed to pick the final sacrifice.
@@ObsidianTender I think this is a common confusion/misconception that people keep happening with the movie. They celebrate the Midsommar every year. Every year when they celebrate, they perform certain rituals like wearing the white traditional clothing, the feasts, the dancing, the selection of a may queen and then her job of blessing the next year's crops. Also, we can assume that every year, the young people that went traveling come back with new people to bring in either for breeding purposes or marriage. They do NOT sacrifice people every year. They only do the specific sacrifice of 9 people every 90 years. If you do the math, it tracks with the life cycle milestones that they use in the village- 18, 36, 54, 72, 90. What they might do regularly is have a symbolic sacrifice instead of a human one. In the director's cut, there is a ritual by the river where it's a very interactive performance as they tell a story and choose a boy from the village to sacrifice (and admittedly it's unclear whether they really would have gone through with it or it's just a performance to get Dani to participate by pleading for his life), but this could be something they do instead of murder. The movie doesn't make it especially clear what rituals are annually and what movies are almost-centennially, but I think with a village that looked as relatively small as that, it would be difficult if they had to sacrifice potentially 5+ of their own people every year when, at least for this year, they only brought one new person into the cult and killed off the two that would have been used for potential breeding purposes (since pregnancy isn't guaranteed with a single encounter and all).
You are correct, one should NEVER take hallucinogens when they are not in a well-balanced mental and emotional space. It's the quickest way to a bad trip, and people have really lost it when taking the risk. ETA: When Christian is sewn into the bearskin, it's a form of torture. As the building burns around him, the bearskin would begin to dry out and shrink, simultaneously shielding him from the heat so he lives longer and also shrinking down to crush him alive. For the friend who had his lungs pulled out, that's what's known as the Blood Eagle. It was something the vikings were purported to do to some of their enemies.
@Erin Haury Your knowledge base is fascinating, friend. Also you're dead on about hallucinogenics. They can be beautiful and healing but the thought that her friends gave her mushrooms when they knew what had just happened to her means that 100% of them were either ignorant or insanely negligent and self-absorbed. Given that they're college students we can assume ignorance, but still. Terrifying.
also christian wasnt just paralyzed and burned alive-he was also *dismembered to fit into the bear,* a detail i didnt even notice until my fourth or fifth viewing of the movie. when hes laid out on the table at the end, its a split second to notice but they pull out chicken wire. and if everyone remembers, HE FELT ALL OF THIS AND COULDNT EVEN SCREAM. what a nightmare. probably the nastiest fate in any horror movie ive ever seen
Thought I caught everything after 3rd viewing. Didn't even think Christians legs were cut short. Ari did a such good job that some Audience members sorta got "Brainwashed" by sympathizing with Dani burning Christian alive.
That makes a lot of practical sense too... also aren't everyone in the sacrifice legless? Like Ingemar and that other guy from that commune were sitting in those robes and didn't they not have legs? Just like the other taxidermised friends of Dani?
I think there's different cuts of the movie. the one currently on netflix doesn't go quite this far, it only shows them lift up his robe to expose his shins and then jumpcuts to him in the bear suit. but it only makes sense that his limbs were removed. it's wild how much is gone unshown/unsaid. almost makes it even more terrifying
I keep rewatching that scene but I can't see the chicken wire 😭 could you give a more detailed description? I'm dying to see it for myself now. I probably would've never noticed it.
when we watch cult documentaries a lot of people always say “how can they be tricked into a cult??” but then those same people watch midsomar and say that dani had a happy ending and that the cult helped her even though all her friends were killed and chopped up 😩 cults prey on people like dani, like them flowers and pot pies didn’t distract me from the fact that this is a whole ass cult and everyone got sucked in 😂
@@ryry4062 she was definitely not happy but I for one was relieved not to see her in that fire compared to him which is fucked up ik. This movie just gives the most complex somewhat hypocritical feelings about so much that went down & too much happened too fast. Like..
I'm surprised that I didn't realize during it that it was a wh1t3 supr3m4c1st cult but I still wasn't brainwashed to the point of thinking the ending was happy. I just remember being confused as to why people thought it was a happy ending just because she was smiling. Like people were still killed and tortured.
When Kennie said, "nope! No, ma'am. Notmy black ass. It's too many white people!" I felt that in my bones. As a person of colour, it really be like that sometimes.
The scene where the women of the commune was mimicking Dani's crying was truly horrible, that isn't real empathy. Empathy entails giving the person space and freedom to process and interpret their own experience, in short, it means giving a person voice. The women's cries effectively drowned out Dani's cries, and so her own agency to interpret what she just experienced has been taken away, that is the opposite of empathy.
honestly if I had a group of friends that all started screaming with me when I was incredibly upset and screaming, I'd be thrilled, free therapy (I do have panic attacks and start screaming like that sometimes). you're right though, that was clearly not an attempt to be understanding of her situation or helpful to her at all
Honestly if anyone did that when I was grieving I would tap out and leave because that feels like I am being made fun of. So you really hit the nail on the ball on this one
It would also psychologically act as a means to neutralize her feelings behind her cries of anguish as she learns that the effect of her emotional expression is futile. This is a clear example of her being disempowered as an individual, even though some claim that she's empowered at the end of the film. It's like her figuratively having her tongue cut out or her vocal chords removed.
Exactly and it just brought back memories of school bullies taunting one of the non-verbal autistic classmates in my primary school. The boys mimicked his grunts and murmurs when he produced the sound. Ari made the scene so alien that maybe some ppl just got took out by the strangeness and how Dani seemed to feel better might have misled casual viewers and made them failed to notice how very childish and mocking the act actually is.
@@EatyourWafflesplease Also, they didn't just screamed with her, they OVERscreamed her, overtook the rhytm of the crying and slowly but surely modulated it into a controled kinda humming sing-song-y scream of their choice, and like any choir teacher will tell you, if you are not careful you can get lost in a vocal group and end up singing badly in a tone that is not yours because you were dragged by the surrounding voices. They literally robbed her feelings, modified it and "gave it back" to her in the form they desired her to feel it.
As a native Swede watching the movie, I really think knowing and being able to read Swedish enhances the feeling of building dread because HOO BOY some of the things these cultists are saying are MAJOR red flags that the english speakers (both characters and viewers) don't notice for the simple reason that they don't speak the language. For example, when the group is driving to Pelles home village in the scene where the camera turns upside-down, there is a banner over the road proclaiming "Stoppa massinvandringen till Hälsingland. Rösta på Fritt Norr i höst" which translates to "Stop the mass immigration to Hälsingland (Hälsingland being the region of Sweden the Hårga are located in). Vote for Free North this autumn" which I'm sure I don't have to tell you- yeah major racist vibes. I suppose that goes to show the amount of thought that was put into the creation of this movie, the fact that people from Sweden just instinctively recognise some things that will go unnoticed by everyone else, it's incredible.
I was wondering what it was that text translated to! I could tell it was Swedish and I remember thinking immediately when they arrived at the village, "Fuuuuucckk. PaganSwedes.... Don't investigate!!"
Didn't know that! It's amazing the amount of details that Ari puts in his films. All the costumes that the Horgans were in the movie were also hand broidered in 100 year old lines and were full of hidden messages and symbology. As an example, the ones were wore by the old folks in the Athestupa and Christian at the end were marked with a rune of Tyr, symbolizing sacrifice for the community. Such as small detail that practically no one would notice, but he still decided to include
I don't speak Swedish, but the words Stoppa massinvandringen were not difficult to comprehend the meaning of. Definitely set the tone for the movie for me. It was funny though, since I was watching this with a friend and they hadn't caught the banner and were therefore barely aware of the white supremacist tones until the end.
Yyyyyyup it disturbed me so much. I'm someone who likes to say nothing disturbs me anymore and talk a big game lol and then a SA scene comes on and punts me into the sun for my hubris. Guess I deserve it
There are times when there isn't any black female representation in a film and it makes total sense to me. Because there's no way a sister is about to be dealing with all this extraness. When it sounds like a situation in which you're gonna get hemmed up in the woods with some weird white folks, you know how to turn it down on the face of it.
@@mysteriiis i think them being european and not american is also part of it. i feel like they played on americans going like whoa cooky europeans am i right and dismissing the bad vibes as cultural differences
Nah I think Pele is the villain. 😅😅😅 he is absolutely the worst person in this entire movie but because Christian is so awful, it takes the attention off of Pele's completely narcissist and manipulative ways. Like Christian is horrible yes but only because its obvious. Pele not so much.
Thank you... he lured his "friends" into his cult to kill them. Like whaaaaaa???!!! How is that okay?? And picking many people of color to kill... I immediately saw that white supremacy nod... and Christian and the dumb friend were only included to provide new seed for future white offspring.
You're absolutely right. When he calms dani down, in the moment you're rooting for him. But upon second or third watch, it really starts to sink in how insidious he is. Especially when you see in the director's cut that he had sent their photos etc ahead before they got to the village. Then realize AGAIN that they told dani welcome home.
I don't think he's a narcissist--I think he's a cult member. He's not doing it for his own benefit, he's doing it because he's so entrenched in the cult that he thinks like the cult and acts like the cult, just like all the other cult members.
Pele creeped me out from the beginning of the movie! I think he scouted out Dani and Christian. He wanted Dani to breed with and wanted Christian for breeding as well and just finessed them all.
I wouldn't have blamed Christian if he chose to leave Dani after her family's tragedy OR if he chose to stay with her even though his romantic feelings have died out because he genuinely cares about her well being. Neither of those are entirely "right", but they're understandable choices. HOWEVER, choosing to stay with Dani, not out of compassion, but for the selfish reason of not wanting to feel like the bad guy, is the one wrong decision he could have made. Especially because it was so clear through his actions and attitude that he didn't care. I get not wanting to live with the guilt, but don't half a*s your decision.
YES. That’s the thing that makes a difference, only do it because you WANT too, the other person doesn’t need you around if you’re just gonna make them feel inadequate and you’re just doing it to not look bad. Only do it if you care.
yeah thats something I didn't appreciate about Chris's decision to stay out of pity. I can respect not wanting to stay as her boyfriend but if he couldn't even bring himself to stay as a friend, he was doing himself and Dani a disservice by staying at all. Its not more humane and compassionate to stay out of obligation if youre not actually going to treat her humanly and with compassion. But at the same time I also understand he may not have had it in him to expell emotional support and labor for a relationship he was already emotionally checked out of and doesn't actually want to be in, even if he tried. Everyone has a limit and theres only so much you can give to a person. Which drives home how Chris should've broken up despite the tragedy. its not like their relationship was going to get better by him staying. it's almost guaranteed it was only going to get worse because he wasn't there for the right reasons, even if those reasons seemed noble and self sacrificial in and of themselves. he was just making things worse in the long run. plus a tragedy like that never heals fully. It wouldve been worse for dani to finally get over the loss of her family only to lose her boyfriend just after she finally recovered, God knows how long that could take. She may never have recovered. What was chris going to do in the event of that? clearly he wouldn't have wanted to marry her so prolonging the inevitable was really the worse option.
I think Christian was killed because he was the lest remaining "family" of Dani, and making her hate and despise him would make her closer to the group, AND Dani is in a total trauma state, she's probably not fully aware of whats happening!
interesting!! i havent heard this take but it makes sense to the psychology of how cults operate!! cults lovebomb, make their social group appear to be both desirable/unconditionally accepting/a safe harbor and then insidiously isolate/ake dependent vulnerable people. fundie fridays does a lot on christian fundamentalism and culture if that tickles your fancy, a lot of fundie groups run on cult tactics.
The great part of this movie is that the cult doesn’t just brainwash Dani, it brainwashes YOU. Not only are some shocked by how ppl think this is a good ending for Dani, like Ken, but people are even shocked with themselves for being happy for her. It messes with you DEEPLY. It is also way better than hereditary by a mile
I remember the first time I watched it, at the end when Dani is smiling, I did feel a feeling of warmth and like “oh, she’s found a family” and then I remembered what those people did. It’s truly terrifying.
it definitely brainwashed me the first few times I saw it, especially bc it was not too long after I went through a bad breakup. Goes to show how affected cult tactics are
@@RisaPlays Same. I literally was so disturbed that I had a panic attack and nearly threw up after watching the movie (I have anxiety and don’t usually watch horror specifically because it messes me up).
The scariest thing about Midsommar is how people irl reacted to it. I could write it off as a clever but meh movie, but the fact that so many real people not only agree but even glorify this shit is horrifying
@VVotchMe * I wasn't at that part of the video yet, but yeah^ However I meant it more as the movie itself to me is kinda underwhelming. I only watched it after seeing the reviews it got, which made it interesting and revealing . It's a beautiful and well written movie, but by itself it's not all that scary and too quiet and slow for my taste but to each their own. Brilliant movie if only for the discussion
I'm glad that I'm not the only one who thought, 'If someone was copying me while I was crying to the point of wailing, I would attack them like a feral dog.'
Exactly like To me it looked more like they were mocking her rather than empatising with her. Which is disgusting. Really shows how lonely and broken Dani is if even this mockery of sympathy is enough to lure her to feel loved and become part of the Harga
In relation to your comment about shrooms: yes, psychedelic mushrooms need to be taken when you feel safe & are in a good mental space. The first time I tried shrooms, I was camping with a group of people. I personally really enjoyed my experience & felt like I worked through a lot of my personal issues that i was dealing with at that time. HOWEVER, I was in a good mental space to be taking them & with people I deeply trusted to watch over me. There was another girl there who also took them & was very anxious to try them because she had recently (I mean less than a week recently) experienced a traumatic event. It caused a horrific experience for her & had there not been sober people there to protect & help her, I'm not sure what would have happened.
i almost ran away from home on shrooms bc i heard distant sirens and somehow assumed the cops were coming to get me😬😬😬😬 one of the worst nights of my life lol
Having a trip sitter IS SOOOO IMPORTANT along with getting your dose right. For your first time, ALWAYS START SMALL. Had an experience where we were in the woods and my tripsitter guided me to a restroom. Suddenly, I wasn't in the pretty, idyllic forest where the flowers were singing lmao. I was in this tiny, lightless mechanical hellscape where the sink drain and trashcan had deep, guttural, satanic voices. She knocked on the door asking if I was okay and that she's there for me. I opened the door and she snapped me out of it xD
So sorry you went through that, hope you are in a good mental place still. That being said, your experience is unfortunately not too surprising to me. When studying psychology, I learned about how different substances interact with our body/brain chemistry and how a lot of drugs, but specifically hallucinogens, can have adverse effects on those who are dealing with trauma or in an otherwise poor/compromised mental state. I say CAN, everyone’s neurochemistry is a little different, so it might not affect everyone that way, but it does happen with some frequency. Of course, there is also the practice of micro dosing certain patients with LSD or other hallucinogens to try and help treat certain mental disorders, but that is done at extremely low dosages and under the careful supervision of licensed physicians, so I definitely don’t think that is what is taking place in Midsommar. I’m not a phd or a psychologist or anything yet tho, so please take my words with a grain of salt! :)
Yes yes yes!! For anyone who has studied religious extremism/“cult” mentalities, Midsommar is a shining example at how anyone in a vulnerable state/place in life (experiencing grief and loss, for example) can be swept up into a cult or similarly extreme, isolated sect. It doesn’t take a uniquely “broken” person to join a cult or fall into extremism. Cults prey on our very human tendencies to seek care and reassurance when we are deeply hurting. Also, holy shit, thank you for touching on the white supremacy aspect! Neo-Nazi and white nationalist organizations/cults absolutely use the tactics the Hårga use. To be totally frank, these groups prey on directionless or emotionally fragile white people who want a community so desperately they at first ignore and then fervently buy into the ideology wholesale. The rise of “tradwife”/“return to tradition” internet culture and the romanticization of the Hårga among fans of this movie definitely show that there are many “Danis” out there (regardless of gender) who have been torn up by the losses and traumas of life and who are looking for a community like this. It’s freaking scary, dude.
Yes yes. Ppl approached my sister and suggested her to bring our mother with her to their churches when they heard the struggle we are having. I think some genuinely think they r doing a good thing by bringing in a broken soul to the community they so trusted. However many who approached later tried to sell stuff or self-improvement packages to me and my sis just further alert us.
Yes! Most of them find it appealing because of the whiteness of it all, add a few (or a lot) drops of melanin into the mix and suddenly everyone would start calling them out for being uncivilized and barbaric.
This is a great point! I wonder how it might be received had this festival took place among a secluded village set in some part of Africa. They might even be called primitive.
Interesting question. I haven't watched the movie, mostly bc I'm scandinavian, and I kinda feel rescentful over the fact that midsommar is supposebly portrayed as something cultish and whSupremasy. I love the real midsummer, which has nothing to do with skin color or hate for people, but all about love and procreation. That's what the flower crown symbolises. The real midsommar is already looked at something primitive, but not in a negative way at all to us, but only to outsiders. This just feels like, yet again, somebody non swedish came here, looked at it and saw it as something negatively primitive and weird. Should I watch the movie?
@@LiMaking If it makes you uncomfortable, I'd say don't watch it. However, I have seen some people say that some cults in Sweden have used this imagery before (which again I cannot say if that's true or not since I'm not Swedish). The only thing I can say is that even after watching the movie, I never saw the festival itself (what they were basing the cult around) as something bad. The cult and their tactics were terrifying, but not any cultural ties around it. So I think it's moreso a decision you should make yourself. Be it because you feel disgusted, or culturally misrepresented, that has to be a choice you make. It's a movie after all, and you have every right to not watch it if it's unpleasant for you. Again, this is just coming from a black lady living in the U.S. It's ultimately up to you if you feel this movie disrespected your culture.
ANOTHER thing I find entirely wild is that Pele was not included as a sacrifice SOLELY because he brought back the “useful” outsider. I’ve always been curious about the villager that brought back only two people of color. He KNEW he was going to end up being sacrificed as he invited them back. Which really demonstrates the way the cult has complete control over their minds. He didn’t even think to save himself or prioritize finding someone “useful”.
If I recall correctly early in the movie Ignemar mentioned how he went on a date with Connie before she got with her fiance and thought of himself as her boyfriend. I initially thought he brought her there because he wanted to get with her but now it seems more like a sick form of revenge for her 'wronging' him.
I thought Ingmar and the other guy volunteered to be sacrifices??🤔 Honestly, I always got the impression that he fell in love with Connie, who rejected him, and married Simon. So Ingmar brought them to Sweden specifically to be sacrificed. And then HE volunteered because maybe he felt like he didn't have anything to live for, since he was rejected by the person he loved (who was by then dead). Is that just MY theory? 😆😆
THANK YOU for really addressing the white supremacy in this movie. I think the obsession with the beauty and lifestyle that this cult portrayed really shook me to my core and added another layer of very real horror. People think this is beautiful. Even when people who are elderly, of colour, of different mindset must die in order to “preserve” that beauty. The realization that this lurks all around us, that people who think like this are face to face with us every day. So chilling. Another side of the coin to Jordan Peele’s racialized horror.
i think a lot of people find Dani's indoctrination liberating because her loneliness is very relatable. all her interactions with other characters are kind of awkward, christian and her friends don't actually want her around etc and i think a lot of people who struggle with loneliness and think their friends don't actually want them can relate to her and find it cathartic that she "found a community". but it becomes a problem when they don't question it and think a story about a cult exploiting the trauma and loneliness of a vulnerable person is actually empowering
That’s very scary to think about because loneliness is a very relatable feeling that everyone can have, including myself I think living a lonely life is one of my biggest fears and to think that a cult could profit off of that vulnerability in someone is scary.
I mean, that's textbook cult indoctrination. Find vulnerable person, give them the community they're craving. What are they going to do, willingly walk away from the "new family" they've just found and go back to being completely alone?
This is it though isn't it? People like Dani are the perfect targets of cults. Separated from all friends and family and there to be picked up and used by these people for their own ends.
No no. I was also baffled by the #girlboss things people had to say about the ending of this story...like y'all know what a cult is? They have a thing for going after those who are weak, whether emotionally or financially
Because those who said that have revealed themselves to be vulnerable to cults. If they were in Dani's shoes, they would have joined, which is incredibly concerning.
Midsommer was honestly way better in terrifying me than Hereditary because of how real it can be. Cults manipulate and prey on lonely and fragile people and pull them into their ideologies by offering a "family". Its honestly sad how many people would overlook that fact while watching the movie. I didn't feel happy for Dani, I felt sad and terrified for her.
I feel like the people who find Dani's pacification at the end of the movie to be a "happy ending" are just as bad as Christian. They don't want Dani to heal from her trauma, they just want her to stop expressing her anxiety and stress so they can leave the movie without worrying about her. It's normal to want to see her smile after seeing her in so much pain throughout the movie, but in no way is her temporary happiness worth a lifetime without autonomy in a cult that kills people and weaponizes drugs to force people to perform their rituals.
Not just a bad trip. Taking hallucinogenic drugs in a fragile mental state can lead to a full on PSYCHOTIC BREAK. A family friend of mine took LSD while he was struggling with depression, and he ended up jumping from the roof of his apartment building. He survived.
A former friends brother did LSD during a bad time and he it really ruined him. He was playing chicken on the highway before he ended up back at home (he was away at college) and unfortunately was later kidnapped and killed. Very sad all around.
Just a thought : I feel like the racial undertones of the Harga reflect , that if you decorate evil , people will refuse to see it. It was colorful , white , and filled with flowers. Everyone got along , but rituals were posted as these "tales" around the houses or farms. Spells (of you're from the south you know about the period blood thing way before this movie) being blatantly cast , and the human sacrifice. Due to it being dressed up , if you like their aesthetic of course you'd want to partake , you don't see it for what it actually is. How easily people are manipulated is what's really scary about this movie. Also think the "May queen" thing is a way to indoctrinate more young girls without killing them due to being outsiders. They still need fresh blood to have kids with. I low key think they'll throw her to Pele. 🙃
@@ayannabranchcomb7535 holy shit. I recognized the white supremacist themes when I saw the movie but I never once considered how the audience reaction would be different if this had been a cult of POC. Great point and I think you’re 100% right
Your first sentence reminds me of how people interact with the plantations in the American south. They’re decorated with flowers, fresh cut grass and paint and people will make excuses as to why it’s ok to get married on a torture/labor camp. Then of course there’s the general callousness and apathy to the trauma and history of Foundational Black Americans to go along with it.
This is the same danger that surrounds embracing other "traditional" aesthetics and lifestyle choices too, I'm particularly thinking of the vintage/50s aesthetic and how despite the pretty dresses and fun music, people of that time period were upheld to rigid social rules and discrimination was ingrained in people's minds
I haven’t watched this movie, but I am really confused about how people can perceive mimicking other people’s emotions as empathy. Yes, empathy is an ability to understand and share other people’s emotions, but crying out loud because someone else, essentially a stranger (who you clearly don’t feel attached to, as you were willing to sacrifice 4 of the visitors at the beginning) is not empathy. You don’t feel what they feel, you just do what you see for no reason. This doesn’t mean you understand what they go through. And I would throw hands, too. It resembles mockery more than it resembles empathy.
From actual psychological studies to "how to win friends and influence people" self-help style content, it's (generally) common knowledge that mirroring someone's expressions and emotions generally makes them not only feel at ease but understood and close to you. It's sort of a neurological hack. I'm sure that like most "soft sciences," it's not an actual law like say gravity or a chemical reaction, so I'm sure that it wouldn't work on everyone in every scenario. I certainly feel like you and Kennie, and that in that scenario I would feel mocked and not included. But mirroring, looking into someone's eyes steadily, and smiling after most of your statements are effective and commonly known ways to basically force people to feel good about you and close to you, regardless of how you actually feel about them or anything else, and even, to some extent, of what your words are. Given the usage in the story, I think the director wanted to make the cult's use of these manipulative techniques clear, so the audience knows that they are deliberately indoctrinating her and not sincere. Just a guess, tho.
Yeah, this reminds me of when i first saw the trailer before the movie came out, and the trailer showed a brief clip of the crying scene. I first thought that the cult members crying with her were mocking her by imitating the way she was crying.
Okay so the reason it works is basically what Kennie said: because Dani was used to being in an abusive relationship where her outwardly showing her sadness was treated negatively and even falsely framed as manipulative because Christian was that much on an abusive asshole. She was being gaslit so much that she didn't believe her own feelings were valid, and because the cult was crying with her instead of saying she was hurting or manipulating them, it comes across to HER as healing because it's the opposite spectrum of abuse. It's lovebombing, and lovebombing is even more effective against someone who's been traumatized into hiding crying and emotions. Effectively, because she's not used to any acceptance it feels good (and makes it easier to miss the red flags of it being an abusive tactic because Dani has no threshold for non abusive support)
@@aquaintsound okay maybe that explains a lot about why that scene was so cathartic for me personally, I didn't even consider that. overall I recognize that the cult is incredibly manipulative, harmful and unsustainable, I don't see it as a happy ending, only a temporarily cathartic one. but I'm so used to feeling like I have to repress my emotions in order to be more acceptable for others (I've been in a few relationships like the one in this movie, though luckily did not end with one of us burning in a giant bear suit) so now it makes more sense to me why my intial reaction to that scene was so positive. I'm fucked
This title >>>>> like she left darkness just to join a new form of darkness and I feel so bad. Also I never realized it, but Christian was sexually assaulted and I felt bad for not knowing, and that means her reason for being angry at him and also being glad that he was gone, is baseless. Ultimately the cult literally orchestrated Christian’s “affair” with that girl and poor Dani didn’t know that the cult she thinks loves her actually caused her pain, purposefully.
I don't agree that the "affair" was the only reason she was angry at him; she'd been looking for his emotional support since long before the cult stuff started and he always turned it around into her somehow harming him--she was realizing that he'd never actually been supportive for her due to/at the same time the cult started loveb*mbing her. She was realizing he sucked, which he did, at the same time the cult was manipulating her into thinking he was even worse than he was and they were her 'real' family.
Honestly, another fun layer - I tried to watch this movie and couldn't make it through. I'm autistic and have serious sensory issues and this movie set them off to the point where I had to rip out my headphones and physically step away to recover. The movie/cult are constantly bombarding the viewer/visitors with stimuli (chanting, screaming, bright lights, bright colors, etc) which is super disorienting - especially if you're in a constant altered state via drugs and hallucinogens. Thanks for doing this video, I've been a bit in the dark over some of the details of this movie and was super excited to see your recap.
Im autistic too, and when they started screaming with Dani, I literally was on the verge of telling them to stfu😭I had to skip thru it, bc I cannot take loud noises like that
OMG, SOMEONE UNDERSTANDS, the stimulus was way beyond anything my mind could handle, and that included all the white-ness - the white clothing, the white walls, the white faces in the bright white sunlight. My main sensory overload usually comes from sound, but I sometimes, in extreme cases, suffer from some mild forms of synesthesia. I could HEAR the lack of color, to the point that it drowned out the sounds of color from the flowers. I felt like I was stuck in a void of static and hearing nothing but screaming, it was awful!
@@MelusinaRose I completely understand the synesthesia! I get sensory overloaded quite easily, in all forms really- in order of touch, with sound as a close second, sight and smells equally, then taste… and I do have that same reaction as you at times, it can be quite disorienting. Smells can blindside me at times! I reign it in quite well in emergencies: I’m a frontline clinician, but when I am not hyper focused on critical/necessary tasks? Nope. I can’t even handle papers being out of line on my desk or my pen being in my left pocket vs my right pocket 😂 Sometimes I turn sounds off and just watch captioning (it’s always on and I’m used to it, my husband of 27 years and both kids are deaf, as well as MIL who lives with us). I turn down brightness, or simply take a break and come back to it when I can. 🤷🏻♀️ This was definitely a great breakdown and hit on many of my thoughts! There were things I didn’t see through the comments as I’ve only seen it once, but I definitely picked up on all of the ominous undertones and did not find this a “girl boss” movie! It’s awesome we have all found a way to enjoy it and participate in the conversation around the movie! There is definitely much to be said!
@@maximumeffort78 My fellow kin! Also, my deepest respect for your job, I can only imagine how much harder it would be for people like us to work such a high-tension job. I myself work as a janitor, after hours for the building, meaning I'm alone and can put headphones on and such. I don't think I could handle a job like yours. Mad respect. Cheers, mate, and thank you very much for your service and the help you give to others!
As someone who was in a cult and having experience SA... you summarized this movie very well. The most horrifying thing most of all is loss of autonomy.
@@infinitusfinitus I don't even know if I can summarize it properly in a few sentences other than it was weird. If you watch videos on the final fantasy house (the down the rabbit hole video is good ) It's basically that but with our own OCs. I met them when I was 13-14. Which is a time that you just struggle in general to find your identity.
@@infinitusfinitus The best way to describe it in general I think is that you are in your own bubble/world. You create drama/whatever surrounding each other and everyone outside of that bubble isn't "in the know". So you feel special.
@@Littllebabydoll wow, I'm sorry you were caught up in that. I heard about the final fantasy house years back, and I'll never forget it. Have you considered making a video or writing about your experience? Those are the kinds of cult behaviors we don't hear as much about.
@@infinitusfinitus kind of? But I'd rather just keep it to myself. I'm worried the people who are still in i5 will find me since I have them blocked on every social media platform but this one.
I think a scene that really encapsulates the realities of the horror around them and everyone’s (and as extension the audience’s) willingness to ignore it is when they are all going around doing their own things, you hear Connie scream in the background (as she’s being murdered). Everybody pauses, looks up (including the students) and then shrug it off and continue with what they were doing. Chilling.
Honestly, I have never heard anyone else talk about race and this movie and I'm just now realizing it. I never noticed the racial implications in this movie were so blatant and I'm so glad you brought it up at the end bc how tf did I miss that!!
I saw another channel bring up the white supermacy but I feel that Kennie added a lot more to the conversation by exposing the fact that most people still see white as the default or the superior way to do things
As someone who is really interested in horror but can't watch it cause I can't cope with horror visuals I watch a lot of video essays, especially on Midsommar, and I think this is actually the first video that outright uses the R Word when talking about Christian. It actually dawned on me just before you said it, and really struck me that of all the times I've seen someone say "hey this movie ISNT a heroic triumph over Christian" I never heard "the Cheating Scene, the catalyst for his death, was him being raped". I think it's impressive how this movie puts Christian in a lot of positions that women are usually faced with in horror, and just by having the victim be a shitty guy suddenly the audience forgets what they're seeing.
It's really exciting when I find Africans who watch the things I do especially Kennie. People I know don't...at all. Lol. I'm Ghanaian too. HI to both of you😊
One thing with this movie that I haven't seen really get discussed is how parts of the cult's disturbing and red flag actions are excused by the group under the pretense of it being a culture they're not familiar with (see 18:58). And I get it; other cultures have different values and traditions that shouldn't be demonized just because they are different than our own. Buuuut I also think there's a difference between not being loud/making a lot of noise on the train vs ritualistic murder of the elderly at an arbitrary age. Maybe just me?
That's actually in the movie itself--after witnessing the human sacrifice, the outsiders are, understandably, freaking out. The cult leader immediately starts trying to play into their sympathy and explain how the suic*des are part of their sacred belief system and the whole thing is ~beautiful~ and ~spiritual.~ Then when the British couple, aka 2 of the 3 people of color in the place, demand to leave anyway, they're kept quiet and secretly killed too.
It fits with how the Hårga (and most other cults) create this perfect idealistic scene to eventually make the victims believe everything they're seeing is okay. The group could put the early red flags down to 'cultural differences' just fine, but even once they're thrown in the deep end and see this horrific sacrifice they want to believe that idea of simple commune life and beautiful flower fields is real.
The thing about antagonists (as someone who hasn’t watched this movie cause I scare easily), is that you can have more than one. Christian is an antagonist, specifically to Dani and Josh, but the Harga are also antagonists to literally everyone in the movie that isn’t a part of their cult. Josh and the other two unnamed visitors died, Christian was sexually assaulted, paralyzed, and burned to death in a bear suit, and while Dani survived (for now since she’ll be offed at 72 if not sooner), she was manipulated by Pele when he related to her to make the cult sound more appealing and then again during Christian’s assault since no one told her he was drugged. Cults are bad kids.
Exactly. Antagonists are not the same as villains. Also just letting you know, the other two characters did have names: Connie and Simon. They were minor characters but we did learn a little bit about them and it was pretty rough how they died. They are engaged and both react how any normal person would upon seeing two people kill themselves, they freak out and want to leave. The Harga sort of scold Ingemar (Pelle’s brother who brought them) and try to manipulate them by saying it isn’t what it looks like, it’s beautiful. They still aren’t having it and want to leave, Simon tries to get a ride to leave while Connie packs. Soon Connie is told that Simon left without her, though she questions it the entire time, and is gaslit into believing it. They tell her she will get a ride tomorrow. The next day comes around and Dani asks if anyone has seen her to which Mark, the dumbass friend, says “I saw her practicing for track and field.” One of the Harga pipes in and says “oh, I actually gave her a ride to the station.” And the entire rest of the cast believe him and dismiss it. When Christian and the others are placed in the triangle later, we see her body is completely full of and/or covered in shrubbery. I assume Mark saw her trying to escape and unfortunately she was caught. It’s fucking vile tbh.
How can you truly say this when you haven't watched the movie. You're going by kennie's account of the movie. This is the definition of a biased opinion
@@joseribamarjr5164 @José Ribamar Jr There can be more than one antagonist in a story. That is a factual statement. The people were drugged and/killed exactly as she referenced. The information came second hand but the events happening in the movie can be confirmed by multiple sources including summaries and direct clips of the film online. Those are facts about the plot that can be confirmed without watching. So everything that she referenced in her original post was factual except for the opinion that cults are bad. I'm sorry, are you trying to make the argument that she's not allowed to express an opinion on a piece of media that she hasn't experienced first hand or are you trying to argue that cults are, in fact, good?
The SA scene also rubs me in that it’s rare to see “average” women bodies nude on film and it’s presented in this horrific way. Gives me body insecurities to be honest.
True, I feel like some people were laughing at this scene (ughhhh) because it was "shocking" to see a nude older woman or something... tired of natural bodies being used for shock purpose :((
With Christian being stuffed in the bear and calling him the "Beast" and all the hype of his "actions" I saw that as them killing their version of "the Devil," or otherwise a "symbol of all their sins being purged," like with the Crucifixion. Like, through them burning him and the other sacrifices, they were washed of all their fucked up sins from the movie (i.e. murder, rape, etc.).
the way that people actively playoff Christian's s/a as cheating to villainize him I-- I've seen it happen so much and like wtf??? did you not see him get drugged??? Did we watch the same movie??
For me the issue is that he entertained it, at all. Even before he was drugged he was thinking about it, and Maja is under 18. Obviously its wrong they drugged and took advantage of him, but the fact he didn't immediately shut it down while sober (since he KNEW she was 15-16) is also disgusting
@@hannahadams4522 Fair but you should keep in mind that he was sacrificed by the same cult that is offering underage girls to strangers. Killing Christian will not stop it from happening again. It wouldn't even have happened if not for them.
My solution to the “well don’t leave the girl who’s family just died!” Is just like don’t go on the trip, get her a therapist, and leave after she’s ok.
Thank you for mentioning the lack of evidence on what happens to prior may queens, that part definitely got me thinking. Also with the way the cult treated outsiders as "new blood" for breeding I think that lends an even more sinister note to Pele's excitement/encouragement of Dani going on the trip. And yeah the ending is a moment of catharsis for Dani but we don't see how she feels about it with a clear mind. How does tomorrow's Dani react when she realized she's stranded with a bunch of murderers in a foreign country?
When the pube scene and pretty much any other damn scene but the SA scene (was pure silence) was shown, with that girl, there were a lot of "Ah HELL NO's" in my theatre that I participated in as well.
When I first watched Midsommar it was in theatre with my friend. I remember such undertones of racism while watching it and discussed with my friend (white) and she was like yeah I noticed that too. But since it was in the movie theatre we watched it we were like 100% sure so I decided to go on RUclips and watch reviews on it hoping that someone pointed out what I had watched. All the ppl at the time that reviewed it (I will say most not all because I watched a disgusting amount of reviews cause I wanted to confirm what I witnessed) and none of them touched on the racism. Yes the ppl that I watched reviews on were white which confirms TO ME that a lot of white ppl are STILL complacent in racism. It took about 1 year later to find a review on Midsommar where someone pointed out the white supremacy undertones of the movie. But I still judge all those ppl (yes I heavily judge them cause if you’re doing a review it’s your job to touch on all aspects) who never mentioned the white supremacy undertones of the movie because as a black person it made me feel like I was reading “too deeply” into the movie. Anyways great review Kennie!!
They ignore racism because it benefits them. IF you say anything about racism they will gaslight you and make you think you see racism where it doesn't exist. I would never hung out with these people knowing that they are indifferent to my discomfort or might even enjoy my pain if not hurt me themselves!
I think an important factor to take into account is that perhaps they couldn’t recognize it?? Because they don’t have the same experiences, they haven’t been exposed to it, so they don’t as often pick up on it. However, I agree with you that as a reviewer it is a responsibility to make sure you review all the aspects of a film, making sure that you understand or at least recognize those aspects, because it will effect how people view the film Now I would like to disclose that I am a white person, and I understand that I will never fully understand the experiences that people of color experience, so I know I don’t really have a say in issues regarding these topics.
I don't think anyone who saw this and recognized the danger signs is now willing to go if they get invited to a midsummer festival. That being said, could you imagine living in a country that holds one every year who watched this? Man, if I were Swedish I would be inviting everyone and their dog to one just for the reactions.🤣🤭
TBH, all the ppl who ended the movie thinking “good for her” literally proves how good the movie is- the cult not only indoctrinated her, but was so good at it that it could indoctrinate the viewers too 😭
Mushrooms shouldn’t be consumed by someone with a weak mindset. It’s a psychological drug it’s based on you’re mind. So yeah Kennie you were right about the shroom thing
This movie's ending was reminding me of the ending to Rosemary's Baby. You can't say the main female character is 'free' they aren't. They are in fact trapped in another way but have now completely mentally checked out. Terrifying for similar reasons
I think it’s almost more terrifying because it looks so pretty and idyllic. Everything is so simple and it looks so easy, everybody looks so care free and happy and that is how they get you. It’s a reminder that bad things and bad people aren’t always in the dark and dressed in black hoodies or blatantly violent.
What I find fascinating is that all of the cult members have the opportunity to meet "outside" people and travel and yet none of them want to escape this cult and inevitably come back there to die
I remember when my friends were so into the cult's aesthetic and they want to use for our yearbook theme. I was sitting there like " .. Yall wanna dress up as a cult? " They are ignorant tho i know they dont even truly know the danger of cults and the fact that they are into the aesthetic. It's crazy.
I think you have a good explanation of the SA scene. They did "beautify/romanticize" it. They made it woman focused, almost beautiful, had both parties been consenting, sure, the ritual would have that mystique air to it. But when you know Christian is drugged and during and before that scene, he was not okay, he was scared and confused. And it just intensified during and after the assault. It was scary
I wrote an article on the film's white supremacist/nazi imagery and fascism delved into a lot of examples. Something you touched on with Josh I actually wrote about and I haven't really seen anyone else talk about it. I watched it a year after it came out and didn't understand how people grouped it in as a "good for her" "girl boss" movie, also I'm black so I couldn't ignore it. Like WHY WOULD a black person feel okay visiting a probably highly racist remote all-white group with only white people? Josh's character believes that he is above the cult in a lot of ways, because of his intellect and research and the fact that he is a"good/model" black person and doesn't offend them". However he is just as bad as Christian if not kind of worse because he's not wilfully ignorant like Christian, he's aware of the cult's probable white supremacy. But the cult don't even see him as a viable or worthy of indoctrination or breeding because of his skin colour. He studies them as if they are lab rats and kind of doesn't see them as people but like a fascinating case study to dehumanise for research, not due/related to their white supremacy. He underestimates though, that they see him as worse than "nothing" and that he's not even worth indoctrinating to them because of his skin colour. Article: cescawrites.medium.com/midsommar-the-horror-of-fascism-and-film-consesnus-7bd124f2e0fc
Im white but I took Josh's thesis as subverting the nature of the field of anthropology. Which has largely been occupied by white men doing the same thing with niche communities to enforce racist stereotypes. I understood his motivations/passion for the thesis as him holding a mirror to whiteness. But its largely my headcanon, the point was never actually made.
@@dylankennedy4539 I think that’s an interesting way to look at it but, even so, that subversion in the context of this film gets you killed. Josh, adopting the mindset of researching the group, reflective of the attitude held by white researchers (in the way you have pointed out) lands him literally in a ditch to soil the land the cult uses for crops (inadvertently he ends up serving them). He is no better off than if he was like Simon who went for more recreational reasons, who also gets killed and used for the cult’s benefit. I think, if anything, it reinforces the film’s possible point that there’s no way out of colonialist frameworks (be it flipped/reversed or conserved) because we are still operating within them.
I'm glad my theatre, when I saw it for the first time, didn't laugh at Christian's SA scene. I am glad they took it seriously. I heard from some friends that a lot of people laughed and (in their experience mind you, not saying overall) it was mostly guys laughing. My brother laughed RECOUNTING it, but it was unnerved laughter. My theatre was silent and you could FEEL the uncomfortableness. It you saw the scene out of context maybe, perhaps you'd laugh intially out of shock or at the absurdity of it, but that goes out the door SUUUUPER quickly.
This movie was scary as hell because it brought out the hideous ignorance of the general public in droves. Anyone who thought Christian had a 'deserved' fate are like Dani and very susceptible to cult mentality themselves. They're ignoring the obvious, manipulative predators rampant around them. Gee golly gosh, maybe this same mentality is why so many people can easily ignore racial supremacy in real life. The real actual horror of Midsommar is the commentary community who thought it had a girl power ending. SHIVERS!!
The thing about this movie is that for a split second at the end I DID feel happy for Dani. And then the horror of it crashed back down and I was terrified all over again not just for Dani but for myself. Because I just got brainwashed.
I have listened/watch a few commentaries on Midsommar and was really confused on the fact that there wasn’t more conversations about the white supremacy imagery and dog whistle terms being used by the cult. Their whole thing gave me a real “our founders started this commune in the late 1940’s when they immigrated from Germany” vibes. colonia dignidad style for sure.
I always thought the ending of Midsommar reflected the "positive" ending of Brazil. Yeah, the bad guys won and the protagonist has lost her mind, but at least Dani is now so blissfully insane she's spared the torture of realizing she's lost.
The "Christian deserved it" reaction is proof of how easy cults work. Granted what also worries me is that when anyone is very critical to someone who's fallen for cult tactics, the feelings from the criticism, eerily is kind of what cults use to recruit people. They use any type of ostracization or negativity to their advantage(like Pelle did with Dani). Online or not, it's hard to avoid being lured into groupthink. I'm a former larrie so, unfortunately I've had some experience. The crying scene is probably the most disturbing to me.
At the ending I was actually happy for Dani.. until I remembered the great lengths they went to, just to kill her friends. Not to mention the old people being killed at a certain age. I could only imagine what may happen to Dani after that “Mayflower” scene, she had nothing left to go to at home, and now she’ll never want to leave. Instead of being manipulated by her boyfriend, she is now manipulated to her new “family”.
I think the reason people get tricked into being all "yay!" about the ending is because Aster wanted to make a point about white supremacist cult indoctrination by indoctrinating the audience. His choices as a director (framing, visual style, etc.) and as a screenwriter (pov, limited development for the characters of color who die and developing the white ones who die as dicks and assholes who "deserve" or "earn" their deaths, even writing Christian as the kind of guy who probably would cheat of his own volition if he thought he could get away with it, lovebomby dialogue from the Harga that goes unchecked, etc.) support the indoctrination of the audience, especially if they're ignorant of the real world resonances or if they hyperempathize with Dani due to their own experiences or general susceptibility to the cinematic tools at play (a.k.a. lack of critical thinking). Which is fair enough if he wants to make a point about how easy it is to get sucked in like that, but then you have the whole audience and the whole social narrative about the movie carrying forth that indoctrination uncritically instead of understanding the supranarrative criticism being made or even that there is a supranarrative criticism.
This feels like another Fight Club or American History X issue where a director has a clear intent and interpretation but no control of the audience's critical thinking skills to get that same view. Art is....fun like that. It feels like Aster needed to make a pamphlet to hand out after every viewing to explain "Cults are bad, yall".
also it doesn't help that most people didn't see the director's cut (i live in southeast asia and there's no way they'll even show the clean version on cinemas) so we have to find what we can on the internet. and even though the cult thing is dominant, from my first time watching, the white supremacy vibes that i get from "preserving the bloodline" part of the movie was really blurred because in reality, endogamy IS encouraged in many places (culturally and racially), whether we like it or not. so at the end of my first watching, i see it more from a relationship perspective, fucked up gone-girl like break-up movie instead of kennie's perspective (it also doesn't help that when i watched it the first time my ex back then just cheated on me so the whole ending felt satisfying). now that i see kennie's video it really adds a lot to the perspective.
I did my thesis in analyzing modern domestic (american) white supremacy and this is by far my FAVORITE movie both as an art piece and a case study. Its fascinating bc the WS messaging is incredibly concrete and most people ive shown this movie to (white) are almost completely oblivious to the messaging until it gets directly pointed out to them (I could nerd out and explain why but long story.). One of the standout interactions of this movie is how this messaging collides with the graphic nature of Christians SA in the finale, specifically a fascists society's lust for retributive "justice". Midsommar just violently throws it in your face and its created a kind of meta horror that lasts till far after the movie has ended.
I know it's been 3 months since you made this comment and I don't wanna be *that* person lol, but if you're still willing to geek out over the specifics of why white people tend to be oblivious to the WS messaging from a more academic perspective, I would be intensely interested to hear more. Absolutely no worries if not though!!
@@vegemiteguzzler9783 okay so it boils down to a couple of things that we take for granted: - Every white American (and arguably many westerners) is/are socialized into a conservative mindset from birth. This is due to the way that far-right rhetoric works and is disseminated. The average white westerner associates logic with one type of logic, factual logic. Not to over explain but the means of explaining phenomena in the observable world through a series of testable/provable statements. I see many of those focused on the far right describe what they do as emotional logic, which while it serves some function I don't think properly encapsulates what is being done (and hence why those who try to combat it have been unsuccessful). The far right is using a philosophical concept called "facts of existence (FoE)". FoE are logics that are treated as fact because we experience it in every day life. A good example of an FoE is "the sun rises every day". In theory we know, there may be a small chance the sun does not rise, but in human culture we accept this as fact because everyone around us has watched the sun rise each day. The way far right rhetoric works most successfully is through extreme consistency. Utilizing the same phrasing of concepts for decades without fail (in America "food stamps" are a good example of this). As the language is carried and digested through multiple generations and make it into the common lexicon it becomes a fact of existence and an idea that doesn't largely come into question despite it holding racist intentions. - The way white supremacist/racist rhetoric is designed is to reproduce without "intention": i.e appear centrist/pragmatic on its surface for regular folk is LARGELY dependant on both FoE and the Overton Window. Imagine it like new more radical phrases get unlocked into social acceptance. "Cuck" is a good example of this as it used to be an immediate red flag for identifying a neonazi, an insular word insinuating antisemitic views (for white supremacists the "role" of the Jewish person is to "cuck" the white man out of acquiring white women and letting women enter the work force.). This word is now public discourse again, effectively masking who is using the word with the intent of antisemitism and who is not. But the thing is, as with all bigoted language, it doesn't matter if the person using the word "Cuck" intends to be antisemitic, it's still sending that message. And the user 99% of the time doesn't know it. That's kinda scratching the surface but I've always wanted to do like an article on it or a video series or something but idk if it's a good idea lol.
Omg @33:17 I never thought a big youtuber would actually ADDRESS this!! 😭 Thankyou so much. People will try to gaslight you that there is no yt supremacy but Swedish people will tell you it’s very CLEAR and there are Swedish yt supremacist symbols in the movie and the director of the movie confirmed that there is heavy yt supremacy!
This was honestly one of the most terrifying movies I've ever seen. There were so many moments that made me extremely uncomfortable. Christian's scene with Maja was so disturbing I couldn't stop thinking about it for days. Knowing he was drugged (because I didn't realize when I first watched) makes it even more disturbing. I don't think Christian was a good dude, but I also think he was put in a difficult situation and probably didn't know how to handle it. I don't think he deserved to die though. Dani was just in a terrible state of mind and probably wasn't even fully aware of what she was doing. Seeing her smile at the end kind of made me wonder if later, if she ever gets out of there, she will seriously regret it.
After rewatching, it's apparent Christian was going through depression as well but his feelings were never addressed bc of Dani's trauma. I don't believe he was ever meant to be a villian. Just a depressed guy stuck in a relationship he can't leave bc of how dependent his gf was. His detachment easily could be attributed to depression. He was also detached from his studies and friend group. He obviously loved Dani but they were bad for each other. Let's normalize not making yourself responsible for someone else's mental well-being.
He also lied, gaslit, and manipulated Dani, manipulated his friend for the thesis credit, and made his emotions everyone else's problems. He is in fact a villain. Just because the cult were the bigger villains doesn't mean an emotional abuser wasn't emotionally abusive.
Now I’m wondering if we watched the same movie because how do you interpret and excuse him being a shit ass boyfriend, a shit ass friend and human as just being depressed like 🧍♂️no baby he’s just not a good person and that’s ok! Not every character is supposed to be hyper nuanced and it’s very clear that he wasn’t written that way. And also, did the meaning of depression change while I wasn’t looking ?? Since when did depression mean lying, gaslighting and manipulating the ppl close to you for your own gain and benefit. He was not responsable for Dani’s mental health but there was no reason for him to worsen it.
@@cheeseisherelive753 Dani was drugged, emotionally and mentally manipulated by the cult at her lowest when she made the decision to kill him. Christian wasn’t all of those things when he acted like the world’s trashiest man to her. So no Dani isn’t the villain. Not really a good guy by the end obviously but not a villain
I'll fully admit, when I first watched the scene where Dani cries with the women of the cult, I falsely assumed that they were mocking her. Then again, I was constantly mocked by my mother when I cried, so I think mommy issues definitely had a play in my assumptions--
besides everything you said i think it's so scary how people completely ignore how everyone in this movie took advantage of dani's poor mental health and vulnerability not just christian when that's one of the scariest parts of the movie
As someone who has had a lot of family members join cults, I think Midsommar is incredibly valuable as a way of understanding the perspectives of people who are indoctrinated. It is not a happy ending, but being able to look through the eyes of the characters and see how they might feel loved and included even while their individuality and bodies are being sacrificed is a good warning of how easy it can be to fall into something like this
I believe Christian isn't as bad as everyone makes him out to be. He had a friend group separate from Danny's who encouraged the breakup and so he could have done that with little social consequences. He chose not to because he loved her on some level and would have felt bad leaving her after the murder of her family. That doesn't excuse his other toxic behavior but he definitely did not deserve SA and to be burned alive. He needed to stick to his guns break up with this girl and save them both the suffering of their toxic relationship.
I absolutely agree. He was a victim of their relationship too. He wanted out but felt obligated to stay. I don't think he was a bad boyfriend. He was depressed as well which could explain his detachment from Dani. They hint at it throughout the movie but because Dani's trauma was bigger, audiences completely ignored his issues.
I agree that Christian was emotionally checked out of the relationship. We didn't see that before the drama put a lot of her emotional toll on him. Plus I do get that he didn't want to break up with Dani when a emotional tragedy happend to her. He didn't handle things well but I don't he's a complete villain who deserved his fate at the end
I don't understand how people get so satisfied with his ending. Yeah, maybe his a bad boyfriend (I'm on the fence here) but he's not more villainous than... Idk... a cult??
@@blurryeyes316 I think people can relate to having an abusive/incompentent/apathetic partner more than relate to the experience of being in a cult. So it is easier for them to see how ‘bad’ Christian was and not the Harga.
Regarding you saying ‘all PoC aren’t going to make it in this white village’ - I thought of it while watching the movie too, so I was surprised when I read the script afterwards (the version that was submitted for contests) and it turned out the casting was pretty much color-blind. Dani was imagined a brunette, Josh was imagined as a white man specifically, and I think the English friends were written as white too. Which makes it interesting how the reading of the movie can change during the production.
I think unless you're blonde and have non-brown eyes and aren't an idiot you will survive because to me it seems like this cult is obsessed with the Aryan race look to which my white brunette ass wouldn't be favoured lol
Honestly I think a lot of people's "positive" reaction to the ending really shows an interesting study in why so many people fall for religious sects. The cognitive dissonance is very real.
Damn I thought Kennie was going to give us a rundown because I'm the biggest scaredy-cat and I will never be able to watch the movie but I want Kennie to tell me because she's a great storyteller. Still excited for this video though
I too had heard that there was a “good for her” ending, but more importantly I’d heard the whole movie is a metaphor for the death throes of a relationship- the awkward moment when one person is done but hasn’t broken it off, the roller coaster of emotion, the gradual separation of the couple and how the girl is often surrounded by other women trying to keep her positive while the guy often has a “rebound girl,” how a lot of times to move on the girl has to just cut all ties and metaphorically “kill off” the relationship to the guy, etc. To which I ask- are the straights okay? This is not that. Even in an artsy fartsy way, this ain’t it, chief. Like someone literally was SA’d and then murdered, and the other one is basically trapped in a cult.
People walked away from this movie thinking it had a HAPPY ENDING? That whole atmosphere gave me MAJOR ANXIETY from the jump. People in white dresses, finding joy in flowers and shit? No thanks. I'mma head out. Call your dad, you're in a cult.
BLESS!! Like I cannot fathom how people saw this as a “good for her” movie. I will admit it’s somewhat cathartic but in a surface level way. Like when she smiles at the end it’s like oh she’s happy!......but oh yeah it took All Of That to get her here. I completely agree with everything you said (except about the movie being better than hereditary hehe)
my fav thing about this movie is that on my second watch i noticed that when theyre high ppls faces in the background will be slightly distored and its the funniest thing ive ever seen in a movie of this seriousness
I have a theory that Dani will be sacrificed within a year of becoming a may queen to make room for another queen, or she will become Pele's wife, but go insane and die either way. I was so worried about Dani when the movie ended
I remember getting into a fight with some random girl on (surprise surprise) twitter because she kept saying how happy she felt for Dani at the end of the movie and how perfect and idyllic it would be to live in a commune like the one from Midsommar 💀
Watching this reminded me of how religious retreats are. The emotional exhaustion and the “relief” one feels after strenuous activity after activity sticks out to me. Everything is so out there. Bright. And in the open. But the shadows are just as concentrated as the light. And people who have been to retreats understand, you’re pushed into intense and overstimulating situations again and again after being desperate to be saved from something, anything and then at the end, you’re just empty. Dani’s smile was empty at the end and everyone who thought it was a happy ending thought of it as a breakthrough and i simply see it as a girl who was vulnerable, put in a position that is seemingly good for her get preyed on because all of the solutions were too clean, too perfect, to blinding to acknowledge that she wasn’t healing and at the end she was just as broken as the beginning
I'm mixed, because there are a lot of white supremacists in the US who have coopted Traditional European aesthetics. While in Europe, because Nazi and Communist imagery is banned many countries, American imagery is often used to identify white supremacists.
It’s crazy because after I watched this film, I was so deeply disturbed on another level I didn’t even know existed. But while watching not one single scene was typically “scary”.
The ending is truly the most scary part because of the fact we see the cult working and finally brainwashing Dani fully by taking a truly vulnerable person and roping her in with promises of a family and understanding aka what cults ACTUALLY do. We see her truly becoming broken and that is terrifying especially because it is completely possible, something that isn’t far out or crazy and could never happen. It’s something that happens in real life and that’s the terrifying aspect of this film
While definitely unsettling, I still think Hereditary is a better horror movie. What unsettles me about this movie, as mentioned in the video, is that so many people positively connected with it. I've only seen it once, but all I saw was: traumatized young woman + cult + artsy = tragic ending (that smile proved it for me). She was reborn, but not in a good way...I wonder, if there was any intention of social commentary, if it's suggesting the fine line between "cult" and "culture". Also, sometimes how passive we can be, taking the "when in Rome" attitude. For example, American culture (in the film) has a way of disengaging, while this cult engages communally in emotion. When we talk about cultural differences, for her (protagonist), fire was bad--it killed her family, but for the cult, a similar situation, fire is good. What some see as evils, others will see as moral--and that's frightening...Humans are frightening... I also wonder, what is the connection with the number 9? Is it due to the length of pregnancy? 9 sacrifices. All the ages for their life stages are multiples of 9. They are ruled by the number 9 or by exactness or something? I think the boyfriend was always the bear. He was trapped. The exactness of the cult and their pictures told the audience exactly what was going to happen. Have it in our face...and still some people connected positively...
9 is a multiple of 3, and considered a sacred number. I think the director chose mystic seeming stuff and just slapped it in for the effect to make it seem more cultural based than it was really was. The danger of cults is that they understand how human minds are hardwired and they use that to create rituals that condition their victims to embrace their beliefs, but conversion is easier when you build on existing patterns.
At the beginning of the video/or movie you can see the Bear trapped in a cage which is similar to Christans situation where he’s trapped in his relationship with Dani, trapped in a cult and the quite literally trapped in the bear.
when I think about the idea that people think the way of life shown in the harga is like ideal, simple good old days, I have to wonder like okay….where are all the disabled people? What happens to the people who are born with or develop for any reason, a disability which prevents them from fulfilling their ~role~ in your perfect little society where everyone is valuable for the labor they’re able to perform at all stages??????? And when you brought up the nazi codes in the directors cut, I realized it felt a lot like eugenics-the white supremacy, the controlling of breeding by the village, and that coupled with that distinct lack of a place for disabled people, it just makes you think.
Entertaining and insightful review as always. The whole film left me anxious as fuck,when they started doing the chanting ululations and stalling to eat at every meal,made me sweat. Definitely a Klu klutz Klan doing Coachella vibes.
On another note Christian's actor pushed for himself to be nude when he left the shed. He said in many horror films women get their final scare or are killed while nude or otherwise not covered and he thought it was only fair that the same thing be done to him
That's very sweet and knowledgeable of him to do that. I only wish more people saw that scene and what further happened to his character for the seriousness that it was.
So the guy is just a jerk in the movie 😭 aww that was a great thought and addition he brought to the film! It definitely made me feel like he was truly vulnerable, the way we see women in these films
An accurate point that I'm glad he highlighted. I also had to stop my immediate response being "Ballsy".
@@victoriashevlin8587 dammit you almost made me snort tea out my nose.
sexy man energy
Even more horrifying is when they're putting Christian in the bear, you see them measuring his legs. When they show the bear again you see that they are going to have to cut his legs off to fit in the bear. So that means he is already in agony before they even set him ablaze. And he's too drugged to even scream. I mean, damn.
Oh my
Yeah, F that. I don't care how much of a jerk he was, he didn't deserve ANY of that.
Oh fuck 💀😭💔
@@FabalociousDee None of them deserved their horrible fates.
i missed that too, sheeeesh
About white supremacist imagery: it's not just dog whistles or "bad vibes", there's literally a road banner they drive by that reads "Stop the mass immigration to Hälsingland, vote for a free North this autumn". The mental gymnastics people go through to try and portray the cult as this new family and support system that Dani always needed is truly disturbing.
When I saw the nazi book I thought there was gonna be a plotline that the Harga were founded by Nazi mystics (since the Nazis were a bunch of fucking nerds and weirdos on top of genocidal fascists)
It wasn't a coincidence that blue eyes blond haired character was the one to survive and preyed on
I Feel the ones trying to defend it are probably going to be more at risk for being recruited into cults themselves. Which is scary.
I honestly don’t see the white supremacy stuff..... Sweden has always had blonde haired and blue eyed people. Long before hitler.... it has to do with the Nordic dna and stuff that they have. Also Sweden was very much impacted during ww2 and so obviously those aftershocks would still be felt in modern times. They were occupied at one point I’m pretty sure. On that point however I find it more interesting that hitler was a leftist and more people share in his political views than they care to admit. I’m waiting to see someone do the math, and I’m sure they have somewhere, on the correlation between these groups of people. The people I personally know who thought this was a good ending for Dani and would want to be with the cult share almost all of hitlers political beliefs outside of the evolutionary science. Some actually do though.... the scary thing is they have no idea until I bring their attention to it ,and they only slightly freak out before saying I’m lying to them about the guy. That’s scary. They don’t even know but they vote and influence others around them. I’ve heard so many say “the means justify the ends”...... regardless of how many people died in this movie
@@vikkidonn if you don’t see it you are literally actively avoiding looking for it lol
Midsommar is one of those films where the audience response is almost as much a part of the message as the actual film itself. That so many people are charmed by the cult despite the horrific acts of violence they commit exemplifies how white supremacist groups are able to recruit intelligent, seemingly good people.
Well said! I remember when I watched it in cinema, my friends and I walked out deeply disturbed 💀💔
And the crazy thing is, I can see Ari Aster being frustrated yet finding it predictable that most people missed that message in his film. He was practically beating the audience over the head with it. I only saw bits of the film and I noticed that before the video essays came out so how on earth are so many blind to its obviousness?!
Still don't get the white supremacy connections. Of course there are no black people in the rural countryside Swedish cult. It's a rural countryside Swedish cult. They probably haven't even seen black people before. Race is hardly brought up from what I've seen. I mean, they gave the white man here a worse death than the colored people. I think the message is more 'cult' focused and other cult like organizations. Which white supremacy organizations do fall under, but there are also like, dozens of other comparable organizations like black supremacy groups that'd fit too. I just don't get how it specifically is about white supremacy.
@@arieson7715 they didn't say that the people in the movie were white supremacists or the person who made the movie made it to symbolize white supremacy . they said that film reminded them of how white supremacy works and recruits people. And don't call people of colour , "colored people"
@@arieson7715 did you miss the part where she mentioned the book in the directors cut or are you actively choosing to be dense. that was a decision made by the director so how can you deny that it doesn’t apply?
This movie was absolutely terrifying and the whole thing was a perfect show of how people are manipulated into cults. Nightmare shit. *shiver*
Facts! One of my favorite parts of this movie is that the audience is represented by Dani. Both walk into the story of midsommar knowing the evil that cults can commit and knowing they’re brutal and manipulative, having been raised in a modern society. Yet both exit the story believing that it has a happy ending. The fact that this film showed the power of manipulation via cult mentality by successfully manipulating not only Dani but the REAL WORLD AUDIENCE. I’ll never stop raving.
@@turnleft967 The amount of people I saw saying it has a "happy" ending was concerning to me. Like, please, do not go walking into any organization that says we want to be a family, while have exactly 3 blinks per minute.
@@turnleft967 I can't handle horror very well so I don't plan on seeing this movie, but watching reviews on the film are so interesting. Just like you said, the audience is being indoctrinated, we are getting brainwashed with Dani, we smile and thinks it's a happy ending because that what the cult told us to do! I saw a review that pointed out a possible reason why people are happy after watching this film is the spike of dopamine you get at the end from all the small answers that show up. "What's the bear for? Oh, that's what the bear's for. What happened to the black guy? Oh that's what happened to him. What do they do with the yellow house? Oh that's what they do with the yellow house." After the hours of watching this being tense and paranoid, just that little bit of release is enough rush to convince us we're "happy" even though you're nowhere near.
@@mellymel8876 I had that happy ending thought until a good night's sleep. Then I realized the trauma of it all. I think it just exposes the minds of others. A weak minded person would be quick to be manipulated by the movie into desiring Dani's ending but a stronger minded secure person would see very quickly all of the horror and terror here.
I wasn't scared by this movie, but now I understand why someone would be scared. I just feel like watching a cult documentary or looking at the reality in the world right now is a better way to convey that concept. The movie itself failed at connecting with me personally, so I disliked both Hereditary and Midsommar. I thought the director did a bad job at developing everything. Hereditary is just a rehashed version of Rosemary's Baby which was done better, and Midsommar took a concept that's used a lot and somehow was turned pretentious and dull. That's just my opinion though.
One of the most disturbing things about this movie to me is when, at the end, the local sacrifices were given a drug that was supposed to have resulted in the lack of any pain, and the participants believed it!! The shock in their eyes when they could feel themselves burning was so saddening but unsurprising to me, that they had such faith in people who were willing to kill them. The realization that they’d been lied to their whole lives was far too late, and they were so surprised.
Also, I never picked up on the concept that Pelle’s parents died in a fire… does that mean they lied about the ritual happening every 90 years??? Idk, very interesting movie😬😶
Oh wow! Your so right! Maybe they aren’t lying about the fire but Pele could be older than he seems! Kennie did say from 18-36 they travel so he could be much older.
That part was really interesting to me because it seems as though in order to mimic the screams, the audience has to believe the people inside are screaming in “solidarity” as well, or are choosing not to question why tf they’d be screaming if they couldn’t feel it…. In regard to Pepe’s parents dying in the fire, we do not know anything about the 4 sacrifices that were selected to match the outsider sacrifices. Nor do we know the age(s) at which people are chosen to procreate. Nor do we know how old Pele is. We ASSUME he is the same age as people in college at the time but he could be as old as 36. We also don’t have any insight into the other rituals that occur that could have similar (sacrificial) aspects as this one. I DO believe it is to be insinuated that his parents died as sacrifices, but that is all we can conclude.
I feel that they lied about the ritual only happening every 90 years. If you look at the pictures Dani looks at with the former Midsommar queens, it is far more frequent than that and the Midsommar queen is supposed to pick the final sacrifice.
@@ObsidianTender I think this is a common confusion/misconception that people keep happening with the movie. They celebrate the Midsommar every year. Every year when they celebrate, they perform certain rituals like wearing the white traditional clothing, the feasts, the dancing, the selection of a may queen and then her job of blessing the next year's crops. Also, we can assume that every year, the young people that went traveling come back with new people to bring in either for breeding purposes or marriage. They do NOT sacrifice people every year. They only do the specific sacrifice of 9 people every 90 years. If you do the math, it tracks with the life cycle milestones that they use in the village- 18, 36, 54, 72, 90. What they might do regularly is have a symbolic sacrifice instead of a human one. In the director's cut, there is a ritual by the river where it's a very interactive performance as they tell a story and choose a boy from the village to sacrifice (and admittedly it's unclear whether they really would have gone through with it or it's just a performance to get Dani to participate by pleading for his life), but this could be something they do instead of murder. The movie doesn't make it especially clear what rituals are annually and what movies are almost-centennially, but I think with a village that looked as relatively small as that, it would be difficult if they had to sacrifice potentially 5+ of their own people every year when, at least for this year, they only brought one new person into the cult and killed off the two that would have been used for potential breeding purposes (since pregnancy isn't guaranteed with a single encounter and all).
@@chamomint Your explanation makes far more sense, thank you!
You are correct, one should NEVER take hallucinogens when they are not in a well-balanced mental and emotional space. It's the quickest way to a bad trip, and people have really lost it when taking the risk.
ETA: When Christian is sewn into the bearskin, it's a form of torture. As the building burns around him, the bearskin would begin to dry out and shrink, simultaneously shielding him from the heat so he lives longer and also shrinking down to crush him alive. For the friend who had his lungs pulled out, that's what's known as the Blood Eagle. It was something the vikings were purported to do to some of their enemies.
What a terrible day to be literate. Damn. Thank you for sharing, though 😅 I learned something
@@nonchellent Yeah, history is often an ugly thing. 😅😬
This was the first comment I saw when I minimized the video after this point came up
I would also think that he would begin to fry being surrounded by the bear fat.
@Erin Haury Your knowledge base is fascinating, friend. Also you're dead on about hallucinogenics. They can be beautiful and healing but the thought that her friends gave her mushrooms when they knew what had just happened to her means that 100% of them were either ignorant or insanely negligent and self-absorbed. Given that they're college students we can assume ignorance, but still. Terrifying.
also christian wasnt just paralyzed and burned alive-he was also *dismembered to fit into the bear,* a detail i didnt even notice until my fourth or fifth viewing of the movie. when hes laid out on the table at the end, its a split second to notice but they pull out chicken wire. and if everyone remembers, HE FELT ALL OF THIS AND COULDNT EVEN SCREAM. what a nightmare. probably the nastiest fate in any horror movie ive ever seen
You really have to ignore a lot to think of the ending as a happy one
Thought I caught everything after 3rd viewing. Didn't even think Christians legs were cut short. Ari did a such good job that some Audience members sorta got "Brainwashed" by sympathizing with Dani burning Christian alive.
That makes a lot of practical sense too... also aren't everyone in the sacrifice legless? Like Ingemar and that other guy from that commune were sitting in those robes and didn't they not have legs? Just like the other taxidermised friends of Dani?
I think there's different cuts of the movie. the one currently on netflix doesn't go quite this far, it only shows them lift up his robe to expose his shins and then jumpcuts to him in the bear suit. but it only makes sense that his limbs were removed. it's wild how much is gone unshown/unsaid. almost makes it even more terrifying
I keep rewatching that scene but I can't see the chicken wire 😭 could you give a more detailed description? I'm dying to see it for myself now. I probably would've never noticed it.
when we watch cult documentaries a lot of people always say “how can they be tricked into a cult??” but then those same people watch midsomar and say that dani had a happy ending and that the cult helped her even though all her friends were killed and chopped up 😩 cults prey on people like dani, like them flowers and pot pies didn’t distract me from the fact that this is a whole ass cult and everyone got sucked in 😂
Exactly! People valued her happiness over the lives of her friends and boyfriend honestly 😂 that was the most horrific ending.
@@ryry4062 she was definitely not happy but I for one was relieved not to see her in that fire compared to him which is fucked up ik. This movie just gives the most complex somewhat hypocritical feelings about so much that went down & too much happened too fast. Like..
I'm surprised that I didn't realize during it that it was a wh1t3 supr3m4c1st cult but I still wasn't brainwashed to the point of thinking the ending was happy. I just remember being confused as to why people thought it was a happy ending just because she was smiling. Like people were still killed and tortured.
When Kennie said, "nope! No, ma'am. Notmy black ass. It's too many white people!" I felt that in my bones. As a person of colour, it really be like that sometimes.
Exactly
Lmao period 😭😂
Facts
It's just an immediate😂 sense like yup I'm not staying here
Same. Couldn’t pay me enough to be part of that mess.
The scene where the women of the commune was mimicking Dani's crying was truly horrible, that isn't real empathy. Empathy entails giving the person space and freedom to process and interpret their own experience, in short, it means giving a person voice. The women's cries effectively drowned out Dani's cries, and so her own agency to interpret what she just experienced has been taken away, that is the opposite of empathy.
honestly if I had a group of friends that all started screaming with me when I was incredibly upset and screaming, I'd be thrilled, free therapy (I do have panic attacks and start screaming like that sometimes). you're right though, that was clearly not an attempt to be understanding of her situation or helpful to her at all
Honestly if anyone did that when I was grieving I would tap out and leave because that feels like I am being made fun of. So you really hit the nail on the ball on this one
It would also psychologically act as a means to neutralize her feelings behind her cries of anguish as she learns that the effect of her emotional expression is futile.
This is a clear example of her being disempowered as an individual, even though some claim that she's empowered at the end of the film. It's like her figuratively having her tongue cut out or her vocal chords removed.
Exactly and it just brought back memories of school bullies taunting one of the non-verbal autistic classmates in my primary school. The boys mimicked his grunts and murmurs when he produced the sound. Ari made the scene so alien that maybe some ppl just got took out by the strangeness and how Dani seemed to feel better might have misled casual viewers and made them failed to notice how very childish and mocking the act actually is.
@@EatyourWafflesplease Also, they didn't just screamed with her, they OVERscreamed her, overtook the rhytm of the crying and slowly but surely modulated it into a controled kinda humming sing-song-y scream of their choice, and like any choir teacher will tell you, if you are not careful you can get lost in a vocal group and end up singing badly in a tone that is not yours because you were dragged by the surrounding voices.
They literally robbed her feelings, modified it and "gave it back" to her in the form they desired her to feel it.
As a native Swede watching the movie, I really think knowing and being able to read Swedish enhances the feeling of building dread because HOO BOY some of the things these cultists are saying are MAJOR red flags that the english speakers (both characters and viewers) don't notice for the simple reason that they don't speak the language.
For example, when the group is driving to Pelles home village in the scene where the camera turns upside-down, there is a banner over the road proclaiming "Stoppa massinvandringen till Hälsingland. Rösta på Fritt Norr i höst" which translates to "Stop the mass immigration to Hälsingland (Hälsingland being the region of Sweden the Hårga are located in). Vote for Free North this autumn" which I'm sure I don't have to tell you- yeah major racist vibes.
I suppose that goes to show the amount of thought that was put into the creation of this movie, the fact that people from Sweden just instinctively recognise some things that will go unnoticed by everyone else, it's incredible.
Thank you for adding a Swedish perspective!
I was wondering what it was that text translated to! I could tell it was Swedish and I remember thinking immediately when they arrived at the village, "Fuuuuucckk. PaganSwedes.... Don't investigate!!"
Didn't know that! It's amazing the amount of details that Ari puts in his films. All the costumes that the Horgans were in the movie were also hand broidered in 100 year old lines and were full of hidden messages and symbology.
As an example, the ones were wore by the old folks in the Athestupa and Christian at the end were marked with a rune of Tyr, symbolizing sacrifice for the community. Such as small detail that practically no one would notice, but he still decided to include
I don't speak Swedish, but the words Stoppa massinvandringen were not difficult to comprehend the meaning of. Definitely set the tone for the movie for me. It was funny though, since I was watching this with a friend and they hadn't caught the banner and were therefore barely aware of the white supremacist tones until the end.
@@icp7201 I really want to see the 100 page document that Ari Aster made on the Harga cult and lores. A lot of stuff and details he put are impecable
christian’s SA scene was genuinely the most disturbing shit i’ve ever seen. it haunts me.
But she's right about the chanting being a whole mood though.
Yyyyyyup it disturbed me so much. I'm someone who likes to say nothing disturbs me anymore and talk a big game lol and then a SA scene comes on and punts me into the sun for my hubris. Guess I deserve it
@@mzmendy it’s not a whole mood when the chanting is literally happening during the sexual assault wtf lol
@@elielelwy i didn't say what mood.
Just reading this comment I can hear the chanting/moaning in my head
There are times when there isn't any black female representation in a film and it makes total sense to me. Because there's no way a sister is about to be dealing with all this extraness. When it sounds like a situation in which you're gonna get hemmed up in the woods with some weird white folks, you know how to turn it down on the face of it.
Yeah the movie wouldnt be believable if Dani was a woman of color....we would be out of there in 2 seconds
I think two of the three POC characters leaving immediately is a nod to this.
@@mysteriiis very true
@@mysteriiis especially after the elder ritual thingie- like I’m surprised everyone didn’t decide to leave with them
@@mysteriiis i think them being european and not american is also part of it. i feel like they played on americans going like whoa cooky europeans am i right and dismissing the bad vibes as cultural differences
Nah I think Pele is the villain. 😅😅😅 he is absolutely the worst person in this entire movie but because Christian is so awful, it takes the attention off of Pele's completely narcissist and manipulative ways. Like Christian is horrible yes but only because its obvious. Pele not so much.
Thank you... he lured his "friends" into his cult to kill them. Like whaaaaaa???!!!
How is that okay?? And picking many people of color to kill... I immediately saw that white supremacy nod... and Christian and the dumb friend were only included to provide new seed for future white offspring.
You're absolutely right. When he calms dani down, in the moment you're rooting for him. But upon second or third watch, it really starts to sink in how insidious he is. Especially when you see in the director's cut that he had sent their photos etc ahead before they got to the village. Then realize AGAIN that they told dani welcome home.
yah he knew exactly what he was doing
I don't think he's a narcissist--I think he's a cult member. He's not doing it for his own benefit, he's doing it because he's so entrenched in the cult that he thinks like the cult and acts like the cult, just like all the other cult members.
Pele creeped me out from the beginning of the movie! I think he scouted out Dani and Christian. He wanted Dani to breed with and wanted Christian for breeding as well and just finessed them all.
I wouldn't have blamed Christian if he chose to leave Dani after her family's tragedy OR if he chose to stay with her even though his romantic feelings have died out because he genuinely cares about her well being. Neither of those are entirely "right", but they're understandable choices. HOWEVER, choosing to stay with Dani, not out of compassion, but for the selfish reason of not wanting to feel like the bad guy, is the one wrong decision he could have made. Especially because it was so clear through his actions and attitude that he didn't care. I get not wanting to live with the guilt, but don't half a*s your decision.
YES. That’s the thing that makes a difference, only do it because you WANT too, the other person doesn’t need you around if you’re just gonna make them feel inadequate and you’re just doing it to not look bad. Only do it if you care.
yeah thats something I didn't appreciate about Chris's decision to stay out of pity. I can respect not wanting to stay as her boyfriend but if he couldn't even bring himself to stay as a friend, he was doing himself and Dani a disservice by staying at all. Its not more humane and compassionate to stay out of obligation if youre not actually going to treat her humanly and with compassion.
But at the same time I also understand he may not have had it in him to expell emotional support and labor for a relationship he was already emotionally checked out of and doesn't actually want to be in, even if he tried. Everyone has a limit and theres only so much you can give to a person.
Which drives home how Chris should've broken up despite the tragedy. its not like their relationship was going to get better by him staying. it's almost guaranteed it was only going to get worse because he wasn't there for the right reasons, even if those reasons seemed noble and self sacrificial in and of themselves. he was just making things worse in the long run. plus a tragedy like that never heals fully. It wouldve been worse for dani to finally get over the loss of her family only to lose her boyfriend just after she finally recovered, God knows how long that could take. She may never have recovered. What was chris going to do in the event of that? clearly he wouldn't have wanted to marry her so prolonging the inevitable was really the worse option.
I think Christian was killed because he was the lest remaining "family" of Dani, and making her hate and despise him would make her closer to the group, AND Dani is in a total trauma state, she's probably not fully aware of whats happening!
and honestly, one of the scariest most sick movies I've even seen, it is a masterpiece, Hereditary is nothing compared to midsommar
interesting!! i havent heard this take but it makes sense to the psychology of how cults operate!! cults lovebomb, make their social group appear to be both desirable/unconditionally accepting/a safe harbor and then insidiously isolate/ake dependent vulnerable people.
fundie fridays does a lot on christian fundamentalism and culture if that tickles your fancy, a lot of fundie groups run on cult tactics.
@@caziis13 - nah. Both are like apples and oranges. One is not better than other. Both are good in their own way.
@@caziis13 - thematically both are same. One falls under supernatural genre and the other is a tragedy
They definitely made it seem like she had a choice when she chose him to die, but they were drugging them since they got there.
The great part of this movie is that the cult doesn’t just brainwash Dani, it brainwashes YOU. Not only are some shocked by how ppl think this is a good ending for Dani, like Ken, but people are even shocked with themselves for being happy for her. It messes with you DEEPLY. It is also way better than hereditary by a mile
I remember the first time I watched it, at the end when Dani is smiling, I did feel a feeling of warmth and like “oh, she’s found a family” and then I remembered what those people did. It’s truly terrifying.
it definitely brainwashed me the first few times I saw it, especially bc it was not too long after I went through a bad breakup. Goes to show how affected cult tactics are
I was just thoroughly disturbed and disgusted the entire way through.
@@RisaPlays Same. I literally was so disturbed that I had a panic attack and nearly threw up after watching the movie (I have anxiety and don’t usually watch horror specifically because it messes me up).
@@M33PSTER I hope you're okay now.
The scariest thing about Midsommar is how people irl reacted to it. I could write it off as a clever but meh movie, but the fact that so many real people not only agree but even glorify this shit is horrifying
Seriously, like I want to just be like, “wow that’s an interesting movie” and move on, but peoples reactions are disturbing.
There’s a lot of very hurt, very damaged people out their that would want that sort of “love.”
@VVotchMe * I wasn't at that part of the video yet, but yeah^ However I meant it more as the movie itself to me is kinda underwhelming. I only watched it after seeing the reviews it got, which made it interesting and revealing . It's a beautiful and well written movie, but by itself it's not all that scary and too quiet and slow for my taste but to each their own. Brilliant movie if only for the discussion
This
@@umniya3076 this is exactly how I felt about it
I'm glad that I'm not the only one who thought, 'If someone was copying me while I was crying to the point of wailing, I would attack them like a feral dog.'
Exactly like
To me it looked more like they were mocking her rather than empatising with her. Which is disgusting.
Really shows how lonely and broken Dani is if even this mockery of sympathy is enough to lure her to feel loved and become part of the Harga
In relation to your comment about shrooms: yes, psychedelic mushrooms need to be taken when you feel safe & are in a good mental space. The first time I tried shrooms, I was camping with a group of people. I personally really enjoyed my experience & felt like I worked through a lot of my personal issues that i was dealing with at that time. HOWEVER, I was in a good mental space to be taking them & with people I deeply trusted to watch over me. There was another girl there who also took them & was very anxious to try them because she had recently (I mean less than a week recently) experienced a traumatic event. It caused a horrific experience for her & had there not been sober people there to protect & help her, I'm not sure what would have happened.
i almost ran away from home on shrooms bc i heard distant sirens and somehow assumed the cops were coming to get me😬😬😬😬 one of the worst nights of my life lol
I'm glad that she was protected by your group of friends I hope shes doing better :(
I took shrooms with an ex and man never do that. Convinced we will always have a connection
Having a trip sitter IS SOOOO IMPORTANT along with getting your dose right. For your first time, ALWAYS START SMALL. Had an experience where we were in the woods and my tripsitter guided me to a restroom. Suddenly, I wasn't in the pretty, idyllic forest where the flowers were singing lmao. I was in this tiny, lightless mechanical hellscape where the sink drain and trashcan had deep, guttural, satanic voices. She knocked on the door asking if I was okay and that she's there for me. I opened the door and she snapped me out of it xD
So sorry you went through that, hope you are in a good mental place still.
That being said, your experience is unfortunately not too surprising to me. When studying psychology, I learned about how different substances interact with our body/brain chemistry and how a lot of drugs, but specifically hallucinogens, can have adverse effects on those who are dealing with trauma or in an otherwise poor/compromised mental state. I say CAN, everyone’s neurochemistry is a little different, so it might not affect everyone that way, but it does happen with some frequency.
Of course, there is also the practice of micro dosing certain patients with LSD or other hallucinogens to try and help treat certain mental disorders, but that is done at extremely low dosages and under the careful supervision of licensed physicians, so I definitely don’t think that is what is taking place in Midsommar.
I’m not a phd or a psychologist or anything yet tho, so please take my words with a grain of salt! :)
Yes yes yes!! For anyone who has studied religious extremism/“cult” mentalities, Midsommar is a shining example at how anyone in a vulnerable state/place in life (experiencing grief and loss, for example) can be swept up into a cult or similarly extreme, isolated sect. It doesn’t take a uniquely “broken” person to join a cult or fall into extremism. Cults prey on our very human tendencies to seek care and reassurance when we are deeply hurting.
Also, holy shit, thank you for touching on the white supremacy aspect! Neo-Nazi and white nationalist organizations/cults absolutely use the tactics the Hårga use. To be totally frank, these groups prey on directionless or emotionally fragile white people who want a community so desperately they at first ignore and then fervently buy into the ideology wholesale. The rise of “tradwife”/“return to tradition” internet culture and the romanticization of the Hårga among fans of this movie definitely show that there are many “Danis” out there (regardless of gender) who have been torn up by the losses and traumas of life and who are looking for a community like this. It’s freaking scary, dude.
Yes yes. Ppl approached my sister and suggested her to bring our mother with her to their churches when they heard the struggle we are having. I think some genuinely think they r doing a good thing by bringing in a broken soul to the community they so trusted. However many who approached later tried to sell stuff or self-improvement packages to me and my sis just further alert us.
You ATE
Wonder how the people who were enticed by the commune would feel if the Harga was a bunch of POCs instead of fair skin, light hair folk.
Yes! Most of them find it appealing because of the whiteness of it all, add a few (or a lot) drops of melanin into the mix and suddenly everyone would start calling them out for being uncivilized and barbaric.
This is a great point! I wonder how it might be received had this festival took place among a secluded village set in some part of Africa. They might even be called primitive.
@@paidendenae They'd 100% be called primitive, trust me.
Interesting question. I haven't watched the movie, mostly bc I'm scandinavian, and I kinda feel rescentful over the fact that midsommar is supposebly portrayed as something cultish and whSupremasy. I love the real midsummer, which has nothing to do with skin color or hate for people, but all about love and procreation. That's what the flower crown symbolises. The real midsommar is already looked at something primitive, but not in a negative way at all to us, but only to outsiders. This just feels like, yet again, somebody non swedish came here, looked at it and saw it as something negatively primitive and weird.
Should I watch the movie?
@@LiMaking If it makes you uncomfortable, I'd say don't watch it. However, I have seen some people say that some cults in Sweden have used this imagery before (which again I cannot say if that's true or not since I'm not Swedish).
The only thing I can say is that even after watching the movie, I never saw the festival itself (what they were basing the cult around) as something bad. The cult and their tactics were terrifying, but not any cultural ties around it.
So I think it's moreso a decision you should make yourself. Be it because you feel disgusted, or culturally misrepresented, that has to be a choice you make. It's a movie after all, and you have every right to not watch it if it's unpleasant for you.
Again, this is just coming from a black lady living in the U.S. It's ultimately up to you if you feel this movie disrespected your culture.
ANOTHER thing I find entirely wild is that Pele was not included as a sacrifice SOLELY because he brought back the “useful” outsider. I’ve always been curious about the villager that brought back only two people of color. He KNEW he was going to end up being sacrificed as he invited them back. Which really demonstrates the way the cult has complete control over their minds. He didn’t even think to save himself or prioritize finding someone “useful”.
If I recall correctly early in the movie Ignemar mentioned how he went on a date with Connie before she got with her fiance and thought of himself as her boyfriend. I initially thought he brought her there because he wanted to get with her but now it seems more like a sick form of revenge for her 'wronging' him.
I thought Ingmar and the other guy volunteered to be sacrifices??🤔 Honestly, I always got the impression that he fell in love with Connie, who rejected him, and married Simon. So Ingmar brought them to Sweden specifically to be sacrificed. And then HE volunteered because maybe he felt like he didn't have anything to live for, since he was rejected by the person he loved (who was by then dead). Is that just MY theory? 😆😆
THANK YOU for really addressing the white supremacy in this movie. I think the obsession with the beauty and lifestyle that this cult portrayed really shook me to my core and added another layer of very real horror. People think this is beautiful. Even when people who are elderly, of colour, of different mindset must die in order to “preserve” that beauty. The realization that this lurks all around us, that people who think like this are face to face with us every day. So chilling. Another side of the coin to Jordan Peele’s racialized horror.
i think a lot of people find Dani's indoctrination liberating because her loneliness is very relatable. all her interactions with other characters are kind of awkward, christian and her friends don't actually want her around etc and i think a lot of people who struggle with loneliness and think their friends don't actually want them can relate to her and find it cathartic that she "found a community". but it becomes a problem when they don't question it and think a story about a cult exploiting the trauma and loneliness of a vulnerable person is actually empowering
That’s very scary to think about because loneliness is a very relatable feeling that everyone can have, including myself I think living a lonely life is one of my biggest fears and to think that a cult could profit off of that vulnerability in someone is scary.
I mean, that's textbook cult indoctrination. Find vulnerable person, give them the community they're craving. What are they going to do, willingly walk away from the "new family" they've just found and go back to being completely alone?
This is it though isn't it? People like Dani are the perfect targets of cults. Separated from all friends and family and there to be picked up and used by these people for their own ends.
No no. I was also baffled by the #girlboss things people had to say about the ending of this story...like y'all know what a cult is? They have a thing for going after those who are weak, whether emotionally or financially
Because those who said that have revealed themselves to be vulnerable to cults. If they were in Dani's shoes, they would have joined, which is incredibly concerning.
A proper #girlboss horror film, Ready or Not.
Midsommer was honestly way better in terrifying me than Hereditary because of how real it can be. Cults manipulate and prey on lonely and fragile people and pull them into their ideologies by offering a "family". Its honestly sad how many people would overlook that fact while watching the movie. I didn't feel happy for Dani, I felt sad and terrified for her.
I feel like the people who find Dani's pacification at the end of the movie to be a "happy ending" are just as bad as Christian.
They don't want Dani to heal from her trauma, they just want her to stop expressing her anxiety and stress so they can leave the movie without worrying about her.
It's normal to want to see her smile after seeing her in so much pain throughout the movie, but in no way is her temporary happiness worth a lifetime without autonomy in a cult that kills people and weaponizes drugs to force people to perform their rituals.
THIS
Not just a bad trip. Taking hallucinogenic drugs in a fragile mental state can lead to a full on PSYCHOTIC BREAK. A family friend of mine took LSD while he was struggling with depression, and he ended up jumping from the roof of his apartment building. He survived.
I mean it can but it won't always ymmv.
A former friends brother did LSD during a bad time and he it really ruined him. He was playing chicken on the highway before he ended up back at home (he was away at college) and unfortunately was later kidnapped and killed. Very sad all around.
Just a thought : I feel like the racial undertones of the Harga reflect , that if you decorate evil , people will refuse to see it. It was colorful , white , and filled with flowers. Everyone got along , but rituals were posted as these "tales" around the houses or farms. Spells (of you're from the south you know about the period blood thing way before this movie) being blatantly cast , and the human sacrifice. Due to it being dressed up , if you like their aesthetic of course you'd want to partake , you don't see it for what it actually is. How easily people are manipulated is what's really scary about this movie.
Also think the "May queen" thing is a way to indoctrinate more young girls without killing them due to being outsiders. They still need fresh blood to have kids with. I low key think they'll throw her to Pele. 🙃
Your first sentence is pure facts, because I bet the audience reaction would be sooooo different had this been a black or POC cult. Extremely
@@ayannabranchcomb7535 holy shit. I recognized the white supremacist themes when I saw the movie but I never once considered how the audience reaction would be different if this had been a cult of POC. Great point and I think you’re 100% right
Your first sentence reminds me of how people interact with the plantations in the American south. They’re decorated with flowers, fresh cut grass and paint and people will make excuses as to why it’s ok to get married on a torture/labor camp. Then of course there’s the general callousness and apathy to the trauma and history of Foundational Black Americans to go along with it.
This is the same danger that surrounds embracing other "traditional" aesthetics and lifestyle choices too, I'm particularly thinking of the vintage/50s aesthetic and how despite the pretty dresses and fun music, people of that time period were upheld to rigid social rules and discrimination was ingrained in people's minds
I haven’t watched this movie, but I am really confused about how people can perceive mimicking other people’s emotions as empathy.
Yes, empathy is an ability to understand and share other people’s emotions, but crying out loud because someone else, essentially a stranger (who you clearly don’t feel attached to, as you were willing to sacrifice 4 of the visitors at the beginning) is not empathy. You don’t feel what they feel, you just do what you see for no reason. This doesn’t mean you understand what they go through.
And I would throw hands, too. It resembles mockery more than it resembles empathy.
From actual psychological studies to "how to win friends and influence people" self-help style content, it's (generally) common knowledge that mirroring someone's expressions and emotions generally makes them not only feel at ease but understood and close to you. It's sort of a neurological hack. I'm sure that like most "soft sciences," it's not an actual law like say gravity or a chemical reaction, so I'm sure that it wouldn't work on everyone in every scenario. I certainly feel like you and Kennie, and that in that scenario I would feel mocked and not included. But mirroring, looking into someone's eyes steadily, and smiling after most of your statements are effective and commonly known ways to basically force people to feel good about you and close to you, regardless of how you actually feel about them or anything else, and even, to some extent, of what your words are. Given the usage in the story, I think the director wanted to make the cult's use of these manipulative techniques clear, so the audience knows that they are deliberately indoctrinating her and not sincere. Just a guess, tho.
Yeah, this reminds me of when i first saw the trailer before the movie came out, and the trailer showed a brief clip of the crying scene. I first thought that the cult members crying with her were mocking her by imitating the way she was crying.
Okay so the reason it works is basically what Kennie said: because Dani was used to being in an abusive relationship where her outwardly showing her sadness was treated negatively and even falsely framed as manipulative because Christian was that much on an abusive asshole.
She was being gaslit so much that she didn't believe her own feelings were valid, and because the cult was crying with her instead of saying she was hurting or manipulating them, it comes across to HER as healing because it's the opposite spectrum of abuse. It's lovebombing, and lovebombing is even more effective against someone who's been traumatized into hiding crying and emotions.
Effectively, because she's not used to any acceptance it feels good (and makes it easier to miss the red flags of it being an abusive tactic because Dani has no threshold for non abusive support)
@@aquaintsound okay maybe that explains a lot about why that scene was so cathartic for me personally, I didn't even consider that. overall I recognize that the cult is incredibly manipulative, harmful and unsustainable, I don't see it as a happy ending, only a temporarily cathartic one. but I'm so used to feeling like I have to repress my emotions in order to be more acceptable for others (I've been in a few relationships like the one in this movie, though luckily did not end with one of us burning in a giant bear suit) so now it makes more sense to me why my intial reaction to that scene was so positive. I'm fucked
This title >>>>> like she left darkness just to join a new form of darkness and I feel so bad. Also I never realized it, but Christian was sexually assaulted and I felt bad for not knowing, and that means her reason for being angry at him and also being glad that he was gone, is baseless. Ultimately the cult literally orchestrated Christian’s “affair” with that girl and poor Dani didn’t know that the cult she thinks loves her actually caused her pain, purposefully.
I don't agree that the "affair" was the only reason she was angry at him; she'd been looking for his emotional support since long before the cult stuff started and he always turned it around into her somehow harming him--she was realizing that he'd never actually been supportive for her due to/at the same time the cult started loveb*mbing her. She was realizing he sucked, which he did, at the same time the cult was manipulating her into thinking he was even worse than he was and they were her 'real' family.
@@cam4636 true true, but I think it was the final straw, but it wasn’t even his fault.
“All she did was leave one co-dependent relationship and go to another one.”
Honestly, another fun layer - I tried to watch this movie and couldn't make it through. I'm autistic and have serious sensory issues and this movie set them off to the point where I had to rip out my headphones and physically step away to recover. The movie/cult are constantly bombarding the viewer/visitors with stimuli (chanting, screaming, bright lights, bright colors, etc) which is super disorienting - especially if you're in a constant altered state via drugs and hallucinogens. Thanks for doing this video, I've been a bit in the dark over some of the details of this movie and was super excited to see your recap.
Im autistic too, and when they started screaming with Dani, I literally was on the verge of telling them to stfu😭I had to skip thru it, bc I cannot take loud noises like that
OMG, SOMEONE UNDERSTANDS, the stimulus was way beyond anything my mind could handle, and that included all the white-ness - the white clothing, the white walls, the white faces in the bright white sunlight. My main sensory overload usually comes from sound, but I sometimes, in extreme cases, suffer from some mild forms of synesthesia. I could HEAR the lack of color, to the point that it drowned out the sounds of color from the flowers. I felt like I was stuck in a void of static and hearing nothing but screaming, it was awful!
@@MelusinaRose I completely understand the synesthesia! I get sensory overloaded quite easily, in all forms really- in order of touch, with sound as a close second, sight and smells equally, then taste… and I do have that same reaction as you at times, it can be quite disorienting. Smells can blindside me at times!
I reign it in quite well in emergencies: I’m a frontline clinician, but when I am not hyper focused on critical/necessary tasks? Nope. I can’t even handle papers being out of line on my desk or my pen being in my left pocket vs my right pocket 😂
Sometimes I turn sounds off and just watch captioning (it’s always on and I’m used to it, my husband of 27 years and both kids are deaf, as well as MIL who lives with us). I turn down brightness, or simply take a break and come back to it when I can. 🤷🏻♀️ This was definitely a great breakdown and hit on many of my thoughts! There were things I didn’t see through the comments as I’ve only seen it once, but I definitely picked up on all of the ominous undertones and did not find this a “girl boss” movie! It’s awesome we have all found a way to enjoy it and participate in the conversation around the movie! There is definitely much to be said!
@@maximumeffort78 My fellow kin! Also, my deepest respect for your job, I can only imagine how much harder it would be for people like us to work such a high-tension job. I myself work as a janitor, after hours for the building, meaning I'm alone and can put headphones on and such. I don't think I could handle a job like yours. Mad respect. Cheers, mate, and thank you very much for your service and the help you give to others!
As someone who was in a cult and having experience SA... you summarized this movie very well. The most horrifying thing most of all is loss of autonomy.
You were in a cult? Is it okay if I ask what it was like?
@@infinitusfinitus I don't even know if I can summarize it properly in a few sentences other than it was weird. If you watch videos on the final fantasy house (the down the rabbit hole video is good )
It's basically that but with our own OCs.
I met them when I was 13-14. Which is a time that you just struggle in general to find your identity.
@@infinitusfinitus The best way to describe it in general I think is that you are in your own bubble/world. You create drama/whatever surrounding each other and everyone outside of that bubble isn't "in the know". So you feel special.
@@Littllebabydoll wow, I'm sorry you were caught up in that. I heard about the final fantasy house years back, and I'll never forget it. Have you considered making a video or writing about your experience? Those are the kinds of cult behaviors we don't hear as much about.
@@infinitusfinitus kind of? But I'd rather just keep it to myself. I'm worried the people who are still in i5 will find me since I have them blocked on every social media platform but this one.
I think a scene that really encapsulates the realities of the horror around them and everyone’s (and as extension the audience’s) willingness to ignore it is when they are all going around doing their own things, you hear Connie scream in the background (as she’s being murdered). Everybody pauses, looks up (including the students) and then shrug it off and continue with what they were doing. Chilling.
Does anyone else feel like Pelle's parents"dying in a fire" was possibly like the ritual at the end of the movie?
Wow, more than likely
Honestly, I have never heard anyone else talk about race and this movie and I'm just now realizing it. I never noticed the racial implications in this movie were so blatant and I'm so glad you brought it up at the end bc how tf did I miss that!!
I saw another channel bring up the white supermacy but I feel that Kennie added a lot more to the conversation by exposing the fact that most people still see white as the default or the superior way to do things
Midsommer a movie along with Saint Maud that confirms fire hurts. Especially when covering your body.
I know I'm old because I learned that one from Wickerman. ...the original one.
@@kill4551 yes, oh my goodness, love that movie. The Wickerman was the main reason I wanted to watch Midsommar. Love folk horror.
Who would've thought 🤔
As someone who is really interested in horror but can't watch it cause I can't cope with horror visuals I watch a lot of video essays, especially on Midsommar, and I think this is actually the first video that outright uses the R Word when talking about Christian. It actually dawned on me just before you said it, and really struck me that of all the times I've seen someone say "hey this movie ISNT a heroic triumph over Christian" I never heard "the Cheating Scene, the catalyst for his death, was him being raped". I think it's impressive how this movie puts Christian in a lot of positions that women are usually faced with in horror, and just by having the victim be a shitty guy suddenly the audience forgets what they're seeing.
if anyone says midsommar is a good for her movie... i just give the narrow eye look, like I'm not judging but I'm judging
It makes me concerned for the person 😭
Judge dude! Judge! And move faaaar away from that person ASAP.
Are you Ghanaian?
@@re-newed5312 I'm Igbo, Nigerian
@@re-newed5312 i am Ghanaian
It's really exciting when I find Africans who watch the things I do especially Kennie.
People I know don't...at all. Lol.
I'm Ghanaian too. HI to both of you😊
One thing with this movie that I haven't seen really get discussed is how parts of the cult's disturbing and red flag actions are excused by the group under the pretense of it being a culture they're not familiar with (see 18:58). And I get it; other cultures have different values and traditions that shouldn't be demonized just because they are different than our own. Buuuut I also think there's a difference between not being loud/making a lot of noise on the train vs ritualistic murder of the elderly at an arbitrary age. Maybe just me?
That's actually in the movie itself--after witnessing the human sacrifice, the outsiders are, understandably, freaking out. The cult leader immediately starts trying to play into their sympathy and explain how the suic*des are part of their sacred belief system and the whole thing is ~beautiful~ and ~spiritual.~ Then when the British couple, aka 2 of the 3 people of color in the place, demand to leave anyway, they're kept quiet and secretly killed too.
It fits with how the Hårga (and most other cults) create this perfect idealistic scene to eventually make the victims believe everything they're seeing is okay. The group could put the early red flags down to 'cultural differences' just fine, but even once they're thrown in the deep end and see this horrific sacrifice they want to believe that idea of simple commune life and beautiful flower fields is real.
The thing about antagonists (as someone who hasn’t watched this movie cause I scare easily), is that you can have more than one. Christian is an antagonist, specifically to Dani and Josh, but the Harga are also antagonists to literally everyone in the movie that isn’t a part of their cult. Josh and the other two unnamed visitors died, Christian was sexually assaulted, paralyzed, and burned to death in a bear suit, and while Dani survived (for now since she’ll be offed at 72 if not sooner), she was manipulated by Pele when he related to her to make the cult sound more appealing and then again during Christian’s assault since no one told her he was drugged. Cults are bad kids.
Exactly. Antagonists are not the same as villains. Also just letting you know, the other two characters did have names: Connie and Simon. They were minor characters but we did learn a little bit about them and it was pretty rough how they died. They are engaged and both react how any normal person would upon seeing two people kill themselves, they freak out and want to leave. The Harga sort of scold Ingemar (Pelle’s brother who brought them) and try to manipulate them by saying it isn’t what it looks like, it’s beautiful. They still aren’t having it and want to leave, Simon tries to get a ride to leave while Connie packs. Soon Connie is told that Simon left without her, though she questions it the entire time, and is gaslit into believing it. They tell her she will get a ride tomorrow. The next day comes around and Dani asks if anyone has seen her to which Mark, the dumbass friend, says “I saw her practicing for track and field.” One of the Harga pipes in and says “oh, I actually gave her a ride to the station.” And the entire rest of the cast believe him and dismiss it. When Christian and the others are placed in the triangle later, we see her body is completely full of and/or covered in shrubbery. I assume Mark saw her trying to escape and unfortunately she was caught. It’s fucking vile tbh.
How can you truly say this when you haven't watched the movie. You're going by kennie's account of the movie. This is the definition of a biased opinion
@@joseribamarjr5164 @José Ribamar Jr There can be more than one antagonist in a story. That is a factual statement. The people were drugged and/killed exactly as she referenced. The information came second hand but the events happening in the movie can be confirmed by multiple sources including summaries and direct clips of the film online. Those are facts about the plot that can be confirmed without watching. So everything that she referenced in her original post was factual except for the opinion that cults are bad.
I'm sorry, are you trying to make the argument that she's not allowed to express an opinion on a piece of media that she hasn't experienced first hand or are you trying to argue that cults are, in fact, good?
The SA scene also rubs me in that it’s rare to see “average” women bodies nude on film and it’s presented in this horrific way. Gives me body insecurities to be honest.
True, I feel like some people were laughing at this scene (ughhhh) because it was "shocking" to see a nude older woman or something... tired of natural bodies being used for shock purpose :((
With Christian being stuffed in the bear and calling him the "Beast" and all the hype of his "actions" I saw that as them killing their version of "the Devil," or otherwise a "symbol of all their sins being purged," like with the Crucifixion. Like, through them burning him and the other sacrifices, they were washed of all their fucked up sins from the movie (i.e. murder, rape, etc.).
Oh shit, that makes a lot of sense. Essentially a way to sorta dissociate themselves from their horrid actions to keep this cults practices going.
the way that people actively playoff Christian's s/a as cheating to villainize him I-- I've seen it happen so much and like wtf??? did you not see him get drugged??? Did we watch the same movie??
For me the issue is that he entertained it, at all. Even before he was drugged he was thinking about it, and Maja is under 18. Obviously its wrong they drugged and took advantage of him, but the fact he didn't immediately shut it down while sober (since he KNEW she was 15-16) is also disgusting
@@hannahadams4522 Fair but you should keep in mind that he was sacrificed by the same cult that is offering underage girls to strangers. Killing Christian will not stop it from happening again. It wouldn't even have happened if not for them.
@@hannahadams4522 iirc he seemed to continuously say that he didn't want to and was explicit about that because of Dani? At least I remember that
My solution to the “well don’t leave the girl who’s family just died!” Is just like don’t go on the trip, get her a therapist, and leave after she’s ok.
Thank you for mentioning the lack of evidence on what happens to prior may queens, that part definitely got me thinking. Also with the way the cult treated outsiders as "new blood" for breeding I think that lends an even more sinister note to Pele's excitement/encouragement of Dani going on the trip. And yeah the ending is a moment of catharsis for Dani but we don't see how she feels about it with a clear mind. How does tomorrow's Dani react when she realized she's stranded with a bunch of murderers in a foreign country?
When the pube scene and pretty much any other damn scene but the SA scene (was pure silence) was shown, with that girl, there were a lot of "Ah HELL NO's" in my theatre that I participated in as well.
When I first watched Midsommar it was in theatre with my friend. I remember such undertones of racism while watching it and discussed with my friend (white) and she was like yeah I noticed that too. But since it was in the movie theatre we watched it we were like 100% sure so I decided to go on RUclips and watch reviews on it hoping that someone pointed out what I had watched. All the ppl at the time that reviewed it (I will say most not all because I watched a disgusting amount of reviews cause I wanted to confirm what I witnessed) and none of them touched on the racism. Yes the ppl that I watched reviews on were white which confirms TO ME that a lot of white ppl are STILL complacent in racism. It took about 1 year later to find a review on Midsommar where someone pointed out the white supremacy undertones of the movie. But I still judge all those ppl (yes I heavily judge them cause if you’re doing a review it’s your job to touch on all aspects) who never mentioned the white supremacy undertones of the movie because as a black person it made me feel like I was reading “too deeply” into the movie. Anyways great review Kennie!!
They ignore racism because it benefits them. IF you say anything about racism they will gaslight you and make you think you see racism where it doesn't exist. I would never hung out with these people knowing that they are indifferent to my discomfort or might even enjoy my pain if not hurt me themselves!
I think an important factor to take into account is that perhaps they couldn’t recognize it?? Because they don’t have the same experiences, they haven’t been exposed to it, so they don’t as often pick up on it. However, I agree with you that as a reviewer it is a responsibility to make sure you review all the aspects of a film, making sure that you understand or at least recognize those aspects, because it will effect how people view the film
Now I would like to disclose that I am a white person, and I understand that I will never fully understand the experiences that people of color experience, so I know I don’t really have a say in issues regarding these topics.
“If you get invited to a midsummer festival odds are you won’t get sacrificed”
I'll play safe and stay away
It's gonna be a no from me, dawg
I don't think anyone who saw this and recognized the danger signs is now willing to go if they get invited to a midsummer festival.
That being said, could you imagine living in a country that holds one every year who watched this? Man, if I were Swedish I would be inviting everyone and their dog to one just for the reactions.🤣🤭
TBH, all the ppl who ended the movie thinking “good for her” literally proves how good the movie is- the cult not only indoctrinated her, but was so good at it that it could indoctrinate the viewers too 😭
Mushrooms shouldn’t be consumed by someone with a weak mindset. It’s a psychological drug it’s based on you’re mind. So yeah Kennie you were right about the shroom thing
@sweet mint definitely agree
This movie's ending was reminding me of the ending to Rosemary's Baby. You can't say the main female character is 'free' they aren't. They are in fact trapped in another way but have now completely mentally checked out. Terrifying for similar reasons
I think it’s almost more terrifying because it looks so pretty and idyllic. Everything is so simple and it looks so easy, everybody looks so care free and happy and that is how they get you. It’s a reminder that bad things and bad people aren’t always in the dark and dressed in black hoodies or blatantly violent.
What I find fascinating is that all of the cult members have the opportunity to meet "outside" people and travel and yet none of them want to escape this cult and inevitably come back there to die
"Osama bin Laden was an otaku" is not something I ever thought I would hear in this video, or in general in an un-ironic way
I remember when my friends were so into the cult's aesthetic and they want to use for our yearbook theme. I was sitting there like " .. Yall wanna dress up as a cult? " They are ignorant tho i know they dont even truly know the danger of cults and the fact that they are into the aesthetic. It's crazy.
I think you have a good explanation of the SA scene. They did "beautify/romanticize" it. They made it woman focused, almost beautiful, had both parties been consenting, sure, the ritual would have that mystique air to it. But when you know Christian is drugged and during and before that scene, he was not okay, he was scared and confused. And it just intensified during and after the assault. It was scary
The fact that some people think the ending is happy is a perfect example of how cults trick and manipulate people into joining them.
I wrote an article on the film's white supremacist/nazi imagery and fascism delved into a lot of examples. Something you touched on with Josh I actually wrote about and I haven't really seen anyone else talk about it. I watched it a year after it came out and didn't understand how people grouped it in as a "good for her" "girl boss" movie, also I'm black so I couldn't ignore it.
Like WHY WOULD a black person feel okay visiting a probably highly racist remote all-white group with only white people? Josh's character believes that he is above the cult in a lot of ways, because of his intellect and research and the fact that he is a"good/model" black person and doesn't offend them". However he is just as bad as Christian if not kind of worse because he's not wilfully ignorant like Christian, he's aware of the cult's probable white supremacy. But the cult don't even see him as a viable or worthy of indoctrination or breeding because of his skin colour. He studies them as if they are lab rats and kind of doesn't see them as people but like a fascinating case study to dehumanise for research, not due/related to their white supremacy. He underestimates though, that they see him as worse than "nothing" and that he's not even worth indoctrinating to them because of his skin colour.
Article: cescawrites.medium.com/midsommar-the-horror-of-fascism-and-film-consesnus-7bd124f2e0fc
Im white but I took Josh's thesis as subverting the nature of the field of anthropology. Which has largely been occupied by white men doing the same thing with niche communities to enforce racist stereotypes.
I understood his motivations/passion for the thesis as him holding a mirror to whiteness. But its largely my headcanon, the point was never actually made.
@@dylankennedy4539 I think that’s an interesting way to look at it but, even so, that subversion in the context of this film gets you killed.
Josh, adopting the mindset of researching the group, reflective of the attitude held by white researchers (in the way you have pointed out) lands him literally in a ditch to soil the land the cult uses for crops (inadvertently he ends up serving them). He is no better off than if he was like Simon who went for more recreational reasons, who also gets killed and used for the cult’s benefit.
I think, if anything, it reinforces the film’s possible point that there’s no way out of colonialist frameworks (be it flipped/reversed or conserved) because we are still operating within them.
@Fran Your article was very well articulated.
@@melodie-allynbenezra8956 thank you so much
I'm glad my theatre, when I saw it for the first time, didn't laugh at Christian's SA scene. I am glad they took it seriously. I heard from some friends that a lot of people laughed and (in their experience mind you, not saying overall) it was mostly guys laughing. My brother laughed RECOUNTING it, but it was unnerved laughter. My theatre was silent and you could FEEL the uncomfortableness. It you saw the scene out of context maybe, perhaps you'd laugh intially out of shock or at the absurdity of it, but that goes out the door SUUUUPER quickly.
Thanks for pointing out the Aryan parallels of the Harga. I've only seen one video about it but I feel like there's more to be said.
This movie was scary as hell because it brought out the hideous ignorance of the general public in droves. Anyone who thought Christian had a 'deserved' fate are like Dani and very susceptible to cult mentality themselves. They're ignoring the obvious, manipulative predators rampant around them. Gee golly gosh, maybe this same mentality is why so many people can easily ignore racial supremacy in real life. The real actual horror of Midsommar is the commentary community who thought it had a girl power ending. SHIVERS!!
The thing about this movie is that for a split second at the end I DID feel happy for Dani. And then the horror of it crashed back down and I was terrified all over again not just for Dani but for myself. Because I just got brainwashed.
EXACTLY!!! That is the brilliance of the whole thing!
I have listened/watch a few commentaries on Midsommar and was really confused on the fact that there wasn’t more conversations about the white supremacy imagery and dog whistle terms being used by the cult. Their whole thing gave me a real “our founders started this commune in the late 1940’s when they immigrated from Germany” vibes. colonia dignidad style for sure.
Also when Pele said his parents died in a FIRE, I immediately thought about that scene with Dani when I saw them light the barn on fire
Yuuup
I always thought the ending of Midsommar reflected the "positive" ending of Brazil. Yeah, the bad guys won and the protagonist has lost her mind, but at least Dani is now so blissfully insane she's spared the torture of realizing she's lost.
Huh? Do you mean you saw parallels or did you genuinely thought the movie had anything to do with Brazil?
@@SuperLoves4 Only a parallel in the mind-breaking ending. I would be GENUINELY surprised if these two movies were connected, heh!
@@thehitherto5348 Ah, okay, sorry, got worried for a sec :D
The "Christian deserved it" reaction is proof of how easy cults work.
Granted what also worries me is that when anyone is very critical to someone who's fallen for cult tactics, the feelings from the criticism, eerily is kind of what cults use to recruit people.
They use any type of ostracization or negativity to their advantage(like Pelle did with Dani).
Online or not, it's hard to avoid being lured into groupthink. I'm a former larrie so, unfortunately I've had some experience.
The crying scene is probably the most disturbing to me.
At the ending I was actually happy for Dani.. until I remembered the great lengths they went to, just to kill her friends. Not to mention the old people being killed at a certain age. I could only imagine what may happen to Dani after that “Mayflower” scene, she had nothing left to go to at home, and now she’ll never want to leave. Instead of being manipulated by her boyfriend, she is now manipulated to her new “family”.
I think the reason people get tricked into being all "yay!" about the ending is because Aster wanted to make a point about white supremacist cult indoctrination by indoctrinating the audience. His choices as a director (framing, visual style, etc.) and as a screenwriter (pov, limited development for the characters of color who die and developing the white ones who die as dicks and assholes who "deserve" or "earn" their deaths, even writing Christian as the kind of guy who probably would cheat of his own volition if he thought he could get away with it, lovebomby dialogue from the Harga that goes unchecked, etc.) support the indoctrination of the audience, especially if they're ignorant of the real world resonances or if they hyperempathize with Dani due to their own experiences or general susceptibility to the cinematic tools at play (a.k.a. lack of critical thinking). Which is fair enough if he wants to make a point about how easy it is to get sucked in like that, but then you have the whole audience and the whole social narrative about the movie carrying forth that indoctrination uncritically instead of understanding the supranarrative criticism being made or even that there is a supranarrative criticism.
I wonder if the both intended and unintended reactions of this movie is as a lack of media literacy and/or lack of knowledge on cults.
This feels like another Fight Club or American History X issue where a director has a clear intent and interpretation but no control of the audience's critical thinking skills to get that same view. Art is....fun like that.
It feels like Aster needed to make a pamphlet to hand out after every viewing to explain "Cults are bad, yall".
also it doesn't help that most people didn't see the director's cut (i live in southeast asia and there's no way they'll even show the clean version on cinemas) so we have to find what we can on the internet. and even though the cult thing is dominant, from my first time watching, the white supremacy vibes that i get from "preserving the bloodline" part of the movie was really blurred because in reality, endogamy IS encouraged in many places (culturally and racially), whether we like it or not.
so at the end of my first watching, i see it more from a relationship perspective, fucked up gone-girl like break-up movie instead of kennie's perspective (it also doesn't help that when i watched it the first time my ex back then just cheated on me so the whole ending felt satisfying). now that i see kennie's video it really adds a lot to the perspective.
I did my thesis in analyzing modern domestic (american) white supremacy and this is by far my FAVORITE movie both as an art piece and a case study. Its fascinating bc the WS messaging is incredibly concrete and most people ive shown this movie to (white) are almost completely oblivious to the messaging until it gets directly pointed out to them (I could nerd out and explain why but long story.). One of the standout interactions of this movie is how this messaging collides with the graphic nature of Christians SA in the finale, specifically a fascists society's lust for retributive "justice". Midsommar just violently throws it in your face and its created a kind of meta horror that lasts till far after the movie has ended.
I know it's been 3 months since you made this comment and I don't wanna be *that* person lol, but if you're still willing to geek out over the specifics of why white people tend to be oblivious to the WS messaging from a more academic perspective, I would be intensely interested to hear more. Absolutely no worries if not though!!
@@vegemiteguzzler9783 No worries Im absurdly willing to geek out still. Im at work, will be back
@@vegemiteguzzler9783 okay so it boils down to a couple of things that we take for granted:
- Every white American (and arguably many westerners) is/are socialized into a conservative mindset from birth. This is due to the way that far-right rhetoric works and is disseminated. The average white westerner associates logic with one type of logic, factual logic. Not to over explain but the means of explaining phenomena in the observable world through a series of testable/provable statements. I see many of those focused on the far right describe what they do as emotional logic, which while it serves some function I don't think properly encapsulates what is being done (and hence why those who try to combat it have been unsuccessful). The far right is using a philosophical concept called "facts of existence (FoE)". FoE are logics that are treated as fact because we experience it in every day life. A good example of an FoE is "the sun rises every day". In theory we know, there may be a small chance the sun does not rise, but in human culture we accept this as fact because everyone around us has watched the sun rise each day. The way far right rhetoric works most successfully is through extreme consistency. Utilizing the same phrasing of concepts for decades without fail (in America "food stamps" are a good example of this). As the language is carried and digested through multiple generations and make it into the common lexicon it becomes a fact of existence and an idea that doesn't largely come into question despite it holding racist intentions.
- The way white supremacist/racist rhetoric is designed is to reproduce without "intention": i.e appear centrist/pragmatic on its surface for regular folk is LARGELY dependant on both FoE and the Overton Window. Imagine it like new more radical phrases get unlocked into social acceptance. "Cuck" is a good example of this as it used to be an immediate red flag for identifying a neonazi, an insular word insinuating antisemitic views (for white supremacists the "role" of the Jewish person is to "cuck" the white man out of acquiring white women and letting women enter the work force.). This word is now public discourse again, effectively masking who is using the word with the intent of antisemitism and who is not. But the thing is, as with all bigoted language, it doesn't matter if the person using the word "Cuck" intends to be antisemitic, it's still sending that message. And the user 99% of the time doesn't know it.
That's kinda scratching the surface but I've always wanted to do like an article on it or a video series or something but idk if it's a good idea lol.
@@nicoledempsey3415 Please do!!
Omg @33:17 I never thought a big youtuber would actually ADDRESS this!! 😭 Thankyou so much. People will try to gaslight you that there is no yt supremacy but Swedish people will tell you it’s very CLEAR and there are Swedish yt supremacist symbols in the movie and the director of the movie confirmed that there is heavy yt supremacy!
This was honestly one of the most terrifying movies I've ever seen. There were so many moments that made me extremely uncomfortable. Christian's scene with Maja was so disturbing I couldn't stop thinking about it for days. Knowing he was drugged (because I didn't realize when I first watched) makes it even more disturbing.
I don't think Christian was a good dude, but I also think he was put in a difficult situation and probably didn't know how to handle it. I don't think he deserved to die though. Dani was just in a terrible state of mind and probably wasn't even fully aware of what she was doing. Seeing her smile at the end kind of made me wonder if later, if she ever gets out of there, she will seriously regret it.
After rewatching, it's apparent Christian was going through depression as well but his feelings were never addressed bc of Dani's trauma. I don't believe he was ever meant to be a villian. Just a depressed guy stuck in a relationship he can't leave bc of how dependent his gf was. His detachment easily could be attributed to depression. He was also detached from his studies and friend group. He obviously loved Dani but they were bad for each other. Let's normalize not making yourself responsible for someone else's mental well-being.
Yeah agreed
He also lied, gaslit, and manipulated Dani, manipulated his friend for the thesis credit, and made his emotions everyone else's problems. He is in fact a villain. Just because the cult were the bigger villains doesn't mean an emotional abuser wasn't emotionally abusive.
@@cam4636 Dani murdered him, she’s a villain then too right?
Now I’m wondering if we watched the same movie because how do you interpret and excuse him being a shit ass boyfriend, a shit ass friend and human as just being depressed like 🧍♂️no baby he’s just not a good person and that’s ok! Not every character is supposed to be hyper nuanced and it’s very clear that he wasn’t written that way. And also, did the meaning of depression change while I wasn’t looking ?? Since when did depression mean lying, gaslighting and manipulating the ppl close to you for your own gain and benefit. He was not responsable for Dani’s mental health but there was no reason for him to worsen it.
@@cheeseisherelive753 Dani was drugged, emotionally and mentally manipulated by the cult at her lowest when she made the decision to kill him. Christian wasn’t all of those things when he acted like the world’s trashiest man to her. So no Dani isn’t the villain. Not really a good guy by the end obviously but not a villain
I'll fully admit, when I first watched the scene where Dani cries with the women of the cult, I falsely assumed that they were mocking her. Then again, I was constantly mocked by my mother when I cried, so I think mommy issues definitely had a play in my assumptions--
besides everything you said i think it's so scary how people completely ignore how everyone in this movie took advantage of dani's poor mental health and vulnerability not just christian when that's one of the scariest parts of the movie
As someone who has had a lot of family members join cults, I think Midsommar is incredibly valuable as a way of understanding the perspectives of people who are indoctrinated. It is not a happy ending, but being able to look through the eyes of the characters and see how they might feel loved and included even while their individuality and bodies are being sacrificed is a good warning of how easy it can be to fall into something like this
I believe Christian isn't as bad as everyone makes him out to be. He had a friend group separate from Danny's who encouraged the breakup and so he could have done that with little social consequences. He chose not to because he loved her on some level and would have felt bad leaving her after the murder of her family. That doesn't excuse his other toxic behavior but he definitely did not deserve SA and to be burned alive. He needed to stick to his guns break up with this girl and save them both the suffering of their toxic relationship.
I absolutely agree. He was a victim of their relationship too. He wanted out but felt obligated to stay. I don't think he was a bad boyfriend. He was depressed as well which could explain his detachment from Dani. They hint at it throughout the movie but because Dani's trauma was bigger, audiences completely ignored his issues.
I agree that Christian was emotionally checked out of the relationship. We didn't see that before the drama put a lot of her emotional toll on him. Plus I do get that he didn't want to break up with Dani when a emotional tragedy happend to her. He didn't handle things well but I don't he's a complete villain who deserved his fate at the end
I don't understand how people get so satisfied with his ending. Yeah, maybe his a bad boyfriend (I'm on the fence here) but he's not more villainous than... Idk... a cult??
@@blurryeyes316 I think people can relate to having an abusive/incompentent/apathetic partner more than relate to the experience of being in a cult. So it is easier for them to see how ‘bad’ Christian was and not the Harga.
@@kassakakasan8969 That's true, still yikes to all the people getting happy for her.
Regarding you saying ‘all PoC aren’t going to make it in this white village’ - I thought of it while watching the movie too, so I was surprised when I read the script afterwards (the version that was submitted for contests) and it turned out the casting was pretty much color-blind. Dani was imagined a brunette, Josh was imagined as a white man specifically, and I think the English friends were written as white too. Which makes it interesting how the reading of the movie can change during the production.
I think unless you're blonde and have non-brown eyes and aren't an idiot you will survive because to me it seems like this cult is obsessed with the Aryan race look to which my white brunette ass wouldn't be favoured lol
Honestly I think a lot of people's "positive" reaction to the ending really shows an interesting study in why so many people fall for religious sects. The cognitive dissonance is very real.
Lowkey loved the first hairstyle 😭 I was hoping we'd see more of it
Damn I thought Kennie was going to give us a rundown because I'm the biggest scaredy-cat and I will never be able to watch the movie but I want Kennie to tell me because she's a great storyteller. Still excited for this video though
I too had heard that there was a “good for her” ending, but more importantly I’d heard the whole movie is a metaphor for the death throes of a relationship- the awkward moment when one person is done but hasn’t broken it off, the roller coaster of emotion, the gradual separation of the couple and how the girl is often surrounded by other women trying to keep her positive while the guy often has a “rebound girl,” how a lot of times to move on the girl has to just cut all ties and metaphorically “kill off” the relationship to the guy, etc.
To which I ask- are the straights okay? This is not that. Even in an artsy fartsy way, this ain’t it, chief. Like someone literally was SA’d and then murdered, and the other one is basically trapped in a cult.
The fact that I never realized when pele said he lost his parents in a fire until kennie said it omg😭😭😭😭
People walked away from this movie thinking it had a HAPPY ENDING? That whole atmosphere gave me MAJOR ANXIETY from the jump. People in white dresses, finding joy in flowers and shit? No thanks. I'mma head out. Call your dad, you're in a cult.
BLESS!! Like I cannot fathom how people saw this as a “good for her” movie. I will admit it’s somewhat cathartic but in a surface level way. Like when she smiles at the end it’s like oh she’s happy!......but oh yeah it took All Of That to get her here. I completely agree with everything you said (except about the movie being better than hereditary hehe)
my fav thing about this movie is that on my second watch i noticed that when theyre high ppls faces in the background will be slightly distored and its the funniest thing ive ever seen in a movie of this seriousness
I have a theory that Dani will be sacrificed within a year of becoming a may queen to make room for another queen, or she will become Pele's wife, but go insane and die either way. I was so worried about Dani when the movie ended
I remember getting into a fight with some random girl on (surprise surprise) twitter because she kept saying how happy she felt for Dani at the end of the movie and how perfect and idyllic it would be to live in a commune like the one from Midsommar 💀
Watching this reminded me of how religious retreats are. The emotional exhaustion and the “relief” one feels after strenuous activity after activity sticks out to me. Everything is so out there. Bright. And in the open. But the shadows are just as concentrated as the light. And people who have been to retreats understand, you’re pushed into intense and overstimulating situations again and again after being desperate to be saved from something, anything and then at the end, you’re just empty. Dani’s smile was empty at the end and everyone who thought it was a happy ending thought of it as a breakthrough and i simply see it as a girl who was vulnerable, put in a position that is seemingly good for her get preyed on because all of the solutions were too clean, too perfect, to blinding to acknowledge that she wasn’t healing and at the end she was just as broken as the beginning
I'm mixed, because there are a lot of white supremacists in the US who have coopted Traditional European aesthetics. While in Europe, because Nazi and Communist imagery is banned many countries, American imagery is often used to identify white supremacists.
It’s crazy because after I watched this film, I was so deeply disturbed on another level I didn’t even know existed. But while watching not one single scene was typically “scary”.
Honest to god did not realize part one was four months ago..! Thank you for part two!! 🤗🥳🥰
The ending is truly the most scary part because of the fact we see the cult working and finally brainwashing Dani fully by taking a truly vulnerable person and roping her in with promises of a family and understanding aka what cults ACTUALLY do. We see her truly becoming broken and that is terrifying especially because it is completely possible, something that isn’t far out or crazy and could never happen. It’s something that happens in real life and that’s the terrifying aspect of this film
While definitely unsettling, I still think Hereditary is a better horror movie. What unsettles me about this movie, as mentioned in the video, is that so many people positively connected with it. I've only seen it once, but all I saw was: traumatized young woman + cult + artsy = tragic ending (that smile proved it for me). She was reborn, but not in a good way...I wonder, if there was any intention of social commentary, if it's suggesting the fine line between "cult" and "culture". Also, sometimes how passive we can be, taking the "when in Rome" attitude. For example, American culture (in the film) has a way of disengaging, while this cult engages communally in emotion. When we talk about cultural differences, for her (protagonist), fire was bad--it killed her family, but for the cult, a similar situation, fire is good. What some see as evils, others will see as moral--and that's frightening...Humans are frightening...
I also wonder, what is the connection with the number 9? Is it due to the length of pregnancy? 9 sacrifices. All the ages for their life stages are multiples of 9. They are ruled by the number 9 or by exactness or something?
I think the boyfriend was always the bear. He was trapped. The exactness of the cult and their pictures told the audience exactly what was going to happen. Have it in our face...and still some people connected positively...
9 is a multiple of 3, and considered a sacred number. I think the director chose mystic seeming stuff and just slapped it in for the effect to make it seem more cultural based than it was really was. The danger of cults is that they understand how human minds are hardwired and they use that to create rituals that condition their victims to embrace their beliefs, but conversion is easier when you build on existing patterns.
At the beginning of the video/or movie you can see the Bear trapped in a cage which is similar to Christans situation where he’s trapped in his relationship with Dani, trapped in a cult and the quite literally trapped in the bear.
when I think about the idea that people think the way of life shown in the harga is like ideal, simple good old days, I have to wonder like okay….where are all the disabled people? What happens to the people who are born with or develop for any reason, a disability which prevents them from fulfilling their ~role~ in your perfect little society where everyone is valuable for the labor they’re able to perform at all stages??????? And when you brought up the nazi codes in the directors cut, I realized it felt a lot like eugenics-the white supremacy, the controlling of breeding by the village, and that coupled with that distinct lack of a place for disabled people, it just makes you think.
Entertaining and insightful review as always. The whole film left me anxious as fuck,when they started doing the chanting ululations and stalling to eat at every meal,made me sweat. Definitely a Klu klutz Klan doing Coachella vibes.