Midsommar (Ari Aster, July 3, 2019) Movie • Page 28

Haven't seen the movie yet and didn't read this full article because of spoilers but can anyone who's seen it confirm any of this?

Midsommar's ableism resurrects the dark history of eugenics-inspired horror

 

Ableism is bullshit

 

I’m not really sure what point the article is trying to make about this film in particular, honestly. They give more depth to the example about Us, and the article isn’t even about that.

It’s also hard to talk at all about this character and his portrayal without some very specific spoilers, so it may be a conversation to have after you see the movie.

 

I agree with the general take of that article and it annoyed me when I was watching. I think Ruben’s portrayal and role in the movie is bad. A person’s physical disability portrayed as something gruesome and scary without examining that representation at all (which I’d argue Hereditary did examine, at least a little bit).

Similar note to that weird implication that Dani’s sister’s bipolar made her kill herself and her parents. It really annoyed me how that was dropped on the table and never examined.

 

I thought that he was talking about how he was held when his parents died, and that was the benefit of the commune. He felt bad for Dani because she was alone going through it. To me, it seemed like he was always in the commune. But I also can’t remember the specifics of that interaction, so I could definitely be wrong.

 

I don’t remember that about her sister at all. Was that said by Dani or later dialogue or just the guys in the beginning? Everything they said about her was so infuriating.

I did think it was interesting with Ruben that he was basically the most sympathetic and certainly the least creepy of the entire group, and I took his painting over the book to be a way of fleshing out the character in a subtle way even though he doesn’t have much “action” in the story. That may be giving too much credit of course, but I did take something from that decision.

 

Eh. From the trailer I assumed Ruben would have been used for scares but I didn’t get that at all in the context of the movie. If anything, you feel sorry for him for being literally produced simply to further the insane ideologies of the cult. I never felt like he was a tool for horror, if anything it was the “normal” people who were.

 

What would you have liked to be examined more? My personal take on Ruben was that his character was a product a terrible practice from a terrible cult. His physical appearance is the cost of the all that.
In regards to the bipolar, I definitely don’t live with the disease, so I’m not going to claim I understand it, but I do see patients with it almost daily at work and mental illness leading to a murder suicide is more than plausible. It just provided the first domino to fall for Dani’s journey. If Aster wanted to say more on mental illness, then I think he would have dug deeper with that. But that’s not really wanted he wanted to explore with this film, so it really was just a vehicle to start Dani on the road and nothing much more to it.

 

If he ever makes a film where that is the main theme and exploration instead of just one of many in a genre piece, I may not be able to take it.

 

To expand more on Ruben, his physical appearance being a manifestation of the terrible practices of the cult is just one side of it I suppose. The cult recognizes that they need to bring in new blood, but when it comes to the blood line of the prophets, it needs to be kept pure. It’s almost Xenophobic in the way that it’s said that their pure blood is the only way to have an “unclouded” mind. They have brutal practices like killing themselves at 72 despite advances in medicine keeping people alive and healthy well beyond that, rendering their logic for early death moot. Rather than adopt any type change, they continue their traditions.

Which leads me to ask, where is the line when tradition must honored vs discarded? Who gets to decide that?

 

To add to the list of heinous things the cult does, that was definitely one of the most fucked up rape scenes I’ve ever seen in a movie too. I wouldn’t rank it as disturbing as Irreversible or Deliverance. The way Christian gets leveraged by the leader of the cult, drugged with the tea to put down his inhibitions or whatever that girl said, and then having someone hold him in place so he’d finish inside the girl.

 

I’m giving up on spoiler tagging since so much has been said on this page, lol.

I took that “unclouded” discussion and rules about the prophets veeeeeeery differently. I didn’t see it as them viewing their blood as pure or righteous, but just their insidious way of ensuring that the traditions WILL be passed down. It’s all just for pretense and show to say that they are guided by divine visions. He said specifically that they “interpret” what Ruben puts down, and I’m sure that they take great care in choosing who does that definitely fair, definitely real “interpretation”.

That’s why I liked showing what he had done to the book, because even though they have worked for generations and generations to erase his agency, he still has the power to just cover it all up. I just wish he could do it to every volume.

 

I agree 100% that it’s just a tool for them. And for sure that it probably doesn’t matter at all what the prophet puts down, the leaders are going to interpret whatever what they want out of it. But I’d have a hard time saying it’s just for show. I think they probably really do believe it’s sacred blood lines. Regardless, it’s definitely their mode for control.


Fuck, the more the movie gets discussed, the more I love it. This is great haha. I love the different views. I really need to watch this again.

 

Talking about both of his movies has been super interesting simply because so many different things come up naturally. And I do think it’s absolutely valid to not be into this aspect of the film or take issue with it for sure. I do think the very particular details of this story and how they play out are more complicated than a lot of similar takes on these tropes and worth kind of breaking down, but it’s also fine to just have a blanket dislike of bringing that into any story.

 

This was a lot to take in

 

Honestly did not even consider those topics of discussion concerning Ruben's character and role during two viewings of the movie (and maybe that's more of a me problem), but I also see him as a product of a sick, generational custom (as others have stated above) and that is very, very sad. I guess his appearance was rather monstrous and I'm sure Aster knew what he was doing by placing him in some of the scenes but honestly, one of my initial takeaways from the first viewing was that we really don't see a lot of Ruben considering the runtime. I don't know if that is a good or a bad thing. I do think the bipolar reveal was kinda shoved in there and left behind. Definitely could have done that differently, or maybe even not said it at all? The exposition of the film is about getting Dani to Halsingland and maybe it would have been distracting to think back about why her sister had done what she had done, but I would have been more open to theories about Pelle being involved somehow.

 

Yeah, I don’t think Ruben was handled that poorly honestly, I think they had to make him visually distinctive to drive home both that inbreeding was going on and also their dedication to the cult (having an oracle for the writings being more important than a healthy child)

I also read somewhere that it could be seen as a condemnation of Europe’s swing towards the far right (pure bloodline) and whether it’s intentional or not I think I like that interpretation

 

This is also an interesting take but I tend to agree with the others that it sounded like he meant the commune was there for him after his parents died, not that they literally took him in for the first time after.

 

I really need to listen to that dialogue more clearly next time.

Also wasn’t there another instance where someone referred to a family member who was clearly not by blood? I know I remember thinking at some point that it had confirmed Ingemar was Pelle’s “brother” only in the sense of the cult.

 

yeah it was his "father" i think

 

he referred to the first girl who greeted them as his sister, “born on the same day as me,” which could mean a number of things.

 

such as that they will eventually be cliff jumping together

 

I don’t even want to think about some of the possible implications of that if he really was in the cult from birth. Their breeding practices and rules are even more horrifying than the sacrificial/murder aspects to me.