Midsommar (Ari Aster, July 3, 2019) Movie • Page 33

Eyyy @chewbacca110

 

Holy shit lol

 

That last one is also Stranger Things.

 

I’ve been avoiding this thread until I finally saw it but has anyone made a Hot Girl Midsommar joke yet

 

I understood all of those words separately.

 

Sorry, But There's No Escaping #HotGirlSummer

 

just laughed so hard

 

That hashtag does seem to sum Dani’s experience up.

 

Reading through this thread now and I’m surprised at people complaining about the length. I was hesitant about it going in but I was engrossed the whole time. The long drawn out scenes like the dinners were great for building up the sense that this is a no-bullshit religious ceremony that these people take extremely seriously.

And I was with a friend and we were laughing a lot but I never felt like we were laughing *at* the movie. Like the sex ceremony scene had most of the theatre audibly laugh but it felt way more like laughing at Christian recognizing just how batshit of an experience it is

 

I didn’t see anyone complain about the length, but I also didn’t read back to far. I’m in the boat of people looking forward to the extended cut. I’ll take every additional minute that movie wants to add in.

 

The one thing I don’t really understand is why the film included the whole Christian thesis subplot. It works to emphasize the particular way in which he sucks, but there’s nothing we get from it that we don’t already get from the rest of the film. If anything it felt jarring for him to bring up his thesis at all — from the outset it was clear that Josh was the only one intellectually invested in it, and so when Christian brought it up it came off more like “hey I really want to fuck this ginger girl I’ve spoken to like once but I can’t say that out loud so instead I’m going to pretend that I actually give a shit about this whole thing academically.” There’s also only like two or three scenes where it’s even an issue before Josh is killed. Maybe that’s just part of the stuff Aster needed to cut? If so then he should have just cut it all. Didn’t take me out of the film at all because it helped increase the tension within the group, but in retrospect it seems unnecessary

 

I think it was somewhat necessary. It did lead to Josh becoming competitive for information and getting killed for it.

 

Not sure what page it’s on, but we talked about the thesis story in pretty good detail a few days ago.

 

Re: The thesis element

 

Eh I don’t really buy that it was necessary for making Josh break their boundaries and take pictures of the book. I would have bought him simply being a too inquisitive outsider who, despite wanting desperately to learn about and observe the commune, doesn’t actually respect them or their wishes.

That would also draw a parallel between him and Mark: opposite sides of the spectrum intellectually, but they both do things that show they feel like they own the place so they pay for it

 

And just to be clear I agree with the above about Josh’s thesis being a good, important part of the film. I just meant the two or three scenes of him and Christian bickering about Christian stealing the idea from him

 

I get the function of the thesis plot line but it was so out of character for Christian to bring it up that it was distracting. Made sense for Josh to be interested in the thesis but Christian being competitive about it made little sense with what else we knew about his character at that point and felt to me more like a lazy catalyst for a conflict rather than an organic character moment.

 

I interpreted it as showing how selfish and cowardly Christian is imo.

 

He wasn’t interested in the topic, he just wanted to steal Josh’s work without offering anything of his own. It was very much in character for him to only think of himself and attempt to gaslight everyone else into going along with it.

 

Yeah I agree but like I said I also think the rest of the film made that pretty clear lol

 

It also showed that Christian was becoming more enticed by the village and the festival. Like, all of a sudden he has to do his thesis on the village too, even though prior to spending time there he was totally directionless about it. That was the start of his path toward giving himself over to the village and meeting his eventual end.

 

Christian bringing up the thesis and being all “we can work together on it and share our research” reinforces just what a specifically type of shitty he is. It also gives him a more active agency in the last half or whatever of the movie rather than just standing around looking at things with nothing on his mind