(Photo credit: IDmb)
MIDSOMMAR – Well i’m just going to dive in here and get straight to it!
This movie is ten times more fucked up than The Wicker Man and the music throughout the movie is freaking annoying especially the villagers singing.
In the beginning of the movie we are introduced to a character of the name of Dani. (After the beginning credits and the forest scenery with snow everywhere)
Dani is on her PC and calling someone which we then see is a guy named Christian.
While she’s reaching Christian, we see that he is in a pub/bar with a group of friends and all of them are bashing on him because Christian doesn’t want to be Dani anymore and apparently he’s wanted out of this relationship for a year now. Dani is apparently frantic because of an email she read from her sister which we learn in the conversation with Christian that her sister has bipolar disorder.
During the back and forth phone calls we then discover that Dani’s sister has killed both her mom and dad and herself by inhaling carbon monoxide from the cars in the garage. (I’m not going to go too much into detail with this you’ll have to watch the movie)
When Dani learns of this tragedy she’s completely upset and crying into Christian on her chair. The next day we see her laying in bed and she gets up and sees Christian in the other room as he’s ready to head out.
Later we see Christian with his group of friends at their house talking about the trip to Sweden and Christian announces to the group of friends that he’s invited Dani to go with but that he thinks that she won’t actually go. Dani enters the room and it’s an awkward conversation about her going to Sweden. One of the friend’s in the group his name is Pelle and he was the main head person who orchestrated a trip to Sweden because that’s where his family is. (that’s what he says at this time)
Fast forward to Sweden!
When the group arrives where Pelle is taking them we see a commune of people in white fabric clothing with designs on them and learn that they are called Hårgans.
It just gets stranger along the way because they are shown different houses and ultimately where they will sleep during their stay. There are paintings of different scenarios and runes along the way. Yes you pretty much figure out by this point of the movie that people are going to die and be sacrificed.
We are explained in the bed house how ages are divided. Pelle lays out the life cycle of Hårgans for his friends shortly after they arrive in the commune. The life of each member of the community is divided into four seasons, each lasting 18 years. Childhood (spring) lasts from ages 0 to 18, and from ages 18 to 36 (summer) young people leave on a pilgrimage, spending those years living in other places around the world. They return to the commune and work from ages 36 to 54 (fall), and from ages 54 to 72 (winter) they lead the community as elders.
The next morning when they go to breakfast (as Pelle explains the night before that the next day was a big day). We see two elderly people a man and a woman make their way from the big yellow triangle house. They come to the table and do some breathing stuff and sit down and everyone else follows suite. When the couple get up and leave the table they are then placed on these beds and are carried ontop of a mountain. The rest of the villagers and the non villagers all gather at the bottom of the mountain. The scene then goes back and forth from Dani, Christian, Pelle, etc. and the Elderly woman and man.
The couple end up one at time jump from the edge of the mountain cliff and ultimately die. The death is actually quick, except the elderly man because after his fall only his leg was broken and he was alive screaming. Plenty of blood and bones for all to watch during this scene. The deaths ultimately set the tone for the movie and one by one we see each person of the group disappear and end up being murdered. (Which we do not see how they are murdered by the villagers we only see the aftermath of their deaths).
The biggest death of all is after Dani is taken. on the last day of the festival, with the other women of the villagers. The woman has a white dress for her to wear and a crown of flowers to adorn on her head. Dani is to partake of the dancing celebration where the winner is crowned May Day queen. Dani ends up winning and becoming the May Day queen and is then told to go in the carriage throughout the village and bless the land and crops for the rest of the year. While Dani is doing this, Christian is then summoned by a female villager named Maya who has chosen Christian to be her mating partner while they’ve been staying at the village. We see Christian go into an open door house and there is a group of naked women villagers and Maya laying in bed of flowers and big leaves waiting naked for Christian. Ultimately Christian mates with Maya.
After Dani returns in the carriage from blessing the land she tries at first to go the hut but another woman tells Dani, “No that is not for us”. Ultimately Dani doesn’t listen and goes to the door peering through the keyhole seeing what Christian is doing. Dani then has her big crying meltdown and the other women villagers take her into the bed house and they all mimic her crying and meltdown.
Christian leaves the house after the mating is over and he freaks out trying to find a place to hide and ends up hiding in the chicken coop. We then see while he is hiding what happened to the rest of the group and how they were killed. A village man stops Christian by blowing some dust/sand residual into his eyes and we see him fall down to the ground. Christian is then woken up and told he cannot speak or move and he is in a wooden wheel chair. We see Dani as the May Day queen sitting in a thrown and one of the male leader villagers announces the final event of MIDSOMMAR is the human and volunteer sacrifice which is chosen and carried out through the May Day queen.
The sacrifices are picked as another elder village man rolls balls of ruins with a huge bingo cage. Two regular male villagers are chosen to volunteer to sacrifice themselves and then Christian is chosen as well and the elder village then turns to Dani and waits for the word to start the sacrifices. We then see on a table an elder man with two young boys taking out the intestines of a bear that was killed and end up with Chrisitan wearing the dead bear and placed in the yellow triangle house. The main elder leader awaits a gesture from Dani to begin and she nods and then several villagers begin to set the hay on fire inside the building. While they are doing this we see others from the group and other outsiders that were killed. The fire spreads and when the two male volunteers are on fire they scream loudly and outside the villagers are screaming, dancing, and mocking the horrific sounds of them being burnt alive. Christian still cannot move or speak so we just see him sitting there burning alive as he is charred by the fire. We are then focused back to Dani who is covered to her neck in a full dressing of flowers and she starts to at first melt down and panic but then stands up breathing and then she smiles and then the end credits start.
If you can get past the annoying villagers music and singing definitely check this movie out!
T.
