Part of August's BIG PICTURE: HELTER SWELTER
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2h 28m / R / Folk Horror, Thriller, Mystery
TRAILER:
VENUE: Historic Duncan Auditorium
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They’ve been doing this a long, long time.
College student Dani (Florence Pugh) has just experienced a deeply shattering family tragedy, so her boyfriend Christian (Jack Reynor) decides that rather than breaking up with her as he’d planned to do, he’ll invite her along on a trip he and his friends have planned to a remote Swedish village where they will participate in an ancient solstice festival. Up in those latitudes, in the summer, it feels like the days go on forever. But there’s something uneasy underneath the broad smiles and easy generosity of the villagers. And as the kids struggle to figure out how to act in this bizarre place, the residents take a particular interest in Dani …
Some filmmakers excel at making horror movies; some excel at making the audience confront a horrible experience. They’re often not the same people. Writer/director Ari Aster (Hereditary, Beau is Afraid) is both at once. Midsommar is not the kind of film that you leave feeling cathartic relief, or the guilty thrill of having dodged disaster yourself — it follows you home, sticks to you, like the smell of smoke in your clothes after a bonfire. The audience stands at a distance from the terror unfolding, seeing things you can’t unsee like the anthropology students themselves, and being led to ask anthropological questions: how could a place like this exist after all these centuries? Who comes here, and why do they stay? And like every perfect horror movie, the answer comes echoing back: you, maybe. You, on a bad enough day.
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