The Best 25 Films of 2020: A Video Countdown
Review: Midsommar
As hollow as the body of the actual Wicker Man, and does the disservice of wasting Florence Pugh.
Strangeness is not substantive in and of itself. It’s becoming clear that what Aster brings to table is discomforting to be sure, but his imagery is devoid of any symbolism for it to refer back to. Rather than building to fold into the larger ideas of the film, his images serve as surface level non-sequitur, relating in no way to anything that has come before or will come after. One instance of this is his inclusion of a disabled character, suffering from encephalitis,who is insensitively brought in to ook the audience out, then promptly abandoned in a corner of the film to rot.
Not a fan of the extra bright editing choice (gamma shift), or the decision to once again employ camera moves to the effect of exhausting the audience. Making the audience physically uncomfortable through the container of presentation, rather than through the encryption of content is a cheap and uninteresting way to work.
How is it that in 2019, the representation of women in his work isn’t more heavily scrutinized? He’s two for two, having used the nude bodies of elder women solely in attempt to make the audience uncomfortable.
There has been a strange emergence of reactionary ideas in film over the last year, first with CLIMAX insinuating that a leftist/artistic lifestyle will kill you (Drugs and sex are bad, m’kay?), now again with MIDSOMMAR (Drugs and foreign cultures are bad m’kay?).
Aster’s emphasis on technical filmmaking taking precedence over that of the responsibility of storytelling outs him as more of a director of photography than a director or writer
I award this film no stars, and may god have mercy on any film students that stan this exercise in public masturbation.