I think the point of the director wanting us to root for Dani and choose to kill Christian was so we'd really fall for the idea of the cult being good to prove the point of cults in general. We and Dani are so focused on how bad of a person Christian is that it blinds to how terrible the cult is, mimicking the way cults work in real life: they target emotionally vulnerable people because they're the easiest to convert.
@@accidiaet That's the point. He didn't deserve to die, but the cult influenced her to act on emotion just like real cults. It amazes me that people think that this movie ends with a happy ending for women. Dani is obviously in the wrong, and the movie ends with a bad ending.
@pwabd2784 every side of the argument is correct if they look at the few outliers. There's always going to be people that think the movie ends happily but there are way more people that recognize that she is in an even worse situation than she realizes
Exactly ! The fact the she keeps trying to stick the pieces back together in this weird relationship, despite him not caring at all, Show us that she would do anything to not be alone at that moment in her life.
@@leobellevue3848the problem is that she herself doesn't do anything on her end at any point. She just exists with him, even when he does a bad attempt at helping
@@stefanoraffo5096 Isn't that what happens when you feel like you have no options. She just lost both her parents and her sister. So at this point Christian is like her last piece of family. You don't see how traumatizing that is ? And add to that the fact that she is far from home, stuck in a strange cult where they do everything in their power to endoctrinate her (they even kill people who try to leave). Acting coherently in this situation is way harder then you think.
Yeah exactly I think it's about Dani's loneliness & lack of any community or support system. She's reliant on him bc she has literally nobody else, and later she believes her only hope of finding people who care about her is by joining the cult.
No one said you should buy the relationship, I just think the movie was not very good and communicated its message in such a contrived and pretentious way. Marriage Story was so much better in how it portrayed a break up and how both sides have their own merits and flaws. Bringing in this cult was just adding in so much unneeded shock and discomfort to the story and it just felt unnecessary.
With midsommar, I always believed we were supposed to hold on to the point the Dani has no one else. As much as you hate the relationship, it would completely destroy Dani one last time if the only person she had left dumped her. It’s the feeling of wanting it to stay together until Dani can move on from her grief enough to find new people to hold on to.
It’s ashamed that the cult made her think that Christian stopped being with her because they drugged him and R worded him. He might’ve been a jerk, but cmon, man didn’t deserve the fare he got
@@yourbabytee I think it is pretty clear that in her depression after the fmdeaths of her family, her friends deserted her, unable to take the intensity, just as Christian and his friends were won’t to do.
Honestly your criticisms are the strengths of these movies in my opinion. As far as midsommar goes, the tension of knowing the relationship is doomed from the start is depicting exactly what it’s like to look back at your failed relationship.
@@surrcram Dropping out of film school says nothing, did you even go to film school? I study writing and personally I agree with a lot of his criticism like how the men are jerks to a cartoonish degree. They were flat characters who were simply cannonfodder to be killed off, even my mom noticed it and was annoyed by their existence. I get what Aster wants, make us hate the victims and be blinded by the cult to make a point about their manipulation. You can tell a good story without a huge message, but you cannot turn a message into a good story without characters as props. Even if Dani is dear to you, all the other props are as weak as a thin Made In China plastic headband. That's bad storytelling.
I feel similarly about Hereditary The knowledge that Joan raised her family just as sacrifices is horrific. All their pain and trauma was hopeless and predetermined
I watched Hereditary by myself in my house in the dark. By the end I had my mouth agape and never seen a horror movie that made me feel that type of way. Idc if it’s flawed. It was an amazing experience.
Same. I've never seen horror movie that made me curl my toes, tremble, or want to scream out loud. Horrifying. And especially that sweet, sweet twist at the end. Like with midsommar, I almost felt relief at the end. Charlie was back, Peter was "safe", and the assailants had what they wanted. Except what they wanted was for the king of unspeakable suffering to be incarnate on Earth.
Same, it was the first time I had to stop a movie ( after Charlie's death) to think about what tf just happened, I was genuinely horrified, especially by the behavior of the brother and the mother discovering her body the next day... It felt soo creepy and real
I grew up in a cult and lost my brother to suicide (when we were both still kids). I've never seen a more accurate depiction of what those experiences were like than Midsommar...let alone in one movie
Holy shit… I’m so sorry. I hope you’ve gotten some helpful therapy bc I can’t imagine having to go thru one or the other but both is completely fucking heavy. I wish you all the good things in life ❤❤❤
I like that she is flat. Trauma does that to you. You're 24/7 living in between worlds (the present and the PTSD symptoms) and you lose yourself, your personality, everything. You're just sad and jumpy and scared all the time and unable to make any kind of decision because you know you're not in a place to make life altering moves, even if you hate where you are. You're miserable but miserable Is "safe".
I viewed Paimon as the physical manifestation of intergenerational trauma/abuse. Annie spends the whole film desperately trying to protect her family from Ellen (and Paimon). She watched how Ellen pushed her brother, Charles, to suic!de. When she was pregnant with Peter, she distanced herself from Elle, but felt guilty and allowed her back after the birth of Charlie. During this time, Ellen puts Paimon into Charlie, resulting in the distancing once again. After Ellen's death, Annie feels confused and unsettled, like people are watching her or plotting against her, but she is resistant to open up about it. Then, Charlie dies suddenly, and Annie is distraught. In her compounded grief (and release of Paimon), she blames Peter and distances herself from her husband, falling deeper into isolation and aggression. She and Peter have repeated nightmares, but instead of explosive moments like Annie, Peter descends into apathy. Steve is desperately trying to hold everything together. Annie tries to get them to believe there is a something happening, but Steve thinks Annie is making it all up. Steve dies after Annie attempts to sacrifice herself to end it, allowing Paimon the final push to take over her to atttack Peter. Upon Peter seeing Annie's gruesome end, he also attempts suic!de, but it was unsuccessful and Paimon takes over him too. Ellen being "secretive" and "manipulative", the consistent suic!des, Peter's affinity for substances, and the cult's beliefs that Paimon will bring them honor, wealth, and knowledge and "bind all men to their will" also fit into this idea. The inescapable nature is hinted at many times, but I feel it is most glaringly obvious when Peter is in English class and they discuss Oedipus Rex, debating whether it is more or less tragic that the characters did not even have a chance to change their fate. Many people that experience trauma, specifically parental abuse, describe it as if they never stood a chance of being a healthy person, as if they inherited a curse they fear they will pass to their own children. Since the movie is bookended with Annie's miniatures, I saw it as her experience of succumbing to and perpetuating the generational curse, regardless of how hard she tried to fight it.
Yup, spot on. The number one rule of movies is every time there is a classroom scene, whatever is discussed will always be the central theme of the movie (only half joking). But really, one of the main horrors of the film is that the family never had a chance. The cult was pulling the strings the whole time. There is even a satanic symbol on the telephone pole, that kind of implies the cult always intended that to be where Charlie is killed.
This is probably one of the best takes I've heard about Hereditary. Overall it was a subpar movie but the acting and cinematography were so good that it tricked people into thinking the story was amazing when it wasn't. Your description of what it represented was one of the best ways I've heard a rationalization of the ridiculous concepts in the movie.
Im not understanding why the occult reveal at the end of hereditary is just bad. Its woven through out the movie and the real pleasure of rewatching is seeing how he plots all of the details perfectly along the way.
Exactly. It's deeply rooted in demonology right from the start. I recognized the necklaces at the grandmother's funeral, knew they were demonic sigils of some kind and I loved seeing all the signs throughout the movie. The demon does not diminish in any way the family's grief and general dynamic. It amplifies it: they're all grieving dolls in a dollhouse, fighting meaninglessly against an inevitable doom. I really don't get most of the criticism in this video.
I also think it’s disturbing how, at the end, the family members were pretty much «lost» and they were perhaps starting to realize it. it has a depressing feel, it’s different to rosemary’s baby. i don’t fully agree with this video.
@@CPNTTagree. I like the occult stuff, made it actually interesting. Watching a movie about family grief can be good ig but this makes it 10x more interesting. He acts like he used the demon as a cop out or something. I guess I’m confused, how would you even end it otherwise to make it all have a point or mean anything?
I guess it has to do with people not being up for rewatching movies and expecting the experience to be complete after only one view, when a lot of movies benefit from being watched more than once. Hereditary specially is the type of movie that one can't fully comprehend unless they rewatched it, but apparently that's something a bunch of the audience isn't keen on doing.
I totally get a lot of what you're saying about Midsommar, but I also feel like you're missing a few things. When watching Midsommar, I felt like Dani had a fear of being alone, especially after what she went through. I don't think she wanted to go through that alone. It's made evident that Dani wants someone to lean on, and while she recognizes that Christian might not be that, she's been so gaslit into thinking that her emotions are too much and that she shouldn't lean as much as she does. I also felt like the story was more of a comparison between her relationship with Christian and her relationship with the cult. Dani is emotionally vulnerable, and the cult gave her the support she craved. It's obvious manipulation to us, but to Dani, it's like family; they support each other, lean on each other, and acknowledge her emotions. I think the ending was also a bit misinterpreted. I don't think it's so much about just getting out of a toxic relationship. I think it's more about how susceptible you become to manipulation when grieving and finding the support you longed for after you didn't have it for a long time. In the end, she traded in one toxic relationship for another one, and that's what really hit hard for me.
I did not miss any multilayeredness in Christian's character, quite the opposite: I doubt the film would even work with him being overly sympathyzable. He isn't even a true villain, he is just a mediocre selfish coward. Yet he grabs our attention and disdain so fully, that we consider the only true villain in the movie - the serene, cunning, wire-pulling Pelle - a worthwhile alternative or even a saviour. And we even consider siding with Dani and her bloodthirsty "family" when Christian is immolated as a literal scapegoat (scapebear?) for the community's unfathomable evil. We consider Dani "liberated" when she has irreversibly sacrificed her only true need: genuine self-love, independence and the power to stand up for herself. To me Midsommar is a masterpiece on how the avoidance of ambiguity, moral uncertainty and genuine independence make us susceptible to ideological (including fascist) indoctrination. We want the darkness contained while we hallucinate purity - just like the sun never sets on Hårga.
I definitely think this is an incredibly thoughtful analysis and this is what I wish I could've taken away from the film. I think I'd be more receptive to this interpretation if Ari Aster presented the film with more character depth and layers toward the beginning of the film, then have it boil down to the simplistic as we make our way to the tragic ending. It's entirely a personal thing, obviously, but the way the film is presented just doesn't equate my emotional experience to this viewpoint. Either way though, I think this is an excellent take and I'm genuinely glad you were able to have that experience!
@@meeptopThank you. I don't think there is just one interpretation or a clear message to the movie. And I wouldn't consider mine the most important. Of course it makes sense to look at it as a breakup drama, a personal growth story, a surreal phantasy or maybe even a sarcastic teenage horror parody. What makes the film so disturbing is someone trying to do the right thing in an environment where literally everybody and everything is clearly wrong or pretense - a mere conspiracy. We might cling to shallow feelings of justice, revenge and liberation but in the end they are just as delusional as the main character's views.
Exactly! This movie to me is about white supremacy and the banality of evil as much as it’s about the catharsis and grief of a codependent relationship ending. I also think the characters are flat because it’s really meant to be a fable/fairy tale.
I don't think I picked up on Pelle's manipulation the first time I watched midsommar, it wasn't until I watched it a second time a few years later with more life experience to sus that kind of thing out. It's so heart wrenching and scary to see a person so vulnerable and in need of genuine support like Dani go through what she does knowing that no one there has her best interest in mind, yet are able to manipulate her into believing they do for their own desires
@@Bonpu this comment kind of makes me wonder if perhaps he shouldn’t have tried combining his “anatomy of a breakup” movie and his “the mechanisms of fascist indoctrination” movie. I wonder what we’d have gotten if he hadn’t
I think you're missing something important about Midsommar, which is that, yes, their relationship is garbage and that's clear the whole time, but *people do stay in relationships like this*. You spend the whole movie waiting for one of them to just accept and admit that it needs to be over, and at the end you're in the fucked up position of having the catharsis of it finally ending being the result of her seeing over his immolation and her absorption into a cult as her being "free" from it. Their terrible relationship is the (well, one of, and the primary remaining) reason she gets pulled in. She goes from being absolutely disgusted by these people to presiding over their ritual because she sees sacrificing him as her freedom. It's about how hard it is (for some people) to let themselves get out of abusive and toxic relationships; until she was sucked into a cult she was never able to finally escape that cycle of accepting that shitty relationship over and over, and maybe she never would have. I have a lot of women friends who repeatedly dive into cycles of abuse like this and have so much self loathing and disconnection that they keep staying until it's unbearable, so to me, the fact that it took being crowned in a death cult to finally give her the strength to move on from that obviously horrible relationship is extremely poignant. I see now I'm not the only person who's made this point lol
People who only knew how to be in a toxic environment do not know how it is to be out of it. It's sad but it's true that this had become their comfort blanket.
Absolutely agree. I bet a lot of us have dated someone like Christian. Being with someone who is manipulative and gaslights you is very confusing. It's hard to leave
Damn both ya'll just articulated exactly the two (rather unconscious still as I've seen Midsomer twice n intially was using it for aesthetic inspiration/demostration for work) most poyaint intuitions about this, regardless, conceptually brilliant film. I'm there are so many others who still appreciate film on all the subtle levels the artist very idiosyncratically and even unconscious-Archetypally birthed into these transcendent experiences they so tediously poured themselmselves into.
See I rather like the way Midsommar manipulates you into wanting that ending. How throughout the entire thing you are being made to sympathise with Dani, and being shown what an awful person Christian is, that when she makes the choice at the end you are cheering her on (or at least I was). And then you’re confronted with the reality of what that means like, “yeah, he’s a dick, but did he really deserve this nightmarish fate?”
This is why I found the film so interesting, I was completely surprised that people wanted Christian dead. I'm not sure whether it was me being male, my age or my personal experiences with someone with a codependent personality, but I felt kinda bad for Christians situation; even though he handled it horribly. I remember I watched it through that lens afterwards and was completely horrified by how alluring the Cult suddenly became.
@@SantosAl It is interesting. Usually in movies I’m kinda tricked into rooting for the protagonist (shut up and dance black mirror episode ruined me lol) so I definitely fell into that my first viewing. At the end I almost felt hopeful for Dani… like that’s not good but I definitely find it interesting that I was manipulated into to thinking that. I really only focused on her throughout the first viewing and kinda emphasized with her but damn yeah once I thought about more critically and watched it multiple times I was like oh no yeah that sooo bad. The whole point was indoctrinate Dani and manipulate make her feel like she’s free from this relationship. Like making her think he cheated on her but really the cult basically SAed him. She’s the perfect target for a cult victim. But yeah I can’t stop feeling bad for Christian at the same time. It’s a really complicated situation like her family is dead that’d be “rude” to leave her 😅 but like they both don’t seem to actually like each other she’s just got no one else. Sorry long comment and lots of run on sentences I wrote this fast lmao
It was easier for me to sympathize with Christian as someone who has had to break up with someone who was suicidal. If he was a real dick he woulda been done with her sooner. There doesn’t always have to be a badguy. No different than how i have to avoid people who have anxiety as my natural energy and stimulus seeking behavior can trigger their anxiety. Neither of us are bad people, we are just bad for eachother due to being on different extremes.
I never really understood why people wanted Christian to die. The guys a pice of shit imo but in the ending it was clear he was raped but Dani didn’t see it that way which is why I don’t blame her. But we as an audience did so I never really understood why he was SOO hated
It really only works on mentally ill female viewers (which there are a lot of). Most normal people can acknowledge that the boyfriend is an asshole without believing he needs to meet that fate.
For me, the supernatural plot in Hereditary is still a metaphor for mental illness, how it can consume you and make you a different person, essentialy just like Paimon controlling the family members
i think the most terrifying thing is that mental illness and true supernatural experiences are identical to the observer who was not present. like those cases where people say they saw a lizard person like 99,99 percent you know they’re effin crazy but what if that ,0001 percent is true and they really did
Or about the horrors of hereditary in general, inheriting all the terrible shit from the ancestors, starting from bad genes, traumas and traits, ending with societal systemic issues at large. The film lets you feel it through the fictional lens.
3:13 The scene where she’s on the floor, screaming over the discovery of her daughter’s body, was gut-wrenching. As a mom, her wails of pain hurt my heart.
I'll be honest and overshare a little, but Hereditary absolutely speaks to me in a horrifying way. If it were just a movie about family issues then it wouldn't creep me out as much, and the reason for this is that I always suffered from heavy depression and bpd, but... I grew up thinking those things were results from demonic influences, since my family was always christian. I always have this fear of it really being a demon tormenting me, even if I'm currently agnostic, since having your entire life being controlled by an evil entity is a pretty despair inducing concept. This movie shows us this, and it's not just a case of possession, this prince of hell is literally manipulating the entire lives of this family, and it's so hopeless that one could almost say it's cosmic horror. You just feel so small.
Agree, I think If you took the supernatural element out of hereditary it wouldn’t really be horror anymore, I’m not saying there has to be monsters or something paranormal for a movie to be horror, but in this case without it I feel it would just be a really dark drama
Yep, gives me the same sense of dread as the show Dark, something about the concept of ordinary people being used and sacrificed like pawns is fucking terrifying to me, especially when it's all part of some bigger picture the characters can't grasp or influence, when they can't escape their fate no matter how hard they try
Exactly, I adore this movie for how it creates a feeling of hopelessness insignificance and I really wish more movies would tap into that. It's like existential in a way, because this greater being is controlling their fate and making their lives hell, it's terrifying to me but so fucking cool
I think the point of their relationship in midsommar is that you shouldn’t be rooting for the relationship at all, Dani should not be with him, he has no redeeming qualities he’s an ass and she should hate him, but he’s the only person she has left so she just can’t let it go. It’s less she wants to be with him and more she has to been with him. She can’t lose him because she’s lose EVERYTHING else, so she’s gonna overlook every single thing he does. She doesn’t love him she doesn’t like him, she needs him to not leave her and because of that she can’t fully state or recognize his shitty behavior. I think as a viewer it’s good to completely hate him and not see a single redeeming quality because it makes you question why she’s with him and then realize it’s because she needs him and cannot even imagine being alone, and when she has a “family” in the end she finally realizes she no longer needs to be with him.
Excuse me but those problems are her own with him, she could leave him too? Why kill him? He was totally manipulated, assaulted and then paralyzed and he was the best guy but didn't deserve to be killed the way he got.
@@shrutiwayne7440 She killed him because she too was manipulated and drugged up to the point of a mental break. Under normal circumstances, the break up would have been normal, but due to the machinations of the cult, she opted for an extreme.
Honestly I empathize more with the dude than Dani. Just think about it from another perspective. She really shouldn't be dating anyone in her state. It's far too draining. You even said she "needs him not to leave her." He wants to leave her, but he SYMPATHIZES with her situation and feels some obligation to "not leave her." Isn't that relatable at all to people? IDK it can be very difficult to keep the spark going when someone is so extremely emotionally draining.
@@kazunabe4288 Yeah, having someone depending their whole mental health stability on your it was always going to be unhealthy for everyone involved. It was never fair for Chris to be put on that situation, but he was and the movie makes it seem like he had it coming for not breaking up sooner with the girl who literally had her whole family killed. Chris at worst was kind of a douche, he didn't deserved that kind of ending just like he didn't deserved to be raped, brainwashed and treated like that.
I will say that I don't think Dani's character fell flat. As someone who has experienced a traumatic, sudden loss, and been sucked into religion to fix that, she was deeply relatable. She suffers countless dissociations, and seems flat, or empty, because of this, but so did I! So I'd make the argument that she is a much deeper character than you would think. Dani's struggles are accurate to the experience of losing a massive part of you.
You took the words right out of my mouth. Midsommar was horrifying because it illustrated how cults worked through the perspective of Dani, the *heavily traumatized individual* that they were actively targeting.
I completely disagree being around someone who is going through trauma you seem flat but you aren’t everyone around you can see it you were something before that happened to you and that contrasts is contrary to being flat like the video states
anyone who says "i didnt like that the ending of hereditary was supernatural" didn't play close attention to the rest of the movie or only watched one time. The supernatural stuff is a BIG part of the WHOLE movie.
I saw all the supernatural elements and ended up calling the twist, but it was so fucking obvious I thought it would fake me out. That’s my bad, but I was still pretty disappointed when it got to the ending. It was like all the momentum and the curiosity crashed into a wall and now we’re watching a demon summoning. Cool. I’m glad other people like it because it was a beautiful catalyst for an evolution of the genre, but I was hoping for something more like the Babadook where the supernatural elements were more of a manifestation of all the tension and turmoil the family was experiencing and it just being real feels like it cheapens the real world experiences and feelings that I just spent the whole movie caring about because it was all being puppeteered by demon worshippers who are horrible at staying hidden. Side note: while I agree with his opinions on Hereditary, I disagree about Midsommar, that shit’s GOATed
Is the twist that it was supernatural or that the family had 0 agency in the entire film? I look at hereditary as a modern version of a greek tragedy where the character is unable to do anything to their fate and taking steps to run away from it merely brings it into existence.
@@GeneralFang252ye but it’s not really a twist, it’s just completing what was set up in the whole movie. i personally think hereditary is far batter than midsomar, the attention to detail in hereditary is just astounding, subtle uses of colour theory and background characters that signify the presence of a demon or cult members is amazing. so you aren’t smart because you saw the “plot twist” coming because it was set up in a way for you to figure it out as you watched it, it all just came to a front at the end. also, i don’t like him saying it’s just rosemary’s baby because so many movie use the demon/cult idea to make a horror movie and it’s unfair to say one is copying another.
A relationship doesn’t need to prove it’s worth when you’re so immersed in your own trauma and grief. You can cling to a relationship that’s clearly terrible for years and years because you are not processing the trauma that caused you to cling to that relationship in the first place. A relationship can also be super shitty, and you can still grieve it immensely. If your parent was super abusive to you and they pass away, you can still grieve the person you lost because despite how they valued you, you valued them.
The problem is, I found Midsommar super pretentious and boring. Almost nothing happens, and when something happens it just felt contrived and just made to shock me rather than have a good time.
Yeah he had a bad take here, after seeing how my mom was after the abuse she suffered at the hands of her now ex husband he dropped the fucking ball on this one!
@@captainhowlerwilson508it’s more so about the influence that cult brainwashing has on one, literally they try to spin it at no one has your best interest at heart but us!
Okay but nowhere did he say any of what you said is false. He is talking about narratively, how to get your audience invested in your characters. I grew up with parents who hate each other. They never have good moments. I know exactly what it looks like when people cling to misery for the sake of comfortable knowing. It's extremely common. I don't think meep is wrong to say that when writing a STORY, you need to emotionally invest your audience. Hereditary is a perfect example. We rarely have moments in that movie where any of the family are good to each other. Most of the film is comprised of pretty toxic and abusive and unhealthy behavior on all sides. But you still get emotionally invested in the characters bc we spend time with them and understand them deeply as characters. That's the issue with Dani and Christian. It's not that they didn't "prove their worth", it's that we as audience members don't get deeper than surface level understanding of them as people or of their relationship and it results in zero emotional response at the climax of this film that is SUPPOSED TO by its directors own words, reflect the cataclysmic pain of a break up. I think yall are getting way too personally invested and forgetting were talking about a film and not a real couples relationship.
I actually loved the ending of Hereditary. I also loved the ending of the Witch- but I’m a huge fan of horror folkelore. I loved the ode to Rosemary’s Baby at the end.
Same here I think Hereditary, the Witch and the new Suspiria were really similar as in: they start as just depressing Drama with some supernatural elements and then at the end it’s does a whole 180 and goes super supernatural in a way that doesn’t really fit into the movie and I think a lot of people get upset over it but I just really love the endings of all those three movies Also if you are into folk-horror then watch the original The Wicker Man. It’s pretty different and not sure if you will like it but I loved it (it’s not really disturbing but more of a weird exploration of a tradition)
the loss of a child, especially a daughter, that hereditary deals with is something that hits way to close to home for me. I've been told by so many people to watch it and from the bits I've seen, it looks brilliant but watching another mother mourn the loss of her daughter is something that I can't do.
My own mother doesn't give a shit about movies, let alone horror films. She thinks they're funny at best and childish at worst. Then my brother and I watched hereditary in the living room while she was sitting on the couch browsing on her laptop. She wasn't even paying attention or anything, had no idea what it was about, but the scene where Toni Collette is on the floor grieving her child literally made her stood up and walk away, she actually said "yeah, I'm leaving , and if anything happened to you guys that'd be me, so I can't listen to this". That movie floored me like no other
nah i wouldn’t recommend watching this then. its too close to home and even for someone with no kids or even the fact i have never lost anyone yet that scene rips me apart from my inside the shit is powerful
@checkouijuliet man really, her cry while the son was in bed wide eyed and she discovered what happened was super depressing that shit was insane you could really hear the pain in her that was great acting for sure
So here's the thing about Dani in Midsommar. We can infer from the conversation with her sister in the opening that Dani grew up being her sister's keeper- loving her sister deeply, expending so much effort to protect and be there for her, and learning how to live with the chaos of her sister's mental illness only for her sister to take everything from Dani, including herself. The fact that Dani's only close relationship seems to be Christian - her bf really suggests that she finds it difficult to relate and feel close with other people, this often happens when people grow up enmeshed in family dysfunction, their family is their whole world and the trauma they've experienced alienates them from others. THIS is why Dani is holding onto Christian so tightly- not because he's so wonderful, but because for whatever reason he is all she has, he is her only real human connection left. And deep down she MUST know this, but instead she looks past his clear uncomfortability in being there to appreciate and cling desperately to the fact that he is there at all. And as for Christian, I think one could say, while I certainly agree with you he's an asshole, that he was very much out of his depth when it came to helping Dani with her grief. Not every relationship works out, he was ready to leave but frightened to- he mentions it early on, what if leaving is the wrong choice? This is a man who isn't really sure what love is, but who knows he DOESN'T want to be an asshole and so he stays with a grieving partner, but can't escape being an asshole, because he isn't in love with her, and he's not very good at faking it. He's damned if he goes and damned if he stays and he's just kind of trapped in this moral conundrum with (apparently) noone around him of any real moral insight to help him figure out what to do. I actually find these characters very believable. We are never meant to root for them to stay together. We are actually meant to root for them to find a way to recognize it isn't working and to find the strength and emotional clarity to break up, so that they can find what they need where it actually exists instead of clinging to each other out of fear. That is the dramatic momentum of the film and that's why when Dani chooses to burn Christian, it feels like a triumph of sorts. Perhaps we learn so little about their relationship because both of them are bad at inhabiting their authentic selves with certainty and communicating from that place. They are co-dependent AF.
@Iris I'm not a psychologist but I do have family who are mentally ill and I've had significant elements of trauma in my own life because of those situations. So I do have personal experience I suppose you could say. But because of what my family has gone through I've done a lot of reading over the years about the psychology of development, trauma, attachment, motivation etc. I've seen Midsommar at least three times, and watched a number of commentary pieces on it because I found it to be such a compelling film and I'm always interested to hear other people's perspectives and engage in this kind of dialogue.
@@thinkfirst1989 this was like reading my own comment thank you! i feel exactly the same. i have similar insight as i have mentally ill family members as well as a disabled older brother. lots of love
I love this comment. I do have one thing to add Danny does talk to a friend over the phone (and I think she has other friends besides her too) and she does say.. that maybe she's too clingy.. she says she's always roping him into her family crap and her friend says that's what he's there for. that's not what he's there for dude... nobody signs up for family baggage when they go into a relationship, and when this baggage turns out to be huge you can't be blamed it it kills the romance in you. Everyone has their own limit, and some are shorter than others... Danny knows what she weighs on him... and that he's prolly tired of it all. Chris's passion has slowly died because he's burning out trying to be better than he actually is but at least he's trying. Maybe if he went on a vacation alone, and had some time to miss Danny or not miss Danny, he could have at least had some time to recharge and do the most healthy thing for them both...
Yes, I agree with everything you said! To extend your point, both Dani and Christian are very believable, and that is in part why I have sympathy for them both--because they're both trapped in the relationship, Dani out of grief and a desire to not bear it alone, and Christian out of a desire to avoid making her pain worse (even though he fails to do to that out of a lack of genuine love for her). Both of them have plausible reasons for staying in the relationship, and what makes the horror of the movie so good is that the end of the relationship culminates in their mutual destruction, one of the mind and one of the body. It's a great horror movie because the ending reflected the pain the relationship brought them both the entire time; the relationship inevitably destroys them because they could not bring themselves to destroy it. The cult exploits this and reduces Dani to a mantle for their worship and Christian to a sacrificial animal; making them both victims of the cult as well as each other and their own desires.
I think the missing layer is Dani’s lack of agency Agency is a big deal here I think there could be more nuance or a deleted scene where we really see how her sister was a vacuum If we see this scene then we comprehend some strange sense of why she would stay with Christian. I’m not sure how we can add nuance to Christian. To what extent does life in the West celebrate a toxic guy like him? The secret asshole friend isn’t really an asshole. He has empathy. He also has collective agency. Dani doesn’t have that. She might not even have individualized agency. Perhaps the missing chance was the suicide scene. The way Christian reacts seemed naturalistic, but doesn’t necessarily showcase a sense of how any rational person would not have just left right then. But that’s a horror film for you. No one needs to stay at the camp. No one needs to sleep over at the cobweb filled mansion.
I’m not going to lie, I still get chills when I hear the horns from hereditary. It’s still one of my top 5 favorite horror films and really top 5 films in general.
Hereditary didn't really do anything for me personally but even I can't deny that theme is literally haunting. It's so good. Genuinely one of the best pieces of music in horror I've ever heard hands down
The Paimon part/ending was actually my favorite portion of it. That statue at the end made me more uncomfortable than I've felt in a LONG time watching a movie.
I think the reason Dani was clinging onto Christian so tightly despite him being mid was because she needed him while she's grieving. Even though he doesn't actually support her other than like sometimes hugging her or letting her lean against him, she's just so broken by her loss that it would be devastating to lose him too. (maybe before her family died, she was just afraid to be alone because she had no other close friends or something) - to me that actually makes it even more devastating, Dani is out here saying "I know that you don't do anything for me, I know you are completely incapable of helping me through this, but I'm so completely and utterly alone that I still need you."
Lots of comments are making great points. I'd like to add that Dani and Christian were a relationship that began in college. For imperfect people to find each other and date all through college even though their relationship isn't all that meaningful is totally realistic. And Dani's imperfection is not her trauma, it's how she channels her trauma: by ignoring problems. She's all alone, with her only way of ignoring that being someone who doesn't care about her, but they stay together because they are so attached. This is entirely believable to me. I've been through and witnessed relationships that are built on attachment, not love. For me, I don't need to believe that characters love each other for good and honest reasons to understand their attachment, especially characters who started dating when they were teenagers. I think the analysis in this video misses out on how common this type of codependency is.
I watched Hereditary in theatres. At that car scene I remember hearing others gasp (including me) then complete SILENCE. You could have heard an ant's heartbeat. The theatre wasn't even loud before that scene or anything but it was like everyone just froze, and started holding their breath. Ive never experienced that in a movie theatre before. Was pretty cool
I haven't seen hereditary, but I did want to share my thoughts of Midsommer. I never thought we were supposed to care about Dani and Christians relationship. Her fate was sealed in the first 15 minutes, and we are just watching it play out. Yes, the film is in Danis perspective, but we are seeing her the way the cult does, and also wants Dani to see herself... a blank, hurting, misunderstood woman in need of connection. The tragedy and emotional crux for me was never Danis romantic life, it was her familial one. She brutally looses her family, all she has left of that is a man she KNOWS doesn't care about her anymore. She doesn't care about that right now, she needs and wants connection. The cult signifies that deep heartfelt connection, even in a ritual suicide, It MEANS something there. All it meant back home was that she was going to be alone. Dani choosing to kill Christian is signifying her detachment from her old life, and the willingness to have family agian that she also KNOWS are unhinged, but are there for her. It makes the deaths of her own family look like they mean more then tragedy. We don't see much of Danis relationship with her own family, other then she may have been very protective of her sister, being her rock, and possibly having well meaning but emotionally absent parents.... which sounds like Christian. That is what Dani thinks love is, well meaning, but emotionally absent she knows this isnt the same. But she clings to it as its all she has now. Her other kind of love is being an emotional rock for others, this is what she was trying to get Christian to be, which he tried a little, but in the end neither got what they needed. The cult did provide however. In a sick and twisted way, they became her rock, they gave her families deaths meaning, they lifted and celebrated her when the world burned down around her, literally and figuratively. Danis fate was always sealed. Never because of romance, but becuase of family. We are watching her slip down a steep slope of grief and hoping she can catch herself before she falls and let's it take over. Then, instead of slowing down, she dives into it. Each step we can see certain cult members acting like sisters, brothers, mothers would to her. Reminding her boyfriend of her birthday, in thier room and breaking down without having to say a word, encouraging her to let loose and party a little. All the while we are seeing Danis hallucinations of her family play in the backgrounds, hidden from us, but are apparent in her psyche. Christian was a jerkish character, yes, but also very realistic. He doesn't want this relationship, but he also doesn't want to hurt Dani more then she has, even if it would make him look bad. He's just a guy, with jerky friends, stuck in that cycle many young men get in. He's a normal stereotype of men women deal with constantly in the dating scene. Not ready or willing to grow. The tragedy of Dani is her choosing more and more toxic relationships searching for connection rather then working on herself. The cult takes full advantage of that.
I get what the film is trying to tell, but even with this explanation, it doesn’t make the film any less boring and pretentious for me. There are so many movies that deal with break up better than this one and this one just to me feels like it was just trying to shock me and nothing more.
@captainmarvelwilson508 I don't know if you actually read my comment. But I literally explained how it wasn't about her and Christians relationship. It's not about a breakup. It's about her family. She gets a replacement family, not a replacement boyfriend.
@@rosechapman2796 Yeah. Okay. But regardless, I still can’t stand this movie because of the reasons I just mentioned. It was the most boring and pretentious movie I saw that year and was only made to make me feel uncomfortable. I just don’t see the point of making a 2.5 hours long movie about the dangers of joining a cult and watching her jerky friends just dismiss everything.
@captainmarvelwilson508 Your allowed to have your opinion, man. I wasn't trying to convince anyone to like the movie, I was explaining my pov on it. It's fine you don't like them, don't know why you wanted to comment on my post specifically?
Genuinely love to see your take but I do think the fact that Ari Aster explicitly states the point of the movie is Dani and Christian's relationship kinda proves that at any rate he failed in that department. It's awesome you were able to find so much meaning in the family part but it does show that the movies intended message was lost lmao
I don't mind that the characters in Midsommar feel one dimensional. With the emotional turmoil that Dani is going through between her family dying and her bad relationship, EVERYTHING feels one dimension. When you're going through that much crap, life is hollow and lost. It seems fitting that, at least the characters, seems empty and one note in that movie. Maybe I'm giving too much credit, but I thought it was great that it all felt weird and out of place, because that's what life feels like in those situations. The end of this movie almost felt like "this is what SHOULD happen" and it feels like you have no choice but to go with it, almost helplessly, but that's what life feels like when you're that emotionally tapped out.
Besides Dani literally had no option to do anything about it cuz if she did she was going to be killed lol. I will add that in her position of literal helplessness and putting it in the context she is in, feeling ''relieved'' is totally understandable
This movie made me have a full blown psychotic episode. It just struck way too many cords with me. My family has a bloody history and my abusive father always had occultist beliefs of which he was pretty secretive. For me Hereditary was about the despair and suffering one individual can cause to their loved ones for their own gain, and the horrific aftermath they leave behind, haunting their family even after death. I saw the mother breaking down and being possessed as a clear expression of one of the greatest fears many people from abusive homes have - becoming like their parents. It's even in the title - Hereditary. I don't agree that the film is about the effects of grief alone, but the fact that often that grief is caused by the people meant to be the closest to you, and it takes a horrific journey of self-discovery and sleuthing to reach that realization. A lot of people don't make it through, they succumb to their trauma and perpetuate it to later generations.
I’m glad someone else said it, I have ptsd and a history of psychosis, so it hit home. I started getting paranoid and delusional just watching it, someone should’ve warned me 😂😅 same with midsommar when I first watched it.
@@kavlara I did freak out a bit at the start of Midsommar, but definitely nothing like Hereditary. The rest of the movie was just uncomfortable to watch but not really that scary.
Definitely staying away from content like this would be my professional opinion (Therapist, here). No need to put yourself through a full blown psychotic episode (unless you're able to get some catharsis through it?) You shouldn't have to sacrifice great movies/media, but unless you're in a good place mentally (or at least stable) don't do that to yourself. I think it's really brave and wise you shared that experience, here. It helps de-stigmatize mental illness. Hope you've recovered!!
The ending of Midsommar was interesting to me because it felt like we were manipulated into smiling with Dani at watching her boyfriend burn. It's like we were drawn into the cult and indoctrinated right alongside Dani. Something that should have been horrifying to both Dani and us as the audience, leaves us feeling satisfied and relieved. For me, it was deeply unsettling to realise I felt the exact way that the cult would have wanted...I had been manipulated into wanting this.
Nevermind the fact that she was so traumatized by the Attestupa scene just a few days prior. Now fully (for the time being at least) in control of everyone's fate
2:38 No I LOVED the supernatural twist is what I'm saying. I haven't seen the Exorcist, but I'd say in terms of making the paranormal feel credible, this does it just as well. Because rather than couching it in science, it shows how despair can make people want something so badly, that it warps perception and dulls skepticism. Ari knows that any audience member would be going "What if there's a magnet under the table, guiding the planchet?" so he has Annie look under the table. And at this point in her story, even if there are other rational explanations for what's happening, this is enough to make her a believer, so it's enough for us. A good portion of why it works is just the visual effects themselves. Yes, it's often so dark you can barely see what's happening anyway, but when you do see them move, the weightlessness looks real. It feels real. And the final scene?! Come on! It was a haunted diorama of a rebirth the whole time. The perfect Halloween-meets-Christmas twist. I wouldn't love this movie nearly as much without the demonic ending.
I liked the ending and supernatural element in Hereditary. Reason is because of the fact that the grandma cursed them with her cult and adds the element of the sins of your fathers to the overall themes of the film.
I'm wondering what direction you would have rather had Hereditary go in? I get that cults and demons are a major trope in horror at this point. However, I think it's what a movie does with these familiar territories that redefines the dilemma and gives it a fresh perspective. To me, I don't think the use of demonic forces in this movie is a cop out or crutch but a glue that holds all the layers and complexity together.
Same, I wish he would've gone more in depth as to why he didn't like the cult/supernatural elements. Seems more like a bias than actual criticism imo. The supernatural stuff is baked deep in the movie's beginning so removing the cult and the ending wouldn't make sense in context to the rest of the film.
@@Watchful049 I believe he disliked it so much because the execution of the supernatural elements was so similar to the climax of Rosemary’s Baby that it came off as lazy. Having all of these tense elements laced throughout the film all for it to end with the lead character being a vessel for a demon, especially with the cult exposition-dumping in the last few minutes, is what brings it just a tad too close to the other film. Plus, the cult do it for personal gain and riches, as did the cult in Rosemary’s Baby (that’s the whole reason Guy let himself get cucked by the devil).
@@Nexol13 ill admit, I've never seen Rosemary's baby. Whats wrong with it being similar to another film if the other film is good though? Without comparing another movie, why does the cult and supernatural elements not work in this? The Joker and Taxi Driver get compared to each other too but people usually state why Joker being too similar to Taxi Driver doesn't work as well. One criticism I have of Joker is that Arthur (joker)he seems way too sympathetic compared to Travis (taxi driver). In the Joker, it feels like people are mean for the sake of it and as a result, Arthur is alienated from society. In comparison, Travis is a weird, anti social perv because he's lost his purpose. Being a soldier gave him purpose but he doesn't know what to live for anymore so he tries to buy a gun to kill someone for attention. So while both depict social outcasts, Joker doesn't is too sympathetic so you'll always root for him but Travis isn't so innocent so you're challenged to side with him or not.
I wanted to address the scene you were talking about at 16:21. I don’t even think he was “standing in solidarity with her” from my memory, Christian was like “oh I’m not going to do it if she isn’t”, so everyone automatically blamed Dani for not taking the shrooms because Christian wouldn’t which only elevated her anxiety into saying yes. I feel like Christian’s intentions were to place blame on her because he himself didn’t really want to take it. Idk that would align w his character more
I feel like this scene exemplifies their relationship, Christian knows or at least thinks he knows what the correct thing to do is; but doesn't really want to do it. So he wants to take the shrooms, but feels obligated - and annoyed by it - to support Dani, and Dani senses this and gives in since he is her last/only emotional support. It feels like a lot of people who watched the film put a lot of malice on Christians actions, when the truth is that he is just completely over the relationship and feels imprisoned by Dani's situation. Which makes him act like a douche. But I'll admit that it might just me that is projecting, I've had a friend that has been totally dependent on me for their emotional wellbeing, and it can be so draining.
I think he stood in fake solidarity with her because he knew she would cave. How she is, is exactly what he created and he knows his creation very well. He accomplished being understanding in her eyes and the "here we go again" myrtr to his friends all in one motion. It was by design. Her theme is to compromise herself in every way for his benefit. I really don't believe he was ever going to break up with her. He was too selfish to. He liked to complain about her which always got him a pay off. It got him sympathy and attention which all manipulative narcissists thrive on.
I was ready to totally dismiss this as like “I’m not like the other girls” ari aster hate, but you made a lot of really great points 😁👍🏾. I don’t think Dani is a Mary Sue though, she’s clearly very anxious, clingy and codependent, I feel like dating her would be exhausting even before her parents were killed by her sister.
Appreciate this comment a lot! Really try my hardest to come with good points and give credit where it's due when I make videos like this. I have a lot of respect and admiration for Ari Aster and I hate when somebody's a contrarian just for the sake of it, so I'm stoked to hear this video is coming across how I intended. I can agree with the last part to an extent, but we really can't get to know the full extent of Dani's personality since the film just wants to show it on the surface level. Given what we see the film, trying to defend Christian's side just feels like playing devil's advocate haha.
THIS. The ending is also clearly Dani getting out of a toxic relationship and into a cult collective, and aggregate sites flooded with videos about how this is "empowering" without viewing the dire implications. Out of the frying pan, into the fire.
00:45 Passengers could not have been good. If even a single pixel of the original survived a re-edit, a single shot was saved from a reshoot, a single word was saved from the rewrite, a single actor remained from recasting, or a single pixel saved from a re-edit, it would still deserve to be displayed in front of the holocaust museum as the greatest atrocity humanity has ever committed against itself
i feel like if you’ve never been in such a toxic relationship with somebody, the movie won’t impact you as much; the level at which i related with Danny was so scary that i couldn’t stop feeling anxious throughout the whole movie; also, there is this absolutely terrifying feeling of not being understood and supported that is extremely soul crushing when it’s coming from someone who you love this much and the emptiness and loneliness throughout the various scenes between the two really brought up my darkest memories; this movie completely destroyed me and i never want to see it again - THAT is why it’s absolutely perfect and it did its job
same. I think the way the movie was acted just made it so much more relatable to women as well. I had just been out of a toxic relationship followed by a death in the family when I watched this and I truly felt everything. Especially Dani didn't need any more depth imo
and he totally missed the aspect of the movie that is about fascism and white supremacy, and said on the comments that Ari Aster didnt present the movie in that way, but he actually totally did. It's just that white people still easily fall for fascist ideology or never notice it being shoved down their throats because they don't care...
Sameeee, i had broken up with my ex who treated me poorly and my codependent ass was unable to leave him or see the redflags. Christian reminded me so much of him and my name is also Dani so i also was anxious and relating way too much hahha
@@sarah-vw9ty dani is her relationship lmao no depth whatsoever. which is accurate to women in real life because they claim they lose themselves in toxic relationships and they become nothing. quite pathetic
The ending of midsommar is perfect. You want dani out of her awful relationship but she wont let it go bc hes all that she has left. But you also see her easily manipulated by and brought further and further into the cult, until they have completely replaced christian in dani's mind as her family. So the ending is meant to elicit the contradictory emotions of "oh yay kill him" and "oh no shes in a cult now!!"
It's imo the climax and the essence of the horror of midsommar: the dawning realization that dani has replaced one toxic relationship for another, and that in the end she got what she wanted. She found a new family.
I may be wrong, but my hot take on both movies was that we are seeing the events of the two films from the point of view of the main leads. This is why we get highly opinionated depictions of people because the protagonist sees them as such; if the main character hates someone, then we only see the bad and NONE of the good in that person. On top of that, neither believes they’re in the wrong…so we never see them in that light, even when pieces of the darker parts of their personalities manage to seep through. Again, this is just my interpretation however.
Feels like complaining for the sake of complaining. What is the alternative ending for Hereditary you would have preferred? Obviously it was a demon, i don’t see how that is disappointing. What else could have possibly been the explanation for all the weird shit going on? The execution and the twist of it being a set up from the start was great.
In my opinion, I feel that it should've been ambigious as to whether or not all the events and trama that take place was the fault of the supernatural, or the insanity brought upon onto the family.
When me and my dad watched Hereditary for the first time, before the paimon stuff was revealed he thought that the movie was about annie. That she actually did kill peter and charlie ( and herself) with the paint thinner and that the she was in hell. I love this concept so much and feel like it could have been a better twist
Good thoughts; not real fan of either these movies, but they have their own merit. Kind of felt that the flat characters in Midsommar was probably intentional because the story is told in Dani's perspective as it is her attempt at trying to cope with the loss of her family. It would almost make sense to me that she'd view Christian and his friends as exaggerated versions of what they normally would be (like Christian likely was distant, but in her mind, she would overblow it out of proportion). Grief would take a major toll on a person's mind after all.
I can definitely agree with this, to an extent. The story is told from Dani's emotional lens and these distorted and simplistic views of the people around her could easily be attributed to her grief. If that's what Ari Aster was going for, I just wish it would've been integrated into the story better. Maybe we get more well rounded looks at the characters at the beginning of the story but as the cult ensnares Dani they progressively get more one dimensional. Something like that could've really enhanced that choice and made it resonate more, in my opinion.
Oh, I agree with the assessment, just basing my interpretation around Dani's grief most likely causing her to exaggerate her surroundings along with being indoctrinated.
I completely agree with you about Midsommar, but less so about Hereditary. I liked the ending of the latter, which was so bizarre to me that it was legitimately terrifying. Not so much a fear of "the devil," but with cults that have members completely convinced that horrific acts are justified, even joyous.
The scene in the car with Charlie with Hereditary hit me like a fucking lampost out of nowhere. Seriously, that crack and the following 10 minutes of utter despair and the harrowing, realistic cowardice of his reaction to it. I can honestly say no other horror film has come close to landing a blow like that on my psyche. I can deal with supernatural shit, or gore porn or whatever till the cows come home. It's unreal, you can revel in the unrealness and enjoy it for the novelty. That scene, that scene felt entirely too real. It comes out of nowhere as it's been built as a supernatural horror film, with Charlie possibly being something like the kid from the Omen. Then whammy! The motherfucking consequences of your entirely relatable and petty teenage rebelliousness come back to haunt you, with dividends. You just do not expect it. I can see why the unravelling into supernatural torment after that can sour the experience. I'd much have preferred it to be left ambiguous. And I'd probably have believed it was the characters degrading mental health that was responsible for the events after that scene if it was left ambiguous. But that singular scene hit me so hard that I just don't care. It's good enough! Midsommar was good, it felt like a story about a cult indoctrinating a very unwell individual, which is what was actually happening. But nothing in that film took me for the loop like Hereditary did. The set and style of the film made it a very enjoyable film though. The fractal repetition at the dinner scenes were very satisfying for instance.
Okay, so reading through comments and watching this video, and hearing from the director I come away from this thinking this: people like Midsommar through sheer projection of their own problems, because that's quite literally what the director did. It's well shot, great cinematography, well acted, but ultimately high brow schlock.
When her head hit a (ex) tree in Hereditary, that's about the peak of it. The reactions of the son and mother - Toni Collete's cry as she goes out to the car, and the wrenching grief that follows - make the film. The supernatural stuff is handled very well, and is creepy and scary in its own way. But the all-too-real sudden, violent loss of someone you love and are meant to protect - that is the peak of the film, and nothing after that can match it. The rest of the film is footnotes to the first act. Without that moment, it would be an excellently done horror mystery. But, for all the burning alive and piano wire and headslamming, it can't match that first horror.
My take away from the movie is that you can have a grief so haunting that it can make you an emotional vampire, kill your ex, and gladly be the head priestess of a cult. LOL relatable
Just to add something to the conversation. I never really saw Dani's boyfriend as "an a**hole" like so many seem to think. I think the director mentioning he has been in that characters shoes kinda reminds me of situations I have seen others in. If this were a "normal good equal relationship" then he would be an a**hole for acting "blah" towards Dani. But in this relationship Dani is extremely damaged emotionally and requires professional help. She is a giant drain on this guy's life, on a near constant basis. That is a horrible relationship. He doesn't really seem to be too into her anymore either, which means that he perhaps does not feel much romance between them anymore. This guy feels bad for wanting to break up with her because of everything she has been through. And he just seems completely drained by her. Pretty relatable stuff. He doesn't love her anymore, but still sympathizes with her, so what is left is this dull crappy relationship that should absolutely end. In real life, this is a tricky situation, but most likely, the relationship would end without any need for cults or whatever. Sometimes what the movie doesn't show can be implied. How often did this poor guy have to come to the hysterical beckoning of someone suffering from a lot of emotional distress? How often did he have to drop what he was doing to help his girlfriend because she had a panic attack? Not everyone is cut out for that role in a relationship, especially if the spark has already fizzled away, or you are young, or a million other reasons. The way she always cried or freaked out or switched emotions was draining for me to watch. The poor dude did not deserve that fate or any hate for being tired of all this.
First two minutes in, and i get so many conflicted messages... -I love and respect director! -This movies frustrated me! -You know, sometimes you watching bad movies, and deep inside there is a good movie? -This movies are not bad! They good, but they have potential to be great! -Now lets start and i will tell you why they focking terrible! Dude! WTF?! :D
I rewatch these at least a couple times a year. Such a different type of horror. Taking themes we can relate to on a small scale and ramping them up to a very uncomfortable and haunting level.
This the kind of channels that deserve hundreds of thousands of subs. Good analysis man. Im glad im here at 185 subs and will still be here when this blows up. Haha
So I have a problem with this review of hereditary. I don't see why Paimon being present is an issue. I'm not sure what it could possibly be instead that would make this work. No matter how it ends, there's still an occult ritual involving the devil, and that's literally the part that makes it a horror movie, and the result of all of their trauma.
Same here. I just recently revisited Hereditary and after rewatching it with a clear head after 2 years, and knowing so much about it, I really enjoyed that it also works as a straight-up horror film with the demon being real and present in its universe. I've had it with artsy symbolic horror. The "monster created by trauma" element has become a trope. And A24 is guilty of it too. Let's not even start talking about ... Men.
@@magnuskallas Men is such a stupid movie. The movie could have worked so well as commentary on what it's like to live under sexism if it just acknowledged the men. Like, one UA-camr said that she thought it would be about the paranoia of "have I met this guy before? Am I being stalked by this man?" and that was why they all looked the same. But nope, literally no reason for it.
"In the real world there are horrible, toxic relationships where all of the blame for everything terrible lies solely on one partner. That absolutely does happen." Not in the West it doesn't, and this film is no exception. Pugh's character is no prize either, and no victim of this bad relationship. The first act, horrific as it was, served as a device to have her cling even harder to false hopes and keep rejecting common sense as women often do. We'd rather be miserable with someone than miserable without. I liked the honest portrayal of a weak protagonist who found all of her strength in the cult's validation. She let them handle what she couldn't handle herself. At the end they made her feel like a literal queen among them, when really all they did was, through emotional manipulation, successfully make her part of their flock.
Midsommar's end is horrifying for the fact that a lot of people took Dani's acceptance as a good thing. Her relationship with him being the only relationship she had since her family died. Makes you wonder if she would've ended things with him if her family was still in her life. Now she's got a new family... And das no good
Man, you have to keep on making these type of in-depth videos. I love these two movies a lot, and you pointed out some interesting things I wasn’t even able to recognize myself. You’re a great critic and keep up the good work!
I can't really express how much I appreciate this comment, honestly. I've got other video ideas floating around, one of which is another in depth film analysis, but per usual it's taking some time to make. Once it's finally out, I hope you enjoy it. Thanks so much for the kind words, it means the world!
I appreciate hearing you say "it's just Satan?" like that because it takes some of the power that movie still has over me away a little bit. I'd love to share why Hereditary f*cked me up so bad in the first place, though. In the final end scene, surrounded by naked worshippers, naked headless corpses of Peter's parents, the severed head of his little sister on a mannequin, I felt safe, welcome and taken care of in a way I couldn't shake, then immediately disoriented and disgusted to feel that way on top of it (then credits roll and the upbeat song really emphasizes the "comfort" which makes it even more horrifying because it's so clearly not comforting at all). I think the way it worked in my experience is: through watching Peter go from apathetic burnout teen to traumatized and guilt-ridden, infantalized depression-blob being terrorized to an overwhelming crescendo... then the moment when all the ambiguity is stripped away and everything is explained, that overwhelm and terror finally ease off as does the uneasiness of the ambiguity. The terror in the shadows is brought to light, and they are saying "you're safe now. we did this all for you. you have all the power." as the camera stays fixed to the actor's eyes so intimately, keeping the audience connected, exploiting the bond we made with both Charlie early on and Peter. So, from the way I experienced the movie, the horror of the ending comes from the feeling of relief and even safety in the context of pure evil winning, surrounded by this horrifyingly macabre scene.
I guess I am alone in thinking Christian was done dirty because he was drugged, pushed to have sex while high (aka he was raped), and then got burned alive for it. Sure, maybe he was a bad boyfriend and a douchebag, but I’m not sure he deserved to be raped and then burned alive.
I agree. He was despondent and not very attentive to Dani, but I think Ari did too good of a job with making people wanting him to be burnt alive. We saw from the beginning that he had intentions of breaking up with her because his heart wasn't in the relationship anymore, but to leave someone after such a horrific tragedy would've been difficult for anyone. Although he doesn't want to be with her, he still cares enough about her that he didn't leave her to deal with her grief alone. He's not the best person, but he's not deserving of anything that happened to him. It's a masterclass in guiding the audience into schadenfreude.
While I do agree that the overtly satanic aspects of the ending of Hereditary tend to be less gut-wrenching than seeing a family tear itself to shreds just 'cause, I don't see how it ruins the experience at all. In fact, none of the movie would've happened without it. The deep character studies of these flawed individuals happen BECAUSE there is a satanic entity out there, so I really can't see how taking it out of the movie would've elevated it. As much as it is a trope, it is deeply rooted in the core of the film, and it wouldn't have happened without its influence Also, out of everyone in Midsommar, I do not think that Christian was that one dimensional. Yes, he steals his friend's thesis idea, avoids responsibility and is overall very neglectful towards his relationship with Dani, but as much as it sucks to admit it, if you ever felt drained by a relationship without it necessarily being the other person's fault, you will see yourself in him. You feel as if there is no justification to cut ties with the other person despite interacting with them feeling as if it's too much, and you're just afraid of hurting their feelings because of something so subjective as whether or not you like to be around someone. I know I've been there with a couple of "friendships" that I just don't feel comfortable with and even though I do try to support these people and am not as bashful as he was, I did see a lot of my own frustration with these people through him. Anyway, yeah, his friends are very one note to me, I did not care about them at all lmao
I think we saw that moment with Dany and Christian very differently. I saw that as him pushing her by refusing to just let her go at her own pace, so now she's ruining it for the gang if she doesn't give in.
The Midsommer bf gets WAY to much heat. He was on the verge of breaking up with her. But her family dies and he is forced into a situation to not abandon her. He invites begrudgingly invites her to his boys trip so she doesn’t have to be alone. She should have said no, she was on the verge of a mental breakdown. Then the man gets abused, his gf ignores him for the cult, he gets drugged, drugged again, raped, all his friends die, then gets burned alive. HE TRIED!!! You can’t dump someone after their family dies, she should have took responsibility.
@@TheJuggla042 I agree. None of them should have been tortured and killed, and Christian should not have been sexually assaulted, and killed. But from their own dialogue, Christian's response would have been: It's cultural. I'm trying to keep an open mind. (Until he realized that not all cultures are equal, and that he was just as likely to be killed to be stuffed in the bear as "the honorable Terbyon..." except that Dani saw Christian fornicating with the girl he was making eyes at during the whole trip.) Should he have been killed? No. But then again, none of them should have been killed. I'm rather against human sacrifice. But for Christian, it was cultural. He was experiencing it with an open mind...
@@thejaded and so we should just let people act and do what they want because of something bad that happened to them? She's an adult though, yes losing your family sucks but if you are so emotionally stunted that you can't move on in a healthy way that's a "you problem" she takes out her anger on a guy that had loved her but grown apart and didn't want to continue the relationship she should have accepted that but instead she emotionally manipulates him to stay with her.
My experience of Middommer was, “Abused and, as a result, unreliable narrator joins white supremacist death cult, becomes trad wife.” I’d be very surprised to learn that wasn’t the deeper layer at play in the film, because the color pallet, music, etc supports it. The film indoctrinates the viewer, Danny, who was indoctrinated already by Christian (name on purpose) into a toxic relationship is primed to be indoctrinated again by the death cult. It’s not triumphant. I wish Aster would speak to this more directly, and dispel the “bad breakup” surface level reads now that the spoiler moratorium is well passed.
You’re welcome to read that out of the story- but that doesn’t mean that that intention was there by the creator at all. Kurt Vonnegut anonymously took a university class on his works and failed it. John Green speaks really beautifully on the difference between when a work is a creator’s, and when a work becomes an audience’s. You’re allowed to have that interpretation, but to expect aster to ‘dispel’ what his personal intentions of the film were.
I actually hate how the cult in Midsommar is interpreted to be white supremacist. No they weren't. They were secluded north Europeans, they treated the one black guy in the group like the white guys there. Europeans don't even have the concept of race as Americans do, the concept of white supremacy does not apply
The reason these films deserve to be so celebrated is because they elevate the metaphorical to the mythical and speak to the human experience in a way that rises above the narrative. This is what has been inherent in the great works of Cinema. The “one dimensional” characters are archetypes typically representative of different parts of a somewhat universal psyche. King Paimon is representative of the selfish power dynamic that perpetuates generational trauma. It’s there to be taken literally if you want, but that’s not the only way to take it.
The problem I had with Hereditary was that we never see the family as a family (if they ever were). They start the film eaten up with guilt and distant from each other, so I never connect with anyone. And the ending is a jumbled mess with shots from other horror films, so I loved so much of it...but it's not up with The Exorcist or The Shining. I never saw Midsommar, but I've watched the Critical Drinker's take on it several times, which is very entertaining (and a lot less long). It looked like a drawn-out pretentious take on The Wicker Man, and I get the feeling I would connect with these characters about as well as I did in the trailer (which I didn't). But I agree with everything you say! You are NOT wrong.
I slightly disagree with your stance on Hereditary. The family may start off slightly dysfunctional, but we're starting the film off in a place of emotional potency for these characters (the death of a family member). The seeds of guilt are planted, but they're manifested in much less pronounced ways. The interactions between Peter and Annie are very typical of a teenage son and a mother, Annie and her husband seem much more affectionate even when Annie is faintly starting to retrude from him a bit, Annie clearly loves Charlie and is trying to connect with her in this time of grief. I definitely see them as a family at the beginning of the film. Not a perfect family by any means, but what family is? If anything I find the portrayal of their family as more honest and therefore easier to connect to, personally. I also think it's worth noting that you bring up The Shining as an example of a better horror film, but ultimately that film also uses the same narrative structure and family dynamic as Hereditary. I won't get too much into it because I'd like to talk about it in a future video, but the Torrance family is plagued by trauma and abuse right from the beginning. Jack Torrance was a small step away from falling into madness, Danny was already somewhat distant from Jack as a result of the incident that preceded their trip to the Overlook, Wendy already seems overrun by anxiety, etc. The horrific events of the Overlook simply tip the scales further and you watch the characters descend, the exact same way you do in Hereditary. But The Shining is much more ambiguous and up for interpretation, which I find vastly more interesting than it being spelled out for you like Hereditary. As far as Midsommar goes, it is definitely a drawn out Wicker Man homage but I don't think I'd call anything about either of Aster's films pretentious. Especially seeing interviews with him, it's clear the guy just loves horror films and loves using that medium to tell stories that connect with him. He revels in the conventions of horror and wants the audience to have as much fun with it as he does, while still attempting to bring through deeper themes. This both works to his advantage and disadvantage at times, but I don't think he's ever taking himself or what the movie has to say with too much self-seriousness. That being said, I obviously did find the characters in Midsommar hard to relate to on anything other than the surface level because of the lack of nuance. As I said in the video, I'd still recommend you experience the film for yourself but given what you've said here I doubt it'd do much for you emotionally. Thanks for watching and for the comment, I appreciate your input!
@@dylana.9057 I don't think directors taking their work seriously is a bad thing and I never once said that. All I said was I don't think Ari Aster in particular takes that approach, therefore calling his films pretentious doesn't feel like a fair criticism.
Theirs over 30 minutes of deleted hereditary scenes that show them as a actual family and theirs so many emotional scenes that have made me cry! Ari said he removed most because he purposely wanted the family to feel estranged and broken. He wasn't trying to make the type of film you wanted. I hope we get a version with the deleted scenes added back into the film even if it changes the films entire being
Well, I don't know if I agree with you. I LIKED that the movie picked up at the end of their relationship. They are at a point where, yes, I'm sure they were in love with each other, but NOW... they're beyond that. There is no spark left. There is really no hint of why you fell in love to begin with left. They can't even realistically fake it at this point, let alone drudge up enough genuine feeling for each other. I've BEEN in a relationship like that. Where you Know there is no future together, you don't even Want a future together, but you are just too comfortable (or lazy, however you want to look at it) to want to go through any big life changes. It's just easier to try not to upset the apple cart. I thought it was smart, and Much more realistic to show their relationship where they are now, as opposed to stuffing in a bunch of hammy scenes of their past love. I certainly wouldn't have wanted flashbacks, for God's sake. Anyway, that's just what I took from the movie.
There are so many really good takes in the comments that I kind of feel like adding to it is pointless, especially after a year, but whatever here’s my thoughts lol (For Midsommar) I’ve never been in a toxic, romantic relationship before, but I was in a toxic and straight up abusive relationship with my mother for almost the first two decades of my life. It’s been really hard for me to seek therapy because I was afraid of somebody pointing out my flaws and things that I did that contributed to what I experienced. So thinking about the fact that Ari Aster was writing this in the midst of his break up, I’m sure he wasn’t in a place to be reflecting and giving himself “constructive criticism.” Particularly if you’ve been in a relationship where somebody used gaslighting against you, you already question yourself on a near daily basis so to finally be rid of that person but still be reflecting on your mistakes is gut wrenching. I think that’s why Dani is so one-dimensional; because sometimes we have to view ourselves as perfect victims, who eventually become a hero, just to cope. (honestly half of my daydreams are revenge fantasies) And I don’t just sympathize with her, I empathize with her for that reason. Because empathizing with somebody who admits to making mistakes, while more realistic, forces me to admit my mistakes as well. All that being said, I know that one dimensional characters are pretty much objectively bad storytelling. I understand and agree that adding some depth to the relationship and making it believable would’ve made the emotional climax more powerful for a wider audience.
What’s with the trend of people trying to seem smart and insightful by cutting down and trashing the few examples we get of well made, thematically cohesive movies? Like everyone is desperate to yell that the emperor has no clothes and secure their place as a bold truth-teller, but it’s a bad look that says more about your inability to see value in something than your ability to critique.
I wish I could watch hereditary for the first time all over again. That scene where the head gets knocked off. Those screams. The state from the brother. The feeling! Ugh I felt it. 😫
Fucking insane that you are under 100 subs. You're gonna blow up soon, and I can't wait to watch it happen. These are well made and very entertaining videos under your belt. Keep it up!
I'm really stoked you're enjoying what I'm making and I immensely appreciate the kind words. I don't know if I'll ever really "blow up," but I'm more than happy with the way things are growing. I'll keep it up and hopefully you keep enjoying the videos!
I see your points but Hereditary is a dark and hopeless film. Our characters are brought down so low and kicked while they are down. They are literally brought down to the depths of hell. Which physically happens in the film to all of them. We are slowly watching the family go to hell together. There are many themes of course you can take out of that however The point is that we are seeing a family be brought down to the lowest possible.
This has got to be one of the few times I've seen someone misunderstand two films and then rant about them not making sense. Like a colorblind person complaining that the color palette is dull.
In defense of midsommar and Dany and Christian’s relationship; maybe we aren’t supposed to see any sweet moments because when the movie starts they’re already in such a state of no repair. The movie starts with Danny calling Christian while he’s out with his buddy’s because her sister is causing her to panic while he’s talking about leaving her. He says himself it’s not the first time the sister has done this, so clearly the threat of the tragic opening has been lingering over them the entire time digging into a relationship that was never meant to make it to begin with. They’re in university, they don’t have much in common- they probably were just dating and experiencing that first real relationship but the toxicity of Dany’s family bleeds into the toxicity of their relationship never meant to thrive. We do see Dany telling him he’s not an asshole even though she knows he is because if she admits he is, he may leave her, or she’ll have to fully admit they need to end it. She‘s lost everyone in her family and all she has is this guy, of course she’s going to cling to him and ignore his many, many flaws. We don’t see Christian do nice things or cherish her because we’re only supposed to see the cult do them for Danny. Pele asks her if she feels held by Christian, when they arrive Dany is the only one to get a hug from the community. There’s hints like that all over the movie where whatever Christian is lacking the cult will give her. They even embrace her as a family member at the end where Christian was all she had left but she knew he wanted to leave her too.
You mentioned a ton of modern horror films that are phenomenal and one for me is Annihilation. It's such an amazing concept with an out of this world idea that perfectly combines sci-fi and eldritch horror. The fear of the uknown and the fear of losing yourself.
I can understand Midsommar being criticised... Hereditary is once in a lifetime and people struggle to find horror movies that are on the same level after watching it. The only things that come close are a few foreign films.
Meep you missed one thing, Dani lost her entire family so she only had christian left THAT and her yearning for what once was is the only reason she wants him still but she slowly develops a new family at midsommar and slowly moves on that is why she sacrifices him evem though she actually does not want to.
The metaphor of the supernatural elements in hereditary didn’t jump the shark, for me, with the ecstatic and fantastical ending, which can still be read literally without disrupting the horror of the family’s experience of grief. I even would say that the ending has a catharsis that the psychological journey requires. It does cross a line, but it feels like the line being crossed is the one between the kind of grief that contains hope and the kind from which there’s no return, and insanity rises to the level where hellish truth obscures any potential for redemption. For me, that’s a valid and powerfully moving cinematic story to tell. Without that kind of tipping out of the mundane, the story’s arc would seem much less complete to me.
Late to the party here but I felt the same way. I was thinking that maybe all the supernatural stuff wasn't real and it was just the mental breakdown of guilt and trauma and then it was an actual cult and I enjoyed the ride, but I was just kinda "oh, cult, okay."
There is literally a movie called Midsommer about a boy named Christian (same name as the character in Aster’s Midsommer) going to the exact same event. It was released in 2003.
@@sickasmalaria I've heard of this film but have never seen it. Would love to see how similar they are thematically and in execution, but the basic premise sounds pretty much like a word for word remake lol.
No, it wasn't "and then Satan." All of the grief was real, every reaction was human by the family. The plot catalyst was Paimon. It doesn't negate any part of the exploration of grief even remotely. In fact, it's essentially an allegory for familial grief-- what you may do can haunt your family forever. It also was not the same ending as Rosemary's Baby. In hereditary, the end was the culmination of everything we saw before-- the grief won, like it so often does. Absolutely no part of the weight of Hereditary is undercut by the supernatural elements, they are all placed as symbols for the pain that can occur due to family trauma and mental illness. The story needed to be horrific (i.e., horror) to get how horrific the reality is, it's literally *why* it is so impactful. You can't really view the horror and the story separately if you are to understand the interplay of the emotional (i.e., the fear) and the mental (i.e., the drama) aspects of trauma.
yeah! the inevitability of the satanic plot mirrors the destruction that grief and trauma can cause when there is no, to put it the best way i can, help available. not saying that healing from trauma and grief is impossible, but that getting out of situations that cause trauma and finding community to support one through those things is nigh impossible, so for a lot of people the ending has already been written. even when you're going through something traumatic or are grieving it can feel like there's no escape, and the machinations of the ritual reflect that quite well imo. even in rosemary's baby, the satanic cult conspiring against her, lying to her and gaslighting her is only an extreme version of a lot of people's realities, especially of how abuse is not believed or at the very least belittled, not to mention how the christian aspect ties into it as well.
Thank you SO much for this video because I've had a "problem" with Midsommar ever since I first watched it and I finally realized what that "problem" is. I absolutely love this film for many reasons, however I also felt that something was off with the writing and I never really understood what, but watching your video it made me realize something about Midsommar (and Hereditary too). The endings of these films feel like fairytales or storybook endings, the results of a domino effect that started at the beginning of the movie (Grandma's death/Dani's family death), a result etched in stone, unavoidable. They feel like they're teaching some kind of morals but for adults, like "don't sacrifice the happiness and well-being off your descendants or others for your own gains" and "let people help you when you're stuck in a hurtful mental situation", but they're done in the most brutal, violent and hyperbolic ways possible. When Dani must learn to put her own need before others, the movie literally kills her toxic partner. When the Graham family must pay the debt of their elder, it's to a demonic god who will possess the mother, choose one kid as an avatar and kill the other and also kill the father because he's useless ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ The problem is that the presentation is very "realistic" and doesn't really "rhyme" or "vibe" with the hyperbolic fate of the characters. It's especially jarring because of the actors' raw performances. The emotional rawness, clashes with what I can only describe as a new modern horror campiness, that either ; - wants a dissonance between what it tells and how it tells it, - or is too afraid to embrace the ridiculous and absurdity of fantastic horror, like "my family owes a soul to Satan :)" I remember Collette's and Pugh's gut wrenching performances, the emotional agony of their characters, portrayed with painful accuracy and when their movies ended I was like "Oh... it's... over...?", there was no climax (not a bad thing) and I felt a bit empty afterwards, even Dani's final smile made me go "Good for her !", then "Good for her ?", and finally "Oh fuck, she's damaged beyond repair", next time I watch the movie I'll probably say to myself something like "Is this what transcendence looks like ?". Dani's ending is initially climactic but when I watched it again, or thought about it, I only had questions concerning the nature of that smile (not a bad thing either but it's debatable if it was intended as questionable). Like for the Graham's, Dani's story arc is out of her hands. The grandmother kinda bequeathed Paymon to her descendants, so Annie, Peter and Charlie were all essentially f*cked ever since birth, and Dani was locked in a undesirable situation by her own neurosis, trauma, emotional turmoil and toxic/uncaring close circle. On paper, the starting point is a perfect recipe for a arduous series of interpersonal back-and-forth and powerful dynamic with a dash of supernatural dangers to spice it all up and to force confrontations (and Hereditary give breadcrumbs of this) but overall story is deadly focused taking these characters' agency away and beating the shit out them, that's frustrating and the worst part is I feel like I can't even criticize the movie for it because \That's the joke/ This tonal dissonance reminds me of probably one of my favorite horror movie The Babadook, where the conflict is started by a literal storybook and the antagonistic force is the character of that storybook. The movie feels itself like a storybook but even though the presentation is serious, realistic and somber, I feel like The Babadook succeeds in navigating the gap between the absurdity of the horrific events and the family drama, making it a fairytale for adults. I think it's thanks to it's cinematography, hopeful ending, the agency of the characters, and the fact that it's aware of its own absurdity (case and point the title of the movie itself). Absurdity is good, it's all around us, and the most impactful pieces of media (for me) are the ones that embrace their own absurdity (prime example being Everything Everywhere All At Once), absurdity as a style has a lot of potential and I'd love to see more creators explore it, especially in horror. I think what I really take out of this video is ; - is having "flat" characters essentially bad ? ; - how can you navigate a tonal dissonance ? ; - how to use absurd events or entities inherent in supernatural horror ? ; - and more importantly, what the f*ck do I emotionally do with Dani's final smile ? Sorry for the tangents and disconnected points, I think that's something I will explore on my own and my brain still hasn't fully process this new perspective but I felt the need to share this because this video opened a door in my brain to a lot of things haha. PS : Christian IS hot and I won't let anyone say otherwise. He is trash, like proper trash, spineless, dickish, abusive on a frustrating and heartbreaking banal way... but he is also hot...........ᶦ'ᵐ ᵈᵃᵐᵃᵍᵉᵈ
I think the idea with both movies is they're twists. You're supposed to be able to think maybe in Hereditary it's all mental illness, not actually a demon summoning ritual. In Midsommer the twist is you think eventually Christian is going to break up with her, but she ends up being the only one out of her friend group to get out of the situation alive in the end, ultimately kinda breaking up with him in a way by choosing him for the ritual.
I think the ending of Hereditary shouldn't be viewed so literally. I've heard a take about it, from Nyx Fears, where she says that usually the first scene of a movie shows you how to watch the movie. And Hereditary starts with a zoom in inside the mother's dollhouse, where we are transported to the actual house. That can be interpreted as this being the mother's interpretation of events, not what actually happened. Meaning that from there on out, you can interpret each scene from a metaphorical point of view. It's like "Wouldn't it be better if my family is plagued by a demon, instead of horrible trauma and my own neglect for my child?". Also, there are pretty clear trans themes in the story, where the little girl was supposed to be born a boy, but then had to undergo death and be reborn as another person - a boy. And I think Midsommar being too forward and simplistic isn't necessarily a bad thing. I think it's designed to look more like a fable, at least that's the feeling I got. From the traditional clothing and landscapes, it felt like they were in a folk tale. And sometimes, it really is as simple as a couple not ever communicating and being just an asshole and an altruist. It's very common for two people to be together out of guilt or convenience, or emotional dependency, but really have no actual love in their relationship. That's just my analysis at least.
In midsommar, I didn't like how the sheets spoiled the plot of the movie. Also how the main characters cared more about getting laid or their thesis than their friends disappearing and the fact that they were stuck with a suicide cult. Hereditary was great, I was literally horrified.
This was a really good analysis. I remember having a strong and similar feeling in Midsommar - but I remembered the film because the ending and the visuals were so strong. I have SEEN Hereditary and forgotten it because the ending - OOPS wrong body Satan sorrrry - felt like such a cop out
I think the point of the director wanting us to root for Dani and choose to kill Christian was so we'd really fall for the idea of the cult being good to prove the point of cults in general. We and Dani are so focused on how bad of a person Christian is that it blinds to how terrible the cult is, mimicking the way cults work in real life: they target emotionally vulnerable people because they're the easiest to convert.
I mean he didnt deserve to be burned alive he wasnt a terrible person just not a good guy I hated this movie
@@accidiaet That's the point. He didn't deserve to die, but the cult influenced her to act on emotion just like real cults. It amazes me that people think that this movie ends with a happy ending for women. Dani is obviously in the wrong, and the movie ends with a bad ending.
Damn that's good, well said
@@samsunggamer6661 the way toxic men relate to characters like The Joker, toxic women miss the point of this movie and enjoy the ending.
@pwabd2784 every side of the argument is correct if they look at the few outliers. There's always going to be people that think the movie ends happily but there are way more people that recognize that she is in an even worse situation than she realizes
In Midsomar, I don't think you have to buy their relationship, you have to buy that she "needed" him only because she lost her family.
Exactly ! The fact the she keeps trying to stick the pieces back together in this weird relationship, despite him not caring at all, Show us that she would do anything to not be alone at that moment in her life.
@@leobellevue3848the problem is that she herself doesn't do anything on her end at any point. She just exists with him, even when he does a bad attempt at helping
@@stefanoraffo5096 Isn't that what happens when you feel like you have no options. She just lost both her parents and her sister. So at this point Christian is like her last piece of family. You don't see how traumatizing that is ?
And add to that the fact that she is far from home, stuck in a strange cult where they do everything in their power to endoctrinate her (they even kill people who try to leave).
Acting coherently in this situation is way harder then you think.
Yeah exactly I think it's about Dani's loneliness & lack of any community or support system. She's reliant on him bc she has literally nobody else, and later she believes her only hope of finding people who care about her is by joining the cult.
No one said you should buy the relationship, I just think the movie was not very good and communicated its message in such a contrived and pretentious way. Marriage Story was so much better in how it portrayed a break up and how both sides have their own merits and flaws. Bringing in this cult was just adding in so much unneeded shock and discomfort to the story and it just felt unnecessary.
With midsommar, I always believed we were supposed to hold on to the point the Dani has no one else. As much as you hate the relationship, it would completely destroy Dani one last time if the only person she had left dumped her. It’s the feeling of wanting it to stay together until Dani can move on from her grief enough to find new people to hold on to.
yup ive been there
It’s ashamed that the cult made her think that Christian stopped being with her because they drugged him and R worded him. He might’ve been a jerk, but cmon, man didn’t deserve the fare he got
That would make sense but she has friends. She was on the phone with one in the beginning of the movie
@@yourbabytee
I think it is pretty clear that in her depression after the fmdeaths of her family, her friends deserted her, unable to take the intensity, just as Christian and his friends were won’t to do.
yes! and it was a good film. that ending which is shocking somehow makes sense.
Honestly your criticisms are the strengths of these movies in my opinion.
As far as midsommar goes, the tension of knowing the relationship is doomed from the start is depicting exactly what it’s like to look back at your failed relationship.
Well he did drop out of film school sooo
No
Agreed. It reads like someone who simply didn't pay attention to the movie.
@@surrcram Dropping out of film school says nothing, did you even go to film school? I study writing and personally I agree with a lot of his criticism like how the men are jerks to a cartoonish degree. They were flat characters who were simply cannonfodder to be killed off, even my mom noticed it and was annoyed by their existence. I get what Aster wants, make us hate the victims and be blinded by the cult to make a point about their manipulation. You can tell a good story without a huge message, but you cannot turn a message into a good story without characters as props. Even if Dani is dear to you, all the other props are as weak as a thin Made In China plastic headband. That's bad storytelling.
I feel similarly about Hereditary
The knowledge that Joan raised her family just as sacrifices is horrific. All their pain and trauma was hopeless and predetermined
I watched Hereditary by myself in my house in the dark. By the end I had my mouth agape and never seen a horror movie that made me feel that type of way. Idc if it’s flawed. It was an amazing experience.
Same. I've never seen horror movie that made me curl my toes, tremble, or want to scream out loud. Horrifying. And especially that sweet, sweet twist at the end. Like with midsommar, I almost felt relief at the end. Charlie was back, Peter was "safe", and the assailants had what they wanted. Except what they wanted was for the king of unspeakable suffering to be incarnate on Earth.
Come on dude it wasn't that great lol
@@donaldhysa4836
It just hit at the right time for me I guess
@@thegamejunky7223 Read some Junji Ito mangas
Same, it was the first time I had to stop a movie ( after Charlie's death) to think about what tf just happened, I was genuinely horrified, especially by the behavior of the brother and the mother discovering her body the next day... It felt soo creepy and real
I grew up in a cult and lost my brother to suicide (when we were both still kids). I've never seen a more accurate depiction of what those experiences were like than Midsommar...let alone in one movie
I hope you're doing OK.
Damn, girl. I’m sorry.
I hope you can find real love and slowly leave this behind you
Holy shit… I’m so sorry. I hope you’ve gotten some helpful therapy bc I can’t imagine having to go thru one or the other but both is completely fucking heavy. I wish you all the good things in life ❤❤❤
Never thought this would be the selling point for me to finally watch that movie, but hey the Fate is always twisted.
I like that she is flat. Trauma does that to you. You're 24/7 living in between worlds (the present and the PTSD symptoms) and you lose yourself, your personality, everything. You're just sad and jumpy and scared all the time and unable to make any kind of decision because you know you're not in a place to make life altering moves, even if you hate where you are. You're miserable but miserable Is "safe".
wait. why are you so good at explaining my situation.
She's relatable lol
...well, that's scarily reminiscent.
But does that make for a good film? Toni Collette was certainly traumatized and she was anything but flat.
"Miserable is safe" good lord, with that one statement i think you've captured a lot of peoples' experiences my friend
I viewed Paimon as the physical manifestation of intergenerational trauma/abuse. Annie spends the whole film desperately trying to protect her family from Ellen (and Paimon). She watched how Ellen pushed her brother, Charles, to suic!de. When she was pregnant with Peter, she distanced herself from Elle, but felt guilty and allowed her back after the birth of Charlie. During this time, Ellen puts Paimon into Charlie, resulting in the distancing once again. After Ellen's death, Annie feels confused and unsettled, like people are watching her or plotting against her, but she is resistant to open up about it. Then, Charlie dies suddenly, and Annie is distraught. In her compounded grief (and release of Paimon), she blames Peter and distances herself from her husband, falling deeper into isolation and aggression. She and Peter have repeated nightmares, but instead of explosive moments like Annie, Peter descends into apathy. Steve is desperately trying to hold everything together. Annie tries to get them to believe there is a something happening, but Steve thinks Annie is making it all up. Steve dies after Annie attempts to sacrifice herself to end it, allowing Paimon the final push to take over her to atttack Peter. Upon Peter seeing Annie's gruesome end, he also attempts suic!de, but it was unsuccessful and Paimon takes over him too. Ellen being "secretive" and "manipulative", the consistent suic!des, Peter's affinity for substances, and the cult's beliefs that Paimon will bring them honor, wealth, and knowledge and "bind all men to their will" also fit into this idea. The inescapable nature is hinted at many times, but I feel it is most glaringly obvious when Peter is in English class and they discuss Oedipus Rex, debating whether it is more or less tragic that the characters did not even have a chance to change their fate. Many people that experience trauma, specifically parental abuse, describe it as if they never stood a chance of being a healthy person, as if they inherited a curse they fear they will pass to their own children. Since the movie is bookended with Annie's miniatures, I saw it as her experience of succumbing to and perpetuating the generational curse, regardless of how hard she tried to fight it.
Yup, spot on. The number one rule of movies is every time there is a classroom scene, whatever is discussed will always be the central theme of the movie (only half joking).
But really, one of the main horrors of the film is that the family never had a chance. The cult was pulling the strings the whole time. There is even a satanic symbol on the telephone pole, that kind of implies the cult always intended that to be where Charlie is killed.
Meep even says that Toni Collette's character loses her humanity as a result of her trauma.
We see that literally happen with her son.
This is probably one of the best takes I've heard about Hereditary. Overall it was a subpar movie but the acting and cinematography were so good that it tricked people into thinking the story was amazing when it wasn't. Your description of what it represented was one of the best ways I've heard a rationalization of the ridiculous concepts in the movie.
@@MarshmallowEclipse I'll have to disagree with you, everything they say is actually canon and the story itself was very great and creative
What is that about my emergency food?
Im not understanding why the occult reveal at the end of hereditary is just bad. Its woven through out the movie and the real pleasure of rewatching is seeing how he plots all of the details perfectly along the way.
Exactly. It's deeply rooted in demonology right from the start. I recognized the necklaces at the grandmother's funeral, knew they were demonic sigils of some kind and I loved seeing all the signs throughout the movie. The demon does not diminish in any way the family's grief and general dynamic. It amplifies it: they're all grieving dolls in a dollhouse, fighting meaninglessly against an inevitable doom. I really don't get most of the criticism in this video.
I also think it’s disturbing how, at the end, the family members were pretty much «lost» and they were perhaps starting to realize it. it has a depressing feel, it’s different to rosemary’s baby. i don’t fully agree with this video.
@@CPNTTagree. I like the occult stuff, made it actually interesting. Watching a movie about family grief can be good ig but this makes it 10x more interesting. He acts like he used the demon as a cop out or something. I guess I’m confused, how would you even end it otherwise to make it all have a point or mean anything?
I guess it has to do with people not being up for rewatching movies and expecting the experience to be complete after only one view, when a lot of movies benefit from being watched more than once. Hereditary specially is the type of movie that one can't fully comprehend unless they rewatched it, but apparently that's something a bunch of the audience isn't keen on doing.
@@cesiluzherrera5342 rewatching hereditary is so rewarding cuz u see many details that you didn't even see the first time
I totally get a lot of what you're saying about Midsommar, but I also feel like you're missing a few things. When watching Midsommar, I felt like Dani had a fear of being alone, especially after what she went through. I don't think she wanted to go through that alone. It's made evident that Dani wants someone to lean on, and while she recognizes that Christian might not be that, she's been so gaslit into thinking that her emotions are too much and that she shouldn't lean as much as she does. I also felt like the story was more of a comparison between her relationship with Christian and her relationship with the cult. Dani is emotionally vulnerable, and the cult gave her the support she craved. It's obvious manipulation to us, but to Dani, it's like family; they support each other, lean on each other, and acknowledge her emotions. I think the ending was also a bit misinterpreted. I don't think it's so much about just getting out of a toxic relationship. I think it's more about how susceptible you become to manipulation when grieving and finding the support you longed for after you didn't have it for a long time. In the end, she traded in one toxic relationship for another one, and that's what really hit hard for me.
thats the problem her emotions are too much and she wasn't and still isn't doing anything to address them
@@335chrThere is no way to address grief.
@@bubullibooooo9928 bullshit There are plenty of ways to address grief. There is no time table to deal with grief
@@335chr You couldn't even name one! 🤣
@@bubullibooooo9928 you didn't ask me to name one
I did not miss any multilayeredness in Christian's character, quite the opposite: I doubt the film would even work with him being overly sympathyzable. He isn't even a true villain, he is just a mediocre selfish coward. Yet he grabs our attention and disdain so fully, that we consider the only true villain in the movie - the serene, cunning, wire-pulling Pelle - a worthwhile alternative or even a saviour. And we even consider siding with Dani and her bloodthirsty "family" when Christian is immolated as a literal scapegoat (scapebear?) for the community's unfathomable evil. We consider Dani "liberated" when she has irreversibly sacrificed her only true need: genuine self-love, independence and the power to stand up for herself.
To me Midsommar is a masterpiece on how the avoidance of ambiguity, moral uncertainty and genuine independence make us susceptible to ideological (including fascist) indoctrination. We want the darkness contained while we hallucinate purity - just like the sun never sets on Hårga.
I definitely think this is an incredibly thoughtful analysis and this is what I wish I could've taken away from the film. I think I'd be more receptive to this interpretation if Ari Aster presented the film with more character depth and layers toward the beginning of the film, then have it boil down to the simplistic as we make our way to the tragic ending. It's entirely a personal thing, obviously, but the way the film is presented just doesn't equate my emotional experience to this viewpoint. Either way though, I think this is an excellent take and I'm genuinely glad you were able to have that experience!
@@meeptopThank you. I don't think there is just one interpretation or a clear message to the movie. And I wouldn't consider mine the most important. Of course it makes sense to look at it as a breakup drama, a personal growth story, a surreal phantasy or maybe even a sarcastic teenage horror parody. What makes the film so disturbing is someone trying to do the right thing in an environment where literally everybody and everything is clearly wrong or pretense - a mere conspiracy. We might cling to shallow feelings of justice, revenge and liberation but in the end they are just as delusional as the main character's views.
Exactly! This movie to me is about white supremacy and the banality of evil as much as it’s about the catharsis and grief of a codependent relationship ending. I also think the characters are flat because it’s really meant to be a fable/fairy tale.
I don't think I picked up on Pelle's manipulation the first time I watched midsommar, it wasn't until I watched it a second time a few years later with more life experience to sus that kind of thing out. It's so heart wrenching and scary to see a person so vulnerable and in need of genuine support like Dani go through what she does knowing that no one there has her best interest in mind, yet are able to manipulate her into believing they do for their own desires
@@Bonpu this comment kind of makes me wonder if perhaps he shouldn’t have tried combining his “anatomy of a breakup” movie and his “the mechanisms of fascist indoctrination” movie. I wonder what we’d have gotten if he hadn’t
I think you're missing something important about Midsommar, which is that, yes, their relationship is garbage and that's clear the whole time, but *people do stay in relationships like this*. You spend the whole movie waiting for one of them to just accept and admit that it needs to be over, and at the end you're in the fucked up position of having the catharsis of it finally ending being the result of her seeing over his immolation and her absorption into a cult as her being "free" from it. Their terrible relationship is the (well, one of, and the primary remaining) reason she gets pulled in. She goes from being absolutely disgusted by these people to presiding over their ritual because she sees sacrificing him as her freedom.
It's about how hard it is (for some people) to let themselves get out of abusive and toxic relationships; until she was sucked into a cult she was never able to finally escape that cycle of accepting that shitty relationship over and over, and maybe she never would have.
I have a lot of women friends who repeatedly dive into cycles of abuse like this and have so much self loathing and disconnection that they keep staying until it's unbearable, so to me, the fact that it took being crowned in a death cult to finally give her the strength to move on from that obviously horrible relationship is extremely poignant.
I see now I'm not the only person who's made this point lol
Sadly, she didn't even move on. She just exchanged one abuser for another.
People who only knew how to be in a toxic environment do not know how it is to be out of it. It's sad but it's true that this had become their comfort blanket.
Absolutely agree. I bet a lot of us have dated someone like Christian. Being with someone who is manipulative and gaslights you is very confusing. It's hard to leave
PERFECTLY said! 👏🏻🔥
Damn both ya'll just articulated exactly the two (rather unconscious still as I've seen Midsomer twice n intially was using it for aesthetic inspiration/demostration for work) most poyaint intuitions about this, regardless, conceptually brilliant film. I'm there are so many others who still appreciate film on all the subtle levels the artist very idiosyncratically and even unconscious-Archetypally birthed into these transcendent experiences they so tediously poured themselmselves into.
See I rather like the way Midsommar manipulates you into wanting that ending. How throughout the entire thing you are being made to sympathise with Dani, and being shown what an awful person Christian is, that when she makes the choice at the end you are cheering her on (or at least I was). And then you’re confronted with the reality of what that means like, “yeah, he’s a dick, but did he really deserve this nightmarish fate?”
This is why I found the film so interesting, I was completely surprised that people wanted Christian dead. I'm not sure whether it was me being male, my age or my personal experiences with someone with a codependent personality, but I felt kinda bad for Christians situation; even though he handled it horribly.
I remember I watched it through that lens afterwards and was completely horrified by how alluring the Cult suddenly became.
@@SantosAl It is interesting. Usually in movies I’m kinda tricked into rooting for the protagonist (shut up and dance black mirror episode ruined me lol) so I definitely fell into that my first viewing. At the end I almost felt hopeful for Dani… like that’s not good but I definitely find it interesting that I was manipulated into to thinking that. I really only focused on her throughout the first viewing and kinda emphasized with her but damn yeah once I thought about more critically and watched it multiple times I was like oh no yeah that sooo bad. The whole point was indoctrinate Dani and manipulate make her feel like she’s free from this relationship. Like making her think he cheated on her but really the cult basically SAed him. She’s the perfect target for a cult victim. But yeah I can’t stop feeling bad for Christian at the same time. It’s a really complicated situation like her family is dead that’d be “rude” to leave her 😅 but like they both don’t seem to actually like each other she’s just got no one else. Sorry long comment and lots of run on sentences I wrote this fast lmao
It was easier for me to sympathize with Christian as someone who has had to break up with someone who was suicidal. If he was a real dick he woulda been done with her sooner. There doesn’t always have to be a badguy. No different than how i have to avoid people who have anxiety as my natural energy and stimulus seeking behavior can trigger their anxiety. Neither of us are bad people, we are just bad for eachother due to being on different extremes.
I never really understood why people wanted Christian to die. The guys a pice of shit imo but in the ending it was clear he was raped but Dani didn’t see it that way which is why I don’t blame her. But we as an audience did so I never really understood why he was SOO hated
It really only works on mentally ill female viewers (which there are a lot of). Most normal people can acknowledge that the boyfriend is an asshole without believing he needs to meet that fate.
For me, the supernatural plot in Hereditary is still a metaphor for mental illness, how it can consume you and make you a different person, essentialy just like Paimon controlling the family members
i think the most terrifying thing is that mental illness and true supernatural experiences are identical to the observer who was not present. like those cases where people say they saw a lizard person like 99,99 percent you know they’re effin crazy but what if that ,0001 percent is true and they really did
Yep
That reading of it rings the most true at least for me
Or about the horrors of hereditary in general, inheriting all the terrible shit from the ancestors, starting from bad genes, traumas and traits, ending with societal systemic issues at large. The film lets you feel it through the fictional lens.
Generational trauma ?
3:13 The scene where she’s on the floor, screaming over the discovery of her daughter’s body, was gut-wrenching. As a mom, her wails of pain hurt my heart.
I'll be honest and overshare a little, but Hereditary absolutely speaks to me in a horrifying way. If it were just a movie about family issues then it wouldn't creep me out as much, and the reason for this is that I always suffered from heavy depression and bpd, but... I grew up thinking those things were results from demonic influences, since my family was always christian. I always have this fear of it really being a demon tormenting me, even if I'm currently agnostic, since having your entire life being controlled by an evil entity is a pretty despair inducing concept. This movie shows us this, and it's not just a case of possession, this prince of hell is literally manipulating the entire lives of this family, and it's so hopeless that one could almost say it's cosmic horror. You just feel so small.
Agree, I think If you took the supernatural element out of hereditary it wouldn’t really be horror anymore, I’m not saying there has to be monsters or something paranormal for a movie to be horror, but in this case without it I feel it would just be a really dark drama
To me the demonic element is a metaphor for the trauma inflicted on the family
Yep, gives me the same sense of dread as the show Dark, something about the concept of ordinary people being used and sacrificed like pawns is fucking terrifying to me, especially when it's all part of some bigger picture the characters can't grasp or influence, when they can't escape their fate no matter how hard they try
Exactly, I adore this movie for how it creates a feeling of hopelessness insignificance and I really wish more movies would tap into that. It's like existential in a way, because this greater being is controlling their fate and making their lives hell, it's terrifying to me but so fucking cool
Yes, this is what I imagine a demon would really be like, truly terrifying, not like some monster like is usually in supernatural horror demon films.
I think the point of their relationship in midsommar is that you shouldn’t be rooting for the relationship at all, Dani should not be with him, he has no redeeming qualities he’s an ass and she should hate him, but he’s the only person she has left so she just can’t let it go. It’s less she wants to be with him and more she has to been with him. She can’t lose him because she’s lose EVERYTHING else, so she’s gonna overlook every single thing he does. She doesn’t love him she doesn’t like him, she needs him to not leave her and because of that she can’t fully state or recognize his shitty behavior. I think as a viewer it’s good to completely hate him and not see a single redeeming quality because it makes you question why she’s with him and then realize it’s because she needs him and cannot even imagine being alone, and when she has a “family” in the end she finally realizes she no longer needs to be with him.
THIS
Excuse me but those problems are her own with him, she could leave him too? Why kill him? He was totally manipulated, assaulted and then paralyzed and he was the best guy but didn't deserve to be killed the way he got.
@@shrutiwayne7440 She killed him because she too was manipulated and drugged up to the point of a mental break. Under normal circumstances, the break up would have been normal, but due to the machinations of the cult, she opted for an extreme.
Honestly I empathize more with the dude than Dani. Just think about it from another perspective. She really shouldn't be dating anyone in her state. It's far too draining. You even said she "needs him not to leave her." He wants to leave her, but he SYMPATHIZES with her situation and feels some obligation to "not leave her." Isn't that relatable at all to people? IDK it can be very difficult to keep the spark going when someone is so extremely emotionally draining.
@@kazunabe4288 Yeah, having someone depending their whole mental health stability on your it was always going to be unhealthy for everyone involved. It was never fair for Chris to be put on that situation, but he was and the movie makes it seem like he had it coming for not breaking up sooner with the girl who literally had her whole family killed.
Chris at worst was kind of a douche, he didn't deserved that kind of ending just like he didn't deserved to be raped, brainwashed and treated like that.
I will say that I don't think Dani's character fell flat. As someone who has experienced a traumatic, sudden loss, and been sucked into religion to fix that, she was deeply relatable. She suffers countless dissociations, and seems flat, or empty, because of this, but so did I! So I'd make the argument that she is a much deeper character than you would think. Dani's struggles are accurate to the experience of losing a massive part of you.
You took the words right out of my mouth. Midsommar was horrifying because it illustrated how cults worked through the perspective of Dani, the *heavily traumatized individual* that they were actively targeting.
No, she and people like her are just people with no self-worth and dignity. It's not as deep as you want it to be
Exactly!
I completely disagree being around someone who is going through trauma you seem flat but you aren’t everyone around you can see it you were something before that happened to you and that contrasts is contrary to being flat like the video states
anyone who says "i didnt like that the ending of hereditary was supernatural" didn't play close attention to the rest of the movie or only watched one time. The supernatural stuff is a BIG part of the WHOLE movie.
I saw all the supernatural elements and ended up calling the twist, but it was so fucking obvious I thought it would fake me out. That’s my bad, but I was still pretty disappointed when it got to the ending. It was like all the momentum and the curiosity crashed into a wall and now we’re watching a demon summoning. Cool.
I’m glad other people like it because it was a beautiful catalyst for an evolution of the genre, but I was hoping for something more like the Babadook where the supernatural elements were more of a manifestation of all the tension and turmoil the family was experiencing and it just being real feels like it cheapens the real world experiences and feelings that I just spent the whole movie caring about because it was all being puppeteered by demon worshippers who are horrible at staying hidden.
Side note: while I agree with his opinions on Hereditary, I disagree about Midsommar, that shit’s GOATed
Is the twist that it was supernatural or that the family had 0 agency in the entire film? I look at hereditary as a modern version of a greek tragedy where the character is unable to do anything to their fate and taking steps to run away from it merely brings it into existence.
@@GeneralFang252ye but it’s not really a twist, it’s just completing what was set up in the whole movie. i personally think hereditary is far batter than midsomar, the attention to detail in hereditary is just astounding, subtle uses of colour theory and background characters that signify the presence of a demon or cult members is amazing. so you aren’t smart because you saw the “plot twist” coming because it was set up in a way for you to figure it out as you watched it, it all just came to a front at the end. also, i don’t like him saying it’s just rosemary’s baby because so many movie use the demon/cult idea to make a horror movie and it’s unfair to say one is copying another.
Indeed. Pretty lazy criticism.
A relationship doesn’t need to prove it’s worth when you’re so immersed in your own trauma and grief. You can cling to a relationship that’s clearly terrible for years and years because you are not processing the trauma that caused you to cling to that relationship in the first place. A relationship can also be super shitty, and you can still grieve it immensely. If your parent was super abusive to you and they pass away, you can still grieve the person you lost because despite how they valued you, you valued them.
The problem is, I found Midsommar super pretentious and boring. Almost nothing happens, and when something happens it just felt contrived and just made to shock me rather than have a good time.
Comments like this is why I avoid women. PSYCHOPATH
Yeah he had a bad take here, after seeing how my mom was after the abuse she suffered at the hands of her now ex husband he dropped the fucking ball on this one!
@@captainhowlerwilson508it’s more so about the influence that cult brainwashing has on one, literally they try to spin it at no one has your best interest at heart but us!
Okay but nowhere did he say any of what you said is false. He is talking about narratively, how to get your audience invested in your characters. I grew up with parents who hate each other. They never have good moments. I know exactly what it looks like when people cling to misery for the sake of comfortable knowing. It's extremely common. I don't think meep is wrong to say that when writing a STORY, you need to emotionally invest your audience. Hereditary is a perfect example. We rarely have moments in that movie where any of the family are good to each other. Most of the film is comprised of pretty toxic and abusive and unhealthy behavior on all sides. But you still get emotionally invested in the characters bc we spend time with them and understand them deeply as characters. That's the issue with Dani and Christian. It's not that they didn't "prove their worth", it's that we as audience members don't get deeper than surface level understanding of them as people or of their relationship and it results in zero emotional response at the climax of this film that is SUPPOSED TO by its directors own words, reflect the cataclysmic pain of a break up. I think yall are getting way too personally invested and forgetting were talking about a film and not a real couples relationship.
I actually loved the ending of Hereditary. I also loved the ending of the Witch- but I’m a huge fan of horror folkelore. I loved the ode to Rosemary’s Baby at the end.
I love the ending of The Witch, too.❤
Same here I think Hereditary, the Witch and the new Suspiria were really similar as in: they start as just depressing Drama with some supernatural elements and then at the end it’s does a whole 180 and goes super supernatural in a way that doesn’t really fit into the movie and I think a lot of people get upset over it but I just really love the endings of all those three movies
Also if you are into folk-horror then watch the original The Wicker Man. It’s pretty different and not sure if you will like it but I loved it (it’s not really disturbing but more of a weird exploration of a tradition)
the loss of a child, especially a daughter, that hereditary deals with is something that hits way to close to home for me. I've been told by so many people to watch it and from the bits I've seen, it looks brilliant but watching another mother mourn the loss of her daughter is something that I can't do.
My own mother doesn't give a shit about movies, let alone horror films. She thinks they're funny at best and childish at worst. Then my brother and I watched hereditary in the living room while she was sitting on the couch browsing on her laptop. She wasn't even paying attention or anything, had no idea what it was about, but the scene where Toni Collette is on the floor grieving her child literally made her stood up and walk away, she actually said "yeah, I'm leaving , and if anything happened to you guys that'd be me, so I can't listen to this". That movie floored me like no other
that's very understandable
nah i wouldn’t recommend watching this then. its too close to home and even for someone with no kids or even the fact i have never lost anyone yet that scene rips me apart from my inside the shit is powerful
do not watch hereditary lol. its not the movie for you if its that personal.
@checkouijuliet man really, her cry while the son was in bed wide eyed and she discovered what happened was super depressing that shit was insane you could really hear the pain in her that was great acting for sure
So here's the thing about Dani in Midsommar. We can infer from the conversation with her sister in the opening that Dani grew up being her sister's keeper- loving her sister deeply, expending so much effort to protect and be there for her, and learning how to live with the chaos of her sister's mental illness only for her sister to take everything from Dani, including herself. The fact that Dani's only close relationship seems to be Christian - her bf really suggests that she finds it difficult to relate and feel close with other people, this often happens when people grow up enmeshed in family dysfunction, their family is their whole world and the trauma they've experienced alienates them from others. THIS is why Dani is holding onto Christian so tightly- not because he's so wonderful, but because for whatever reason he is all she has, he is her only real human connection left. And deep down she MUST know this, but instead she looks past his clear uncomfortability in being there to appreciate and cling desperately to the fact that he is there at all. And as for Christian, I think one could say, while I certainly agree with you he's an asshole, that he was very much out of his depth when it came to helping Dani with her grief. Not every relationship works out, he was ready to leave but frightened to- he mentions it early on, what if leaving is the wrong choice? This is a man who isn't really sure what love is, but who knows he DOESN'T want to be an asshole and so he stays with a grieving partner, but can't escape being an asshole, because he isn't in love with her, and he's not very good at faking it. He's damned if he goes and damned if he stays and he's just kind of trapped in this moral conundrum with (apparently) noone around him of any real moral insight to help him figure out what to do. I actually find these characters very believable. We are never meant to root for them to stay together. We are actually meant to root for them to find a way to recognize it isn't working and to find the strength and emotional clarity to break up, so that they can find what they need where it actually exists instead of clinging to each other out of fear. That is the dramatic momentum of the film and that's why when Dani chooses to burn Christian, it feels like a triumph of sorts. Perhaps we learn so little about their relationship because both of them are bad at inhabiting their authentic selves with certainty and communicating from that place. They are co-dependent AF.
@Iris I'm not a psychologist but I do have family who are mentally ill and I've had significant elements of trauma in my own life because of those situations. So I do have personal experience I suppose you could say. But because of what my family has gone through I've done a lot of reading over the years about the psychology of development, trauma, attachment, motivation etc. I've seen Midsommar at least three times, and watched a number of commentary pieces on it because I found it to be such a compelling film and I'm always interested to hear other people's perspectives and engage in this kind of dialogue.
@@thinkfirst1989 this was like reading my own comment thank you! i feel exactly the same. i have similar insight as i have mentally ill family members as well as a disabled older brother. lots of love
I love this comment. I do have one thing to add Danny does talk to a friend over the phone (and I think she has other friends besides her too) and she does say.. that maybe she's too clingy.. she says she's always roping him into her family crap and her friend says that's what he's there for. that's not what he's there for dude... nobody signs up for family baggage when they go into a relationship, and when this baggage turns out to be huge you can't be blamed it it kills the romance in you. Everyone has their own limit, and some are shorter than others... Danny knows what she weighs on him... and that he's prolly tired of it all. Chris's passion has slowly died because he's burning out trying to be better than he actually is but at least he's trying. Maybe if he went on a vacation alone, and had some time to miss Danny or not miss Danny, he could have at least had some time to recharge and do the most healthy thing for them both...
Yes, I agree with everything you said! To extend your point, both Dani and Christian are very believable, and that is in part why I have sympathy for them both--because they're both trapped in the relationship, Dani out of grief and a desire to not bear it alone, and Christian out of a desire to avoid making her pain worse (even though he fails to do to that out of a lack of genuine love for her). Both of them have plausible reasons for staying in the relationship, and what makes the horror of the movie so good is that the end of the relationship culminates in their mutual destruction, one of the mind and one of the body. It's a great horror movie because the ending reflected the pain the relationship brought them both the entire time; the relationship inevitably destroys them because they could not bring themselves to destroy it. The cult exploits this and reduces Dani to a mantle for their worship and Christian to a sacrificial animal; making them both victims of the cult as well as each other and their own desires.
I think the missing layer is Dani’s lack of agency
Agency is a big deal here
I think there could be more nuance or a deleted scene where we really see how her sister was a vacuum
If we see this scene then we comprehend some strange sense of why she would stay with Christian. I’m not sure how we can add nuance to Christian. To what extent does life in the West celebrate a toxic guy like him? The secret asshole friend isn’t really an asshole. He has empathy. He also has collective agency. Dani doesn’t have that. She might not even have individualized agency.
Perhaps the missing chance was the suicide scene. The way Christian reacts seemed naturalistic, but doesn’t necessarily showcase a sense of how any rational person would not have just left right then. But that’s a horror film for you. No one needs to stay at the camp. No one needs to sleep over at the cobweb filled mansion.
If the supernatural elements weren’t in hereditary. It’d be a dramatic tragedy. It really wouldn’t be horror anymore
And Toni would have won that Oscar
Exactly what I was thinking. It would just be really depressing. Without the ending there isn’t any horror element.
Depends how you see horror as a definition
The supernatural elements were awful and comical.
@@zd91what kinda take is this? Unless you're just a hater of supernatural plots
I’m not going to lie, I still get chills when I hear the horns from hereditary. It’s still one of my top 5 favorite horror films and really top 5 films in general.
same, the ending song was stuck in my head :(
Hereditary didn't really do anything for me personally but even I can't deny that theme is literally haunting. It's so good. Genuinely one of the best pieces of music in horror I've ever heard hands down
The Paimon part/ending was actually my favorite portion of it. That statue at the end made me more uncomfortable than I've felt in a LONG time watching a movie.
I literally felt nauseous the whole night after seeing it.
@@alinapolat7336 I got nightmares. I never get nightmares.
@@alliemandleni5846 i feel you lol, I laid awake the whole night and couldn’t close my eyes without seeing that fuckinf scene at the end
No literally the ending was so gruseome and just uncomfortable...thats what really made it work imo
@@littleblueby7748 100% agree. The ending was the best part.
I think the reason Dani was clinging onto Christian so tightly despite him being mid was because she needed him while she's grieving. Even though he doesn't actually support her other than like sometimes hugging her or letting her lean against him, she's just so broken by her loss that it would be devastating to lose him too. (maybe before her family died, she was just afraid to be alone because she had no other close friends or something) - to me that actually makes it even more devastating, Dani is out here saying "I know that you don't do anything for me, I know you are completely incapable of helping me through this, but I'm so completely and utterly alone that I still need you."
Lots of comments are making great points. I'd like to add that Dani and Christian were a relationship that began in college. For imperfect people to find each other and date all through college even though their relationship isn't all that meaningful is totally realistic. And Dani's imperfection is not her trauma, it's how she channels her trauma: by ignoring problems. She's all alone, with her only way of ignoring that being someone who doesn't care about her, but they stay together because they are so attached. This is entirely believable to me. I've been through and witnessed relationships that are built on attachment, not love. For me, I don't need to believe that characters love each other for good and honest reasons to understand their attachment, especially characters who started dating when they were teenagers. I think the analysis in this video misses out on how common this type of codependency is.
I watched Hereditary in theatres. At that car scene I remember hearing others gasp (including me) then complete SILENCE. You could have heard an ant's heartbeat. The theatre wasn't even loud before that scene or anything but it was like everyone just froze, and started holding their breath. Ive never experienced that in a movie theatre before. Was pretty cool
I haven't seen hereditary, but I did want to share my thoughts of Midsommer.
I never thought we were supposed to care about Dani and Christians relationship. Her fate was sealed in the first 15 minutes, and we are just watching it play out. Yes, the film is in Danis perspective, but we are seeing her the way the cult does, and also wants Dani to see herself... a blank, hurting, misunderstood woman in need of connection.
The tragedy and emotional crux for me was never Danis romantic life, it was her familial one. She brutally looses her family, all she has left of that is a man she KNOWS doesn't care about her anymore. She doesn't care about that right now, she needs and wants connection. The cult signifies that deep heartfelt connection, even in a ritual suicide, It MEANS something there. All it meant back home was that she was going to be alone.
Dani choosing to kill Christian is signifying her detachment from her old life, and the willingness to have family agian that she also KNOWS are unhinged, but are there for her. It makes the deaths of her own family look like they mean more then tragedy.
We don't see much of Danis relationship with her own family, other then she may have been very protective of her sister, being her rock, and possibly having well meaning but emotionally absent parents.... which sounds like Christian. That is what Dani thinks love is, well meaning, but emotionally absent she knows this isnt the same. But she clings to it as its all she has now. Her other kind of love is being an emotional rock for others, this is what she was trying to get Christian to be, which he tried a little, but in the end neither got what they needed.
The cult did provide however. In a sick and twisted way, they became her rock, they gave her families deaths meaning, they lifted and celebrated her when the world burned down around her, literally and figuratively.
Danis fate was always sealed. Never because of romance, but becuase of family. We are watching her slip down a steep slope of grief and hoping she can catch herself before she falls and let's it take over. Then, instead of slowing down, she dives into it.
Each step we can see certain cult members acting like sisters, brothers, mothers would to her. Reminding her boyfriend of her birthday, in thier room and breaking down without having to say a word, encouraging her to let loose and party a little. All the while we are seeing Danis hallucinations of her family play in the backgrounds, hidden from us, but are apparent in her psyche.
Christian was a jerkish character, yes, but also very realistic. He doesn't want this relationship, but he also doesn't want to hurt Dani more then she has, even if it would make him look bad. He's just a guy, with jerky friends, stuck in that cycle many young men get in. He's a normal stereotype of men women deal with constantly in the dating scene. Not ready or willing to grow.
The tragedy of Dani is her choosing more and more toxic relationships searching for connection rather then working on herself. The cult takes full advantage of that.
I get what the film is trying to tell, but even with this explanation, it doesn’t make the film any less boring and pretentious for me. There are so many movies that deal with break up better than this one and this one just to me feels like it was just trying to shock me and nothing more.
@captainmarvelwilson508 I don't know if you actually read my comment. But I literally explained how it wasn't about her and Christians relationship. It's not about a breakup.
It's about her family.
She gets a replacement family, not a replacement boyfriend.
@@rosechapman2796 Yeah. Okay. But regardless, I still can’t stand this movie because of the reasons I just mentioned. It was the most boring and pretentious movie I saw that year and was only made to make me feel uncomfortable. I just don’t see the point of making a 2.5 hours long movie about the dangers of joining a cult and watching her jerky friends just dismiss everything.
@captainmarvelwilson508 Your allowed to have your opinion, man. I wasn't trying to convince anyone to like the movie, I was explaining my pov on it.
It's fine you don't like them, don't know why you wanted to comment on my post specifically?
Genuinely love to see your take but I do think the fact that Ari Aster explicitly states the point of the movie is Dani and Christian's relationship kinda proves that at any rate he failed in that department. It's awesome you were able to find so much meaning in the family part but it does show that the movies intended message was lost lmao
I don't mind that the characters in Midsommar feel one dimensional. With the emotional turmoil that Dani is going through between her family dying and her bad relationship, EVERYTHING feels one dimension. When you're going through that much crap, life is hollow and lost. It seems fitting that, at least the characters, seems empty and one note in that movie.
Maybe I'm giving too much credit, but I thought it was great that it all felt weird and out of place, because that's what life feels like in those situations.
The end of this movie almost felt like "this is what SHOULD happen" and it feels like you have no choice but to go with it, almost helplessly, but that's what life feels like when you're that emotionally tapped out.
You're totally right, and no, I don't think you are giving it too much credit
Besides Dani literally had no option to do anything about it cuz if she did she was going to be killed lol. I will add that in her position of literal helplessness and putting it in the context she is in, feeling ''relieved'' is totally understandable
This movie made me have a full blown psychotic episode. It just struck way too many cords with me. My family has a bloody history and my abusive father always had occultist beliefs of which he was pretty secretive. For me Hereditary was about the despair and suffering one individual can cause to their loved ones for their own gain, and the horrific aftermath they leave behind, haunting their family even after death. I saw the mother breaking down and being possessed as a clear expression of one of the greatest fears many people from abusive homes have - becoming like their parents. It's even in the title - Hereditary. I don't agree that the film is about the effects of grief alone, but the fact that often that grief is caused by the people meant to be the closest to you, and it takes a horrific journey of self-discovery and sleuthing to reach that realization. A lot of people don't make it through, they succumb to their trauma and perpetuate it to later generations.
I’m glad someone else said it, I have ptsd and a history of psychosis, so it hit home. I started getting paranoid and delusional just watching it, someone should’ve warned me 😂😅 same with midsommar when I first watched it.
@@kavlara I did freak out a bit at the start of Midsommar, but definitely nothing like Hereditary. The rest of the movie was just uncomfortable to watch but not really that scary.
nice larp
Definitely staying away from content like this would be my professional opinion (Therapist, here). No need to put yourself through a full blown psychotic episode (unless you're able to get some catharsis through it?)
You shouldn't have to sacrifice great movies/media, but unless you're in a good place mentally (or at least stable) don't do that to yourself.
I think it's really brave and wise you shared that experience, here. It helps de-stigmatize mental illness. Hope you've recovered!!
I’m so sick of people 😂😂🙄🙄 over a fictitious movie? Grow up and get a life. Omg
The ending of Midsommar was interesting to me because it felt like we were manipulated into smiling with Dani at watching her boyfriend burn. It's like we were drawn into the cult and indoctrinated right alongside Dani. Something that should have been horrifying to both Dani and us as the audience, leaves us feeling satisfied and relieved. For me, it was deeply unsettling to realise I felt the exact way that the cult would have wanted...I had been manipulated into wanting this.
Nevermind the fact that she was so traumatized by the
Attestupa scene just a few days prior. Now fully (for the time being at least) in control of everyone's fate
2:38 No I LOVED the supernatural twist is what I'm saying. I haven't seen the Exorcist, but I'd say in terms of making the paranormal feel credible, this does it just as well. Because rather than couching it in science, it shows how despair can make people want something so badly, that it warps perception and dulls skepticism. Ari knows that any audience member would be going "What if there's a magnet under the table, guiding the planchet?" so he has Annie look under the table. And at this point in her story, even if there are other rational explanations for what's happening, this is enough to make her a believer, so it's enough for us.
A good portion of why it works is just the visual effects themselves. Yes, it's often so dark you can barely see what's happening anyway, but when you do see them move, the weightlessness looks real. It feels real.
And the final scene?! Come on! It was a haunted diorama of a rebirth the whole time. The perfect Halloween-meets-Christmas twist. I wouldn't love this movie nearly as much without the demonic ending.
I liked the ending and supernatural element in Hereditary. Reason is because of the fact that the grandma cursed them with her cult and adds the element of the sins of your fathers to the overall themes of the film.
I'm wondering what direction you would have rather had Hereditary go in? I get that cults and demons are a major trope in horror at this point. However, I think it's what a movie does with these familiar territories that redefines the dilemma and gives it a fresh perspective. To me, I don't think the use of demonic forces in this movie is a cop out or crutch but a glue that holds all the layers and complexity together.
I totally agree with you :)
Same, I wish he would've gone more in depth as to why he didn't like the cult/supernatural elements. Seems more like a bias than actual criticism imo. The supernatural stuff is baked deep in the movie's beginning so removing the cult and the ending wouldn't make sense in context to the rest of the film.
fr! ive also heard that ari wanted to have these elements of cliche
@@Watchful049 I believe he disliked it so much because the execution of the supernatural elements was so similar to the climax of Rosemary’s Baby that it came off as lazy. Having all of these tense elements laced throughout the film all for it to end with the lead character being a vessel for a demon, especially with the cult exposition-dumping in the last few minutes, is what brings it just a tad too close to the other film. Plus, the cult do it for personal gain and riches, as did the cult in Rosemary’s Baby (that’s the whole reason Guy let himself get cucked by the devil).
@@Nexol13 ill admit, I've never seen Rosemary's baby. Whats wrong with it being similar to another film if the other film is good though? Without comparing another movie, why does the cult and supernatural elements not work in this?
The Joker and Taxi Driver get compared to each other too but people usually state why Joker being too similar to Taxi Driver doesn't work as well. One criticism I have of Joker is that Arthur (joker)he seems way too sympathetic compared to Travis (taxi driver). In the Joker, it feels like people are mean for the sake of it and as a result, Arthur is alienated from society. In comparison, Travis is a weird, anti social perv because he's lost his purpose. Being a soldier gave him purpose but he doesn't know what to live for anymore so he tries to buy a gun to kill someone for attention. So while both depict social outcasts, Joker doesn't is too sympathetic so you'll always root for him but Travis isn't so innocent so you're challenged to side with him or not.
I wanted to address the scene you were talking about at 16:21. I don’t even think he was “standing in solidarity with her” from my memory, Christian was like “oh I’m not going to do it if she isn’t”, so everyone automatically blamed Dani for not taking the shrooms because Christian wouldn’t which only elevated her anxiety into saying yes. I feel like Christian’s intentions were to place blame on her because he himself didn’t really want to take it. Idk that would align w his character more
I feel like this scene exemplifies their relationship, Christian knows or at least thinks he knows what the correct thing to do is; but doesn't really want to do it.
So he wants to take the shrooms, but feels obligated - and annoyed by it - to support Dani, and Dani senses this and gives in since he is her last/only emotional support.
It feels like a lot of people who watched the film put a lot of malice on Christians actions, when the truth is that he is just completely over the relationship and feels imprisoned by Dani's situation. Which makes him act like a douche.
But I'll admit that it might just me that is projecting, I've had a friend that has been totally dependent on me for their emotional wellbeing, and it can be so draining.
I think he stood in fake solidarity with her because he knew she would cave. How she is, is exactly what he created and he knows his creation very well. He accomplished being understanding in her eyes and the "here we go again" myrtr to his friends all in one motion. It was by design. Her theme is to compromise herself in every way for his benefit. I really don't believe he was ever going to break up with her. He was too selfish to. He liked to complain about her which always got him a pay off. It got him sympathy and attention which all manipulative narcissists thrive on.
I was ready to totally dismiss this as like “I’m not like the other girls” ari aster hate, but you made a lot of really great points 😁👍🏾. I don’t think Dani is a Mary Sue though, she’s clearly very anxious, clingy and codependent, I feel like dating her would be exhausting even before her parents were killed by her sister.
Appreciate this comment a lot! Really try my hardest to come with good points and give credit where it's due when I make videos like this. I have a lot of respect and admiration for Ari Aster and I hate when somebody's a contrarian just for the sake of it, so I'm stoked to hear this video is coming across how I intended. I can agree with the last part to an extent, but we really can't get to know the full extent of Dani's personality since the film just wants to show it on the surface level. Given what we see the film, trying to defend Christian's side just feels like playing devil's advocate haha.
THIS. The ending is also clearly Dani getting out of a toxic relationship and into a cult collective, and aggregate sites flooded with videos about how this is "empowering" without viewing the dire implications. Out of the frying pan, into the fire.
He could have dumped her earlier then but ok
i dont think she was meant to be seen as clingy, Christian is a horrible boyfriend and she was still tolerant of his manipulative behavior
@@Shadi092986 ironic how the conditioning worked on the audience too
00:45 Passengers could not have been good. If even a single pixel of the original survived a re-edit, a single shot was saved from a reshoot, a single word was saved from the rewrite, a single actor remained from recasting, or a single pixel saved from a re-edit, it would still deserve to be displayed in front of the holocaust museum as the greatest atrocity humanity has ever committed against itself
I consider myself a horror connoisseur. A movie has never affected me the way Hereditary did.
i feel like if you’ve never been in such a toxic relationship with somebody, the movie won’t impact you as much; the level at which i related with Danny was so scary that i couldn’t stop feeling anxious throughout the whole movie; also, there is this absolutely terrifying feeling of not being understood and supported that is extremely soul crushing when it’s coming from someone who you love this much and the emptiness and loneliness throughout the various scenes between the two really brought up my darkest memories; this movie completely destroyed me and i never want to see it again - THAT is why it’s absolutely perfect and it did its job
same. I think the way the movie was acted just made it so much more relatable to women as well. I had just been out of a toxic relationship followed by a death in the family when I watched this and I truly felt everything. Especially Dani didn't need any more depth imo
and he totally missed the aspect of the movie that is about fascism and white supremacy, and said on the comments that Ari Aster didnt present the movie in that way, but he actually totally did. It's just that white people still easily fall for fascist ideology or never notice it being shoved down their throats because they don't care...
Sameeee, i had broken up with my ex who treated me poorly and my codependent ass was unable to leave him or see the redflags. Christian reminded me so much of him and my name is also Dani so i also was anxious and relating way too much hahha
Hey Kate reply but I’m wondering what you thought of midsommers ending, did you think it was a happy ending for Dani?
@@sarah-vw9ty dani is her relationship lmao no depth whatsoever. which is accurate to women in real life because they claim they lose themselves in toxic relationships and they become nothing. quite pathetic
The ending of midsommar is perfect. You want dani out of her awful relationship but she wont let it go bc hes all that she has left. But you also see her easily manipulated by and brought further and further into the cult, until they have completely replaced christian in dani's mind as her family. So the ending is meant to elicit the contradictory emotions of "oh yay kill him" and "oh no shes in a cult now!!"
It's imo the climax and the essence of the horror of midsommar: the dawning realization that dani has replaced one toxic relationship for another, and that in the end she got what she wanted. She found a new family.
@@kat8559 EXACTLY I don't know how people miss this 😭
But why is it a good thing he's killed? He literally didn't do a thing wrong apart from being a bit of a dick sometimes.
I’m surprised so many people actually thought about the relationship in that movie.
I’m just scarred from granny’s hands on his ass.
I mean he’s an asshole but he definitely didn’t deserve to be burned alive sewn into a bear corpse 💀
I may be wrong, but my hot take on both movies was that we are seeing the events of the two films from the point of view of the main leads. This is why we get highly opinionated depictions of people because the protagonist sees them as such; if the main character hates someone, then we only see the bad and NONE of the good in that person. On top of that, neither believes they’re in the wrong…so we never see them in that light, even when pieces of the darker parts of their personalities manage to seep through. Again, this is just my interpretation however.
Feels like complaining for the sake of complaining. What is the alternative ending for Hereditary you would have preferred? Obviously it was a demon, i don’t see how that is disappointing. What else could have possibly been the explanation for all the weird shit going on? The execution and the twist of it being a set up from the start was great.
Hereditary is a great movie, but Midsommar is not.
In my opinion, I feel that it should've been ambigious as to whether or not all the events and trama that take place was the fault of the supernatural, or the insanity brought upon onto the family.
When me and my dad watched Hereditary for the first time, before the paimon stuff was revealed he thought that the movie was about annie. That she actually did kill peter and charlie ( and herself) with the paint thinner and that the she was in hell. I love this concept so much and feel like it could have been a better twist
it would have been so boring
I agree, the supernatural stuff should've been ambigious as to whether or not it was actually there.
Good thoughts; not real fan of either these movies, but they have their own merit. Kind of felt that the flat characters in Midsommar was probably intentional because the story is told in Dani's perspective as it is her attempt at trying to cope with the loss of her family. It would almost make sense to me that she'd view Christian and his friends as exaggerated versions of what they normally would be (like Christian likely was distant, but in her mind, she would overblow it out of proportion). Grief would take a major toll on a person's mind after all.
I can definitely agree with this, to an extent. The story is told from Dani's emotional lens and these distorted and simplistic views of the people around her could easily be attributed to her grief. If that's what Ari Aster was going for, I just wish it would've been integrated into the story better. Maybe we get more well rounded looks at the characters at the beginning of the story but as the cult ensnares Dani they progressively get more one dimensional. Something like that could've really enhanced that choice and made it resonate more, in my opinion.
Oh, I agree with the assessment, just basing my interpretation around Dani's grief most likely causing her to exaggerate her surroundings along with being indoctrinated.
I completely agree with you about Midsommar, but less so about Hereditary. I liked the ending of the latter, which was so bizarre to me that it was legitimately terrifying. Not so much a fear of "the devil," but with cults that have members completely convinced that horrific acts are justified, even joyous.
Nice video, im trying to get into making video essays too... this is a very good example of what an opinion piece should be! Keep it up
Really appreciate the kind words! Making videos like this is a great outlet and I hope you enjoy the process. 🙏🏻
The scene in the car with Charlie with Hereditary hit me like a fucking lampost out of nowhere.
Seriously, that crack and the following 10 minutes of utter despair and the harrowing, realistic cowardice of his reaction to it.
I can honestly say no other horror film has come close to landing a blow like that on my psyche.
I can deal with supernatural shit, or gore porn or whatever till the cows come home. It's unreal, you can revel in the unrealness and enjoy it for the novelty. That scene, that scene felt entirely too real. It comes out of nowhere as it's been built as a supernatural horror film, with Charlie possibly being something like the kid from the Omen. Then whammy! The motherfucking consequences of your entirely relatable and petty teenage rebelliousness come back to haunt you, with dividends.
You just do not expect it.
I can see why the unravelling into supernatural torment after that can sour the experience. I'd much have preferred it to be left ambiguous. And I'd probably have believed it was the characters degrading mental health that was responsible for the events after that scene if it was left ambiguous. But that singular scene hit me so hard that I just don't care.
It's good enough!
Midsommar was good, it felt like a story about a cult indoctrinating a very unwell individual, which is what was actually happening. But nothing in that film took me for the loop like Hereditary did.
The set and style of the film made it a very enjoyable film though. The fractal repetition at the dinner scenes were very satisfying for instance.
Okay, so reading through comments and watching this video, and hearing from the director I come away from this thinking this: people like Midsommar through sheer projection of their own problems, because that's quite literally what the director did. It's well shot, great cinematography, well acted, but ultimately high brow schlock.
When her head hit a (ex) tree in Hereditary, that's about the peak of it. The reactions of the son and mother - Toni Collete's cry as she goes out to the car, and the wrenching grief that follows - make the film. The supernatural stuff is handled very well, and is creepy and scary in its own way. But the all-too-real sudden, violent loss of someone you love and are meant to protect - that is the peak of the film, and nothing after that can match it. The rest of the film is footnotes to the first act.
Without that moment, it would be an excellently done horror mystery. But, for all the burning alive and piano wire and headslamming, it can't match that first horror.
I certainly agree with you, but I think the moments after the loss where actually pretty alive by themselves
My take away from the movie is that you can have a grief so haunting that it can make you an emotional vampire, kill your ex, and gladly be the head priestess of a cult. LOL relatable
Just to add something to the conversation. I never really saw Dani's boyfriend as "an a**hole" like so many seem to think. I think the director mentioning he has been in that characters shoes kinda reminds me of situations I have seen others in. If this were a "normal good equal relationship" then he would be an a**hole for acting "blah" towards Dani. But in this relationship Dani is extremely damaged emotionally and requires professional help. She is a giant drain on this guy's life, on a near constant basis. That is a horrible relationship. He doesn't really seem to be too into her anymore either, which means that he perhaps does not feel much romance between them anymore. This guy feels bad for wanting to break up with her because of everything she has been through. And he just seems completely drained by her. Pretty relatable stuff. He doesn't love her anymore, but still sympathizes with her, so what is left is this dull crappy relationship that should absolutely end. In real life, this is a tricky situation, but most likely, the relationship would end without any need for cults or whatever.
Sometimes what the movie doesn't show can be implied. How often did this poor guy have to come to the hysterical beckoning of someone suffering from a lot of emotional distress? How often did he have to drop what he was doing to help his girlfriend because she had a panic attack? Not everyone is cut out for that role in a relationship, especially if the spark has already fizzled away, or you are young, or a million other reasons. The way she always cried or freaked out or switched emotions was draining for me to watch. The poor dude did not deserve that fate or any hate for being tired of all this.
You both are correct.
First two minutes in, and i get so many conflicted messages...
-I love and respect director!
-This movies frustrated me!
-You know, sometimes you watching bad movies, and deep inside there is a good movie?
-This movies are not bad! They good, but they have potential to be great!
-Now lets start and i will tell you why they focking terrible!
Dude! WTF?! :D
I rewatch these at least a couple times a year. Such a different type of horror. Taking themes we can relate to on a small scale and ramping them up to a very uncomfortable and haunting level.
This the kind of channels that deserve hundreds of thousands of subs. Good analysis man. Im glad im here at 185 subs and will still be here when this blows up. Haha
The grief in Aster’s films is honestly my favorite.
So I have a problem with this review of hereditary. I don't see why Paimon being present is an issue. I'm not sure what it could possibly be instead that would make this work. No matter how it ends, there's still an occult ritual involving the devil, and that's literally the part that makes it a horror movie, and the result of all of their trauma.
Same here. I just recently revisited Hereditary and after rewatching it with a clear head after 2 years, and knowing so much about it, I really enjoyed that it also works as a straight-up horror film with the demon being real and present in its universe. I've had it with artsy symbolic horror. The "monster created by trauma" element has become a trope. And A24 is guilty of it too. Let's not even start talking about ... Men.
@@magnuskallas Men is such a stupid movie. The movie could have worked so well as commentary on what it's like to live under sexism if it just acknowledged the men. Like, one UA-camr said that she thought it would be about the paranoia of "have I met this guy before? Am I being stalked by this man?" and that was why they all looked the same. But nope, literally no reason for it.
Yeah idk what he expects to be the cause of it other than something supernatural
"In the real world there are horrible, toxic relationships where all of the blame for everything terrible lies solely on one partner. That absolutely does happen."
Not in the West it doesn't, and this film is no exception.
Pugh's character is no prize either, and no victim of this bad relationship. The first act, horrific as it was, served as a device to have her cling even harder to false hopes and keep rejecting common sense as women often do. We'd rather be miserable with someone than miserable without.
I liked the honest portrayal of a weak protagonist who found all of her strength in the cult's validation. She let them handle what she couldn't handle herself. At the end they made her feel like a literal queen among them, when really all they did was, through emotional manipulation, successfully make her part of their flock.
8:44 I have to say I appreciate your choice of music from The Sims 1. 💚
Midsommar's end is horrifying for the fact that a lot of people took Dani's acceptance as a good thing. Her relationship with him being the only relationship she had since her family died. Makes you wonder if she would've ended things with him if her family was still in her life. Now she's got a new family... And das no good
i wonder if her finding a new family is what gives her a sense of worth and thus she is crowned as a queen
I can't help but think how messed up it is that in her "new family" she has to help raise the child produced by Christian cheating on her.
@@Videos12ification you misspelled Christian's rape because he was totally raped
@@Videos12ification he was graped bfr
@@Videos12ification wasn't he r*ped ?
Man, you have to keep on making these type of in-depth videos. I love these two movies a lot, and you pointed out some interesting things I wasn’t even able to recognize myself. You’re a great critic and keep up the good work!
I can't really express how much I appreciate this comment, honestly. I've got other video ideas floating around, one of which is another in depth film analysis, but per usual it's taking some time to make. Once it's finally out, I hope you enjoy it. Thanks so much for the kind words, it means the world!
@@meeptop Can't wait for the next one
I appreciate hearing you say "it's just Satan?" like that because it takes some of the power that movie still has over me away a little bit. I'd love to share why Hereditary f*cked me up so bad in the first place, though. In the final end scene, surrounded by naked worshippers, naked headless corpses of Peter's parents, the severed head of his little sister on a mannequin, I felt safe, welcome and taken care of in a way I couldn't shake, then immediately disoriented and disgusted to feel that way on top of it (then credits roll and the upbeat song really emphasizes the "comfort" which makes it even more horrifying because it's so clearly not comforting at all).
I think the way it worked in my experience is: through watching Peter go from apathetic burnout teen to traumatized and guilt-ridden, infantalized depression-blob being terrorized to an overwhelming crescendo... then the moment when all the ambiguity is stripped away and everything is explained, that overwhelm and terror finally ease off as does the uneasiness of the ambiguity. The terror in the shadows is brought to light, and they are saying "you're safe now. we did this all for you. you have all the power." as the camera stays fixed to the actor's eyes so intimately, keeping the audience connected, exploiting the bond we made with both Charlie early on and Peter. So, from the way I experienced the movie, the horror of the ending comes from the feeling of relief and even safety in the context of pure evil winning, surrounded by this horrifyingly macabre scene.
i feel exactly the same!!!! ive watched this movie twice and i still feel so comforted by the ending despite how absolutely fucked it is
I guess I am alone in thinking Christian was done dirty because he was drugged, pushed to have sex while high (aka he was raped), and then got burned alive for it.
Sure, maybe he was a bad boyfriend and a douchebag, but I’m not sure he deserved to be raped and then burned alive.
I agree. He was despondent and not very attentive to Dani, but I think Ari did too good of a job with making people wanting him to be burnt alive. We saw from the beginning that he had intentions of breaking up with her because his heart wasn't in the relationship anymore, but to leave someone after such a horrific tragedy would've been difficult for anyone. Although he doesn't want to be with her, he still cares enough about her that he didn't leave her to deal with her grief alone. He's not the best person, but he's not deserving of anything that happened to him. It's a masterclass in guiding the audience into schadenfreude.
While I do agree that the overtly satanic aspects of the ending of Hereditary tend to be less gut-wrenching than seeing a family tear itself to shreds just 'cause, I don't see how it ruins the experience at all. In fact, none of the movie would've happened without it. The deep character studies of these flawed individuals happen BECAUSE there is a satanic entity out there, so I really can't see how taking it out of the movie would've elevated it. As much as it is a trope, it is deeply rooted in the core of the film, and it wouldn't have happened without its influence
Also, out of everyone in Midsommar, I do not think that Christian was that one dimensional. Yes, he steals his friend's thesis idea, avoids responsibility and is overall very neglectful towards his relationship with Dani, but as much as it sucks to admit it, if you ever felt drained by a relationship without it necessarily being the other person's fault, you will see yourself in him. You feel as if there is no justification to cut ties with the other person despite interacting with them feeling as if it's too much, and you're just afraid of hurting their feelings because of something so subjective as whether or not you like to be around someone. I know I've been there with a couple of "friendships" that I just don't feel comfortable with and even though I do try to support these people and am not as bashful as he was, I did see a lot of my own frustration with these people through him. Anyway, yeah, his friends are very one note to me, I did not care about them at all lmao
I think we saw that moment with Dany and Christian very differently. I saw that as him pushing her by refusing to just let her go at her own pace, so now she's ruining it for the gang if she doesn't give in.
100% this. Like blatantly so.
The Midsommer bf gets WAY to much heat. He was on the verge of breaking up with her. But her family dies and he is forced into a situation to not abandon her. He invites begrudgingly invites her to his boys trip so she doesn’t have to be alone. She should have said no, she was on the verge of a mental breakdown.
Then the man gets abused, his gf ignores him for the cult, he gets drugged, drugged again, raped, all his friends die, then gets burned alive.
HE TRIED!!! You can’t dump someone after their family dies, she should have took responsibility.
He didn’t deserve it at all whatsoever. To hear people talk about how he somehow deserved what he got is so ridiculous
Thank you at least some people have some critical thinking skills, he was no angel sure I agree but he didn't deserve to be tortured and killed.
@@TheJuggla042 I agree. None of them should have been tortured and killed, and Christian should not have been sexually assaulted, and killed. But from their own dialogue, Christian's response would have been: It's cultural. I'm trying to keep an open mind. (Until he realized that not all cultures are equal, and that he was just as likely to be killed to be stuffed in the bear as "the honorable Terbyon..." except that Dani saw Christian fornicating with the girl he was making eyes at during the whole trip.)
Should he have been killed? No. But then again, none of them should have been killed. I'm rather against human sacrifice. But for Christian, it was cultural. He was experiencing it with an open mind...
She couldn't take responsibility because.. I don't know.. Her whole family just died?
@@thejaded and so we should just let people act and do what they want because of something bad that happened to them? She's an adult though, yes losing your family sucks but if you are so emotionally stunted that you can't move on in a healthy way that's a "you problem" she takes out her anger on a guy that had loved her but grown apart and didn't want to continue the relationship she should have accepted that but instead she emotionally manipulates him to stay with her.
My experience of Middommer was, “Abused and, as a result, unreliable narrator joins white supremacist death cult, becomes trad wife.” I’d be very surprised to learn that wasn’t the deeper layer at play in the film, because the color pallet, music, etc supports it. The film indoctrinates the viewer, Danny, who was indoctrinated already by Christian (name on purpose) into a toxic relationship is primed to be indoctrinated again by the death cult. It’s not triumphant. I wish Aster would speak to this more directly, and dispel the “bad breakup” surface level reads now that the spoiler moratorium is well passed.
You’re welcome to read that out of the story- but that doesn’t mean that that intention was there by the creator at all. Kurt Vonnegut anonymously took a university class on his works and failed it. John Green speaks really beautifully on the difference between when a work is a creator’s, and when a work becomes an audience’s. You’re allowed to have that interpretation, but to expect aster to ‘dispel’ what his personal intentions of the film were.
how are they white supremist?
Where the fuck did you get the "white supremacy" from?
I actually hate how the cult in Midsommar is interpreted to be white supremacist. No they weren't. They were secluded north Europeans, they treated the one black guy in the group like the white guys there. Europeans don't even have the concept of race as Americans do, the concept of white supremacy does not apply
Well, at least you recognize that your analysis is extremely superficial
14:29 the lady in white is CLEARLY more interested in whats on her phone then anything coming out of Ari Aster's mouth 🤦🏾♀️
The reason these films deserve to be so celebrated is because they elevate the metaphorical to the mythical and speak to the human experience in a way that rises above the narrative.
This is what has been inherent in the great works of Cinema.
The “one dimensional” characters are archetypes typically representative of different parts of a somewhat universal psyche.
King Paimon is representative of the selfish power dynamic that perpetuates generational trauma.
It’s there to be taken literally if you want, but that’s not the only way to take it.
Woah, woah woah! You didn't say you were gonna spoil Rosemary's Baby! Get the **** outta here! Some of us still gotta catch up!
The problem I had with Hereditary was that we never see the family as a family (if they ever were). They start the film eaten up with guilt and distant from each other, so I never connect with anyone. And the ending is a jumbled mess with shots from other horror films, so I loved so much of it...but it's not up with The Exorcist or The Shining.
I never saw Midsommar, but I've watched the Critical Drinker's take on it several times, which is very entertaining (and a lot less long). It looked like a drawn-out pretentious take on The Wicker Man, and I get the feeling I would connect with these characters about as well as I did in the trailer (which I didn't).
But I agree with everything you say! You are NOT wrong.
I slightly disagree with your stance on Hereditary. The family may start off slightly dysfunctional, but we're starting the film off in a place of emotional potency for these characters (the death of a family member). The seeds of guilt are planted, but they're manifested in much less pronounced ways. The interactions between Peter and Annie are very typical of a teenage son and a mother, Annie and her husband seem much more affectionate even when Annie is faintly starting to retrude from him a bit, Annie clearly loves Charlie and is trying to connect with her in this time of grief. I definitely see them as a family at the beginning of the film. Not a perfect family by any means, but what family is? If anything I find the portrayal of their family as more honest and therefore easier to connect to, personally.
I also think it's worth noting that you bring up The Shining as an example of a better horror film, but ultimately that film also uses the same narrative structure and family dynamic as Hereditary. I won't get too much into it because I'd like to talk about it in a future video, but the Torrance family is plagued by trauma and abuse right from the beginning. Jack Torrance was a small step away from falling into madness, Danny was already somewhat distant from Jack as a result of the incident that preceded their trip to the Overlook, Wendy already seems overrun by anxiety, etc. The horrific events of the Overlook simply tip the scales further and you watch the characters descend, the exact same way you do in Hereditary. But The Shining is much more ambiguous and up for interpretation, which I find vastly more interesting than it being spelled out for you like Hereditary.
As far as Midsommar goes, it is definitely a drawn out Wicker Man homage but I don't think I'd call anything about either of Aster's films pretentious. Especially seeing interviews with him, it's clear the guy just loves horror films and loves using that medium to tell stories that connect with him. He revels in the conventions of horror and wants the audience to have as much fun with it as he does, while still attempting to bring through deeper themes. This both works to his advantage and disadvantage at times, but I don't think he's ever taking himself or what the movie has to say with too much self-seriousness.
That being said, I obviously did find the characters in Midsommar hard to relate to on anything other than the surface level because of the lack of nuance. As I said in the video, I'd still recommend you experience the film for yourself but given what you've said here I doubt it'd do much for you emotionally.
Thanks for watching and for the comment, I appreciate your input!
@@meeptop why do you think directors taking their stories in a quite self serious manner , is a bad thing ?
@@dylana.9057 I don't think directors taking their work seriously is a bad thing and I never once said that. All I said was I don't think Ari Aster in particular takes that approach, therefore calling his films pretentious doesn't feel like a fair criticism.
Theirs over 30 minutes of deleted hereditary scenes that show them as a actual family and theirs so many emotional scenes that have made me cry! Ari said he removed most because he purposely wanted the family to feel estranged and broken. He wasn't trying to make the type of film you wanted. I hope we get a version with the deleted scenes added back into the film even if it changes the films entire being
Pretty they've always been like this and that was the point.
Well, I don't know if I agree with you. I LIKED that the movie picked up at the end of their relationship. They are at a point where, yes, I'm sure they were in love with each other, but NOW... they're beyond that. There is no spark left. There is really no hint of why you fell in love to begin with left. They can't even realistically fake it at this point, let alone drudge up enough genuine feeling for each other. I've BEEN in a relationship like that. Where you Know there is no future together, you don't even Want a future together, but you are just too comfortable (or lazy, however you want to look at it) to want to go through any big life changes. It's just easier to try not to upset the apple cart. I thought it was smart, and Much more realistic to show their relationship where they are now, as opposed to stuffing in a bunch of hammy scenes of their past love. I certainly wouldn't have wanted flashbacks, for God's sake. Anyway, that's just what I took from the movie.
There are so many really good takes in the comments that I kind of feel like adding to it is pointless, especially after a year, but whatever here’s my thoughts lol
(For Midsommar) I’ve never been in a toxic, romantic relationship before, but I was in a toxic and straight up abusive relationship with my mother for almost the first two decades of my life. It’s been really hard for me to seek therapy because I was afraid of somebody pointing out my flaws and things that I did that contributed to what I experienced. So thinking about the fact that Ari Aster was writing this in the midst of his break up, I’m sure he wasn’t in a place to be reflecting and giving himself “constructive criticism.” Particularly if you’ve been in a relationship where somebody used gaslighting against you, you already question yourself on a near daily basis so to finally be rid of that person but still be reflecting on your mistakes is gut wrenching.
I think that’s why Dani is so one-dimensional; because sometimes we have to view ourselves as perfect victims, who eventually become a hero, just to cope. (honestly half of my daydreams are revenge fantasies) And I don’t just sympathize with her, I empathize with her for that reason. Because empathizing with somebody who admits to making mistakes, while more realistic, forces me to admit my mistakes as well.
All that being said, I know that one dimensional characters are pretty much objectively bad storytelling. I understand and agree that adding some depth to the relationship and making it believable would’ve made the emotional climax more powerful for a wider audience.
What’s with the trend of people trying to seem smart and insightful by cutting down and trashing the few examples we get of well made, thematically cohesive movies? Like everyone is desperate to yell that the emperor has no clothes and secure their place as a bold truth-teller, but it’s a bad look that says more about your inability to see value in something than your ability to critique.
I wish I could watch hereditary for the first time all over again. That scene where the head gets knocked off. Those screams. The state from the brother. The feeling! Ugh I felt it. 😫
Fucking insane that you are under 100 subs. You're gonna blow up soon, and I can't wait to watch it happen. These are well made and very entertaining videos under your belt. Keep it up!
I'm really stoked you're enjoying what I'm making and I immensely appreciate the kind words. I don't know if I'll ever really "blow up," but I'm more than happy with the way things are growing. I'll keep it up and hopefully you keep enjoying the videos!
I see your points but Hereditary is a dark and hopeless film. Our characters are brought down so low and kicked while they are down. They are literally brought down to the depths of hell. Which physically happens in the film to all of them. We are slowly watching the family go to hell together. There are many themes of course you can take out of that however The point is that we are seeing a family be brought down to the lowest possible.
Depthful isn't a word. It's just deep. Deep is the word. Holy shit that bothered me so much.
This has got to be one of the few times I've seen someone misunderstand two films and then rant about them not making sense.
Like a colorblind person complaining that the color palette is dull.
I liked the hereditary ending! It’s like
“OH. They never had a chance. Aw man.”
In defense of midsommar and Dany and Christian’s relationship; maybe we aren’t supposed to see any sweet moments because when the movie starts they’re already in such a state of no repair. The movie starts with Danny calling Christian while he’s out with his buddy’s because her sister is causing her to panic while he’s talking about leaving her. He says himself it’s not the first time the sister has done this, so clearly the threat of the tragic opening has been lingering over them the entire time digging into a relationship that was never meant to make it to begin with.
They’re in university, they don’t have much in common- they probably were just dating and experiencing that first real relationship but the toxicity of Dany’s family bleeds into the toxicity of their relationship never meant to thrive.
We do see Dany telling him he’s not an asshole even though she knows he is because if she admits he is, he may leave her, or she’ll have to fully admit they need to end it. She‘s lost everyone in her family and all she has is this guy, of course she’s going to cling to him and ignore his many, many flaws.
We don’t see Christian do nice things or cherish her because we’re only supposed to see the cult do them for Danny. Pele asks her if she feels held by Christian, when they arrive Dany is the only one to get a hug from the community. There’s hints like that all over the movie where whatever Christian is lacking the cult will give her. They even embrace her as a family member at the end where Christian was all she had left but she knew he wanted to leave her too.
You mentioned a ton of modern horror films that are phenomenal and one for me is Annihilation. It's such an amazing concept with an out of this world idea that perfectly combines sci-fi and eldritch horror. The fear of the uknown and the fear of losing yourself.
If you enjoy reading, I highly recommend the book. It’s different from the movie, but they are both solid works.
I can understand Midsommar being criticised... Hereditary is once in a lifetime and people struggle to find horror movies that are on the same level after watching it. The only things that come close are a few foreign films.
you didn't understood the Paimon plot at all, it wasn't Paimon all along, he obtained control over peter only at the final scene
Meep you missed one thing, Dani lost her entire family so she only had christian left THAT and her yearning for what once was is the only reason she wants him still but she slowly develops a new family at midsommar and slowly moves on that is why she sacrifices him evem though she actually does not want to.
Both Midsummar and Hereditary have a brilliant numbness. They are emotionally drained and they really spoke to me.
The metaphor of the supernatural elements in hereditary didn’t jump the shark, for me, with the ecstatic and fantastical ending, which can still be read literally without disrupting the horror of the family’s experience of grief. I even would say that the ending has a catharsis that the psychological journey requires. It does cross a line, but it feels like the line being crossed is the one between the kind of grief that contains hope and the kind from which there’s no return, and insanity rises to the level where hellish truth obscures any potential for redemption. For me, that’s a valid and powerfully moving cinematic story to tell. Without that kind of tipping out of the mundane, the story’s arc would seem much less complete to me.
Late to the party here but I felt the same way. I was thinking that maybe all the supernatural stuff wasn't real and it was just the mental breakdown of guilt and trauma and then it was an actual cult and I enjoyed the ride, but I was just kinda "oh, cult, okay."
Love the video but bro the sims 1 music in the back ground braught back memories i didnt know i had
There is literally a movie called Midsommer about a boy named Christian (same name as the character in Aster’s Midsommer) going to the exact same event. It was released in 2003.
Did I mention that the reason he goes to the event is because his sister dies? Just like in Aster’s Midsommer.
@@sickasmalaria I've heard of this film but have never seen it. Would love to see how similar they are thematically and in execution, but the basic premise sounds pretty much like a word for word remake lol.
@@meeptop it’s so bizarre. It’s not a shot for shot remake or anything but the similarities are crazy
No, it wasn't "and then Satan." All of the grief was real, every reaction was human by the family. The plot catalyst was Paimon. It doesn't negate any part of the exploration of grief even remotely. In fact, it's essentially an allegory for familial grief-- what you may do can haunt your family forever. It also was not the same ending as Rosemary's Baby. In hereditary, the end was the culmination of everything we saw before-- the grief won, like it so often does. Absolutely no part of the weight of Hereditary is undercut by the supernatural elements, they are all placed as symbols for the pain that can occur due to family trauma and mental illness. The story needed to be horrific (i.e., horror) to get how horrific the reality is, it's literally *why* it is so impactful. You can't really view the horror and the story separately if you are to understand the interplay of the emotional (i.e., the fear) and the mental (i.e., the drama) aspects of trauma.
yeah! the inevitability of the satanic plot mirrors the destruction that grief and trauma can cause when there is no, to put it the best way i can, help available. not saying that healing from trauma and grief is impossible, but that getting out of situations that cause trauma and finding community to support one through those things is nigh impossible, so for a lot of people the ending has already been written. even when you're going through something traumatic or are grieving it can feel like there's no escape, and the machinations of the ritual reflect that quite well imo. even in rosemary's baby, the satanic cult conspiring against her, lying to her and gaslighting her is only an extreme version of a lot of people's realities, especially of how abuse is not believed or at the very least belittled, not to mention how the christian aspect ties into it as well.
Thank you SO much for this video because I've had a "problem" with Midsommar ever since I first watched it and I finally realized what that "problem" is. I absolutely love this film for many reasons, however I also felt that something was off with the writing and I never really understood what, but watching your video it made me realize something about Midsommar (and Hereditary too). The endings of these films feel like fairytales or storybook endings, the results of a domino effect that started at the beginning of the movie (Grandma's death/Dani's family death), a result etched in stone, unavoidable. They feel like they're teaching some kind of morals but for adults, like "don't sacrifice the happiness and well-being off your descendants or others for your own gains" and "let people help you when you're stuck in a hurtful mental situation", but they're done in the most brutal, violent and hyperbolic ways possible. When Dani must learn to put her own need before others, the movie literally kills her toxic partner. When the Graham family must pay the debt of their elder, it's to a demonic god who will possess the mother, choose one kid as an avatar and kill the other and also kill the father because he's useless ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
The problem is that the presentation is very "realistic" and doesn't really "rhyme" or "vibe" with the hyperbolic fate of the characters. It's especially jarring because of the actors' raw performances. The emotional rawness, clashes with what I can only describe as a new modern horror campiness, that either ;
- wants a dissonance between what it tells and how it tells it,
- or is too afraid to embrace the ridiculous and absurdity of fantastic horror, like "my family owes a soul to Satan :)"
I remember Collette's and Pugh's gut wrenching performances, the emotional agony of their characters, portrayed with painful accuracy and when their movies ended I was like "Oh... it's... over...?", there was no climax (not a bad thing) and I felt a bit empty afterwards, even Dani's final smile made me go "Good for her !", then "Good for her ?", and finally "Oh fuck, she's damaged beyond repair", next time I watch the movie I'll probably say to myself something like "Is this what transcendence looks like ?". Dani's ending is initially climactic but when I watched it again, or thought about it, I only had questions concerning the nature of that smile (not a bad thing either but it's debatable if it was intended as questionable).
Like for the Graham's, Dani's story arc is out of her hands. The grandmother kinda bequeathed Paymon to her descendants, so Annie, Peter and Charlie were all essentially f*cked ever since birth, and Dani was locked in a undesirable situation by her own neurosis, trauma, emotional turmoil and toxic/uncaring close circle. On paper, the starting point is a perfect recipe for a arduous series of interpersonal back-and-forth and powerful dynamic with a dash of supernatural dangers to spice it all up and to force confrontations (and Hereditary give breadcrumbs of this) but overall story is deadly focused taking these characters' agency away and beating the shit out them, that's frustrating and the worst part is I feel like I can't even criticize the movie for it because \That's the joke/
This tonal dissonance reminds me of probably one of my favorite horror movie The Babadook, where the conflict is started by a literal storybook and the antagonistic force is the character of that storybook. The movie feels itself like a storybook but even though the presentation is serious, realistic and somber, I feel like The Babadook succeeds in navigating the gap between the absurdity of the horrific events and the family drama, making it a fairytale for adults. I think it's thanks to it's cinematography, hopeful ending, the agency of the characters, and the fact that it's aware of its own absurdity (case and point the title of the movie itself). Absurdity is good, it's all around us, and the most impactful pieces of media (for me) are the ones that embrace their own absurdity (prime example being Everything Everywhere All At Once), absurdity as a style has a lot of potential and I'd love to see more creators explore it, especially in horror.
I think what I really take out of this video is ;
- is having "flat" characters essentially bad ? ;
- how can you navigate a tonal dissonance ? ;
- how to use absurd events or entities inherent in supernatural horror ? ;
- and more importantly, what the f*ck do I emotionally do with Dani's final smile ?
Sorry for the tangents and disconnected points, I think that's something I will explore on my own and my brain still hasn't fully process this new perspective but I felt the need to share this because this video opened a door in my brain to a lot of things haha.
PS : Christian IS hot and I won't let anyone say otherwise. He is trash, like proper trash, spineless, dickish, abusive on a frustrating and heartbreaking banal way... but he is also hot...........ᶦ'ᵐ ᵈᵃᵐᵃᵍᵉᵈ
@3:25 I don't see how the cause of the family's downfall being Satan undermines Hereditary. Props for using SIMS music though!
I agree. I hate how plastic the characters of midsomar feel. And plastic is the true description.
I think the idea with both movies is they're twists. You're supposed to be able to think maybe in Hereditary it's all mental illness, not actually a demon summoning ritual. In Midsommer the twist is you think eventually Christian is going to break up with her, but she ends up being the only one out of her friend group to get out of the situation alive in the end, ultimately kinda breaking up with him in a way by choosing him for the ritual.
as someone w c-ptsd midsommar felt so true to the experience of trauma and i felt so deeply for dani's character
I think the ending of Hereditary shouldn't be viewed so literally. I've heard a take about it, from Nyx Fears, where she says that usually the first scene of a movie shows you how to watch the movie. And Hereditary starts with a zoom in inside the mother's dollhouse, where we are transported to the actual house. That can be interpreted as this being the mother's interpretation of events, not what actually happened. Meaning that from there on out, you can interpret each scene from a metaphorical point of view. It's like "Wouldn't it be better if my family is plagued by a demon, instead of horrible trauma and my own neglect for my child?". Also, there are pretty clear trans themes in the story, where the little girl was supposed to be born a boy, but then had to undergo death and be reborn as another person - a boy.
And I think Midsommar being too forward and simplistic isn't necessarily a bad thing. I think it's designed to look more like a fable, at least that's the feeling I got. From the traditional clothing and landscapes, it felt like they were in a folk tale. And sometimes, it really is as simple as a couple not ever communicating and being just an asshole and an altruist. It's very common for two people to be together out of guilt or convenience, or emotional dependency, but really have no actual love in their relationship.
That's just my analysis at least.
You take film advice from a female? Lol! Grow up and discover Redlettermedia.
I got the same reading from hereditary. We see events from the bio families perspective, through the lense of their shared psychosis.
@@HeyItsMad Exactly! I think it's pretty apparent that the events of the film are meant to be taken metaphorically, as opposed to literally.
In midsommar, I didn't like how the sheets spoiled the plot of the movie. Also how the main characters cared more about getting laid or their thesis than their friends disappearing and the fact that they were stuck with a suicide cult.
Hereditary was great, I was literally horrified.
This was a really good analysis. I remember having a strong and similar feeling in Midsommar - but I remembered the film because the ending and the visuals were so strong. I have SEEN Hereditary and forgotten it because the ending - OOPS wrong body Satan sorrrry - felt like such a cop out