Hereditary bothered me; should I watch Midsommar?

That's why he's so refreshing. Doesn't feel bound to conform to Hollywood endings. Great director.

Well, this is interesting. I don’t consider myself a pessimist, or anti-hope, or any of those things. But having seen the ‘despair porn’ argument directed at Aster a few times now, I’m beginning to think that’s what draws me to his work. I preferred Hereditary to Midsommar in both stylistic and narrative terms, but I think the way in which they work that most horror films don’t is that they do stop you in your tracks. They are designed to hit you like a truck. And I do think it’s deliberate and that this is what sets him apart.

Agreed.

I think "not Hollywood" is a pretty low bar to clear, and I wonder if it's possible to be so sick of formulaic stuff that something becomes interesting (particularly to critics, who have to endure and even write about a lot of formulaic crap) simply because it's different from that, even when it has its own problems. I wrote something unfinished about this over a decade ago, about how critics disproportionately value that stuff, and the logic would probably apply to people who watch a lot of films, too. Probably still have a draft somewhere.

Anyway, there's an awful lot of daylight between Hollywood predictability and the doom-wallowing that Aster specializes in. He could easily use his (considerable) talents to depict interesting, unique films that didn't seem to worship anguish, and I'm not sure mashing physical and emotional squirm buttons is a talent so much as a choice, which to my mind stops it from being valuable. All the things that are valuable about him, the things which are skills and not mere choices, are things he could display without those choices.

"Grudge against hope". I like that. Like it in other movies, not so much in Aster's.

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Yeah, very nice turn of phrase from Tongs there.

I don't think his creative juices would flow as easily . Three shorts of his are on youtube. I've not seen them all, but it's clear he specializes in messed up. It's clear to me that his modus operandi isn't to shock the viewer like French extremism. He wants to weave his way of film-making into stories that get under the skin and stay there and at the same time put his personal stamp on things (there are a few bits of foreshadowing in Midsommar etc)



Maybe one day he will do a biopic or a war film or a different genre film. But it's clear to me that his ideas thrive around the macabre and the very things that seem to put people off.

Also, the end of Midsommar is a very different ending to what I expected two thirds of the way through, and one could even say, there is alot of hope for the lead character, should you want to interpret it that way.

But should you want to interpret it that way?

I'm pretty sure that's in the works.

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I'm not talking about making a biopic or a war film or what have you. I'm not even talking about leaving horror. I actually like it when directors resist the pull to prove they can make all sorts of films and keep doing what they're best at. This is purely about the execution, in both senses of that word.

It may very well be true that he's not practically capable of doing otherwise, because this is just what interests him. But that's an idiosyncratic, emotional choice about his own motivation, rather than an inevitability. And if that's true, that inability is a worthwhile limitation to note. At a certain point the inability or refusal to do more common things, or to always dwell on despair, becomes its own form of predictability. Maybe it feels fresh after two films but stale after seven.

We'll probably have to agree to disagree on the alleged distinction between "shock" and "get under the skin." I think that's a line he wants to straddle but clearly ends up on the wrong side of sometimes.

Just watch it ... Don't worry!!!!

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Can't wait to see Joaquin get paper cuts in slow motion while his family is forced to watch, or something.

That’s more Haneke, too tired for Aster.

Well, people make the same kinds of defenses of Haneke! In fact Funny Games was the film that first prompted me to write that thing about critics and their thirst for atypical things, funnily enough.

Well, I mostly agree with everything you wrote. That just felt really Funny Games to me for Aster to mimic.

I really don't mind hopelessness in a film, I actually dig it, so maybe that's why I dug Hereditary. Midsommar, not so much. Regardless of the topic, I think Hereditary is a much stronger film. Midsommar kinda crumbled for me.

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I'm probably parsing a little fine, and I'll be the first to admit that these distinctions are super hard to convey properly, but at least in my mind "hopelessness" is not the thing I'm objecting to, exactly. I'm not asking for happy endings and I don't need the "good guys" to win, in case there's any confusion on that point.

I, for one, do understand (I think!) that your issue with Aster is his tendency to revel in the hopelessness. Which is probably true. All I can say at this point is, so does the ‘trashy’ torture porn, like Hostel and such, so at least Aster aims to raise the bar quality-wise.

Yeah, I acknowledge that he does it with a lot more style and skill than those films. That kinda bums me out more, because I don't think he needs to learn on that stuff. I think the talent is severable (no pun intended) from the wallowing.

I think there are lots of reasons why a viewer wouldn't want to subject themselves to the emotional distress or the tantrums of a director who deals in negative emotions. In fact, it's all too easy to understand. But I don't think it's anymore of a 'choice' for a director to repeatedly deal in despair than it is for a director to deal in joy. I don't even think it's even necessarily a matter of interest for a lot of directors, as it is a reflection of how they view the world. There is no end of reasons for an artist to legitimate see life as an uncaring, terrifying burden. That's a sad thing, to be sure, but no less in need of investigation than those who use their art forms to more traditionally uplift the viewer.


And this isn't to say there aren't positive emotional reactions one can get from watching the bleakest of films. For those who have similar worldviews, that life is some kind of hellscape and that they are completely alone inside of it, it can't be stressed how much an honest articulation of these viewpoints can offer both catharsis and communion. I would argue these are equally necessary to the more obvious benefits of a confectionary type movie like Amelie (which, I also love).



Personally, my approach to the emotional terrain of the arts is that we should get a perfect biopsy on the condition of being human when looked at collectively. This absolutely includes those who believe (or want to believe) in the beauty of everything, and those who simply cannot come to understand it's not just all a pile of ****. Both extreme polarities are important, as are all the shades of grey in between.



Now, I agree that any director who continually mines the same territory can definitely grow stale, especially if their approach to it never evolves, but I also understand that most artists, if they are speaking from their personal lives, usually work best when their art is an extension of how they view existence. For both better or worse. Sure, there are those edgelord directors who cynically exploit misery for gain (and we can always argue about which of those artists do this), but I think lumping all those who deal in such negativity together as making a 'choice' to be negative, is probably as cynical as those who dismiss all feel good movies as being pointlessly naive and catering to softer tastes. We need the darkness to live alongside of the light. At least as they are both being articulated honestly.


That said, I think Midsommer is leagues less despairing than Herditary. It is still very much a disturbing piece though, even if it eases off the unrelenting misery (comparatively)