-
[Ari Aster] One thing I love about genre
film-making is that the genre kinda
-
provides you with this like very sturdy
framework that you can kind of lay messier
-
emotions onto and you can tell a very
personal story but it like provides you
-
with a very kind of strict path that you
have to adhere to.
-
And it also forces you to kind of find the
catharsis in that story.
-
I just wanted to write a break-up movie,
and I saw a way of marrying the break-up
-
movie that I had at the time with the
structure of a folk horror film.
-
[Shannon] Rather then reviewing Midsommar
in full, I wanted to focus on one aspect
-
of it: it's genre.
-
I'm mostly going to be pulling from a
LA Times piece by Mark Olsen, who
-
interviewed Aster and others who worked
on the film, and a folkhorrorrevival.com
-
piece by author and artist Andy Paciorek
called:
-
'From the Forests, Fields and Furrows'.
-
Andy Paciorek's piece goes deep into what
the term 'Folk Horror' encompasses,
-
though he never pretends to narrow the
term down into a distinct definition.
-
As he says:
-
But the unholy trilogy of Folk Horror
films are a good place to start, and,
-
as he says:
-
[Mark Gatiss] From the late 60s, a new
generation of British directors avoided
-
the Gothic cliches by stepping even
further away from the modern world.
-
Amongst these are a loose collection of
films which we might call Folk Horror,
-
they shared a common obsession with the
British landscape, its folklore,
-
and superstitions.
-
Witchfinder General,
directed by Michael Reeves,
-
took us back to the witch hunts of
17th century East Anglia.
-
It may have cast horror legend
Vincent Price in the lead role,
-
but this was new territory.
Dark, and nihilistic.
-
The Wicker Man may have become the cult
film, and Witchfinder General
-
may have grabbed most of the critical
plaudits, but there's another film
-
which I think deserves
much wider appreciation.
-
What makes it so special?
-
Well, let's just say there aren't many
films set in the reign of William and Mary
-
in which the Devil rebuilds his body by
harvesting the skin of children.
-
The film is Blood on Satan's Claw,
-
and its director Piers Haggard also drew
inspiration from the countryside
-
of the home counties.
-
What kind of a horror film
were you setting out to make?
-
[Piers] I didn't want to do something
which was, urm, larky,
-
and I wasn't really interested in Dracula,
I was interested in the dark things
-
that people feel, and the dark things
that happen.
-
And that was what I want to explore,
and I think the other thing that appealed
-
to me, really, was the setting,
the rural setting.
-
[Shannon] He says:
-
[Mark] There's this sort of little moment
of Folk Horror, I suppose,
-
which is absolutely distinct.
-
Do you think that was something to do
with the times?
-
[Piers] Uh, this is very interesting this.
-
I think that I did-was trying to make
a Folk Horror film, in a way,
-
because we were all a bit interested
in witchcraft,
-
we were all a bit interested in free love,
the rules of the cinema were changing
-
and nudity became possible and be
altogether possibly over-prevalent,
-
because the lid
had slightly been taken off.
-
[Shannon] The BFI piece on Folk Horror
describes the trilogy's films as:
-
Paciorek recounts Adam Scovell's list
of Folk Horror elements:
-
and argues for or against each.
-
He says:
-
[Piers] The nooks and crannies
of woodland, the edges of fields,
-
the plowing, the labor, the sense
of the soil was something that I tried
-
to bring into the picture.
-
It was important to,
for the rest of the film,
-
to have the camera often very low.
-
[Children laughing]
-
So we dug a whole flood of holes,
put the camera in, just to give you
-
the feeling that we were somehow
in the earth and what it was might
-
come out of the earth.
-
[Shannon] ...says that Folk Horror films,
and 'backwoods' horror films, regardless
-
of location often share the factor
of a principle character or characters
-
finding themselves amongst people who do
not think or act the way they do,
-
often with dire consequence.
-
[Mark] Without a doubt, the best known
of this group of films is The Wicker Man.
-
Set on an idyllic summer isle, it pits
the Pagan islanders against the upstanding
-
Christian hero, with its horrific
conclusion played out in daylight.
-
[Ari] It's fun in theory to make a film
in daylight, and then it's a nightmare
-
in practice, you're chasing the sun
all day, which also means
-
that you're chasing continuity.
-
But I know that we were very excited about
making a film that was very beautiful
-
and kind of inviting even as it gets
darker and darker, and whether you're
-
making a film and, y'know, utter darkness
or, y'know, broad daylight,
-
the goal is always
to make something beautiful.
-
[Shannon] and that:
-
The website in general says:
-
Paciorek's piece is dense.
-
He describes the origins
of the term 'Folk Horror',
-
Folk Horror in other mediums,
and how it overlaps with other genres,
-
especially sci-fi, and many examples from
different time periods all over the world.
-
But rather then giving the full account as
he does, and as other websites try to do,
-
I'm going to take the lead Paciorek
sets here, when he says:
-
If someone asked me, in conversation,
to define folk horror,
-
I'd just bring up The Wicker Man,
and describe it.
-
Even having never seen it in full,
I have on hand
-
what I learned from cultural osmosis,
and references.
-
An uptight stranger gets stranded
in a more natural,
-
seemingly idyllic setting, with members
of a religion he does not understand,
-
and grows gradually more suspicious
and frightened of, until, spoilers,
-
they destroy him as a part
of their rituals,
-
and my first exposure to Folk Horror
probably came in those cultural references
-
to films like The Wicker Man in...
Hot Fuzz!
-
Which is a meta-comedy action film
that was heavily influenced,
-
at least plot-wise, by Folk Horror.
-
I think Folk Horror is neat,
and a subgenre that could either lend
-
itself in pieces to another genre well,
or meld with other genres well.
-
Apostle is more Folk Horror
then Hot Fuzz is,
-
but it's still more action-oriented
and takes itself less seriously
-
then something like Midsommar.
-
But I did not enjoy or appreciate
the Folk Horror elements of Midsommar,
-
I had so many problems with this movie,
but they crystallized when my friend
-
sent me screenshots of that LA Times
interview after we saw the movie together.
-
In that interview, Aster said:
-
[Ari] Yeah I mean, I, uh, I wrote the film
during a breakup.
-
Um, I wanted to write a breakup movie,
for the same reason that most people
-
probably do, when they do,
and it's because I was going through one.
-
[Shannon, reading on-screen text]
-
Why would you take this genre, this
stunning and terrifying and weird amalgam,
-
where built-in you have a rich genre
history of beautiful settings
-
and horrific violence, or a terrified
individual facing a harmonious collective,
-
or the ability to harness
those primal fears of loss of self
-
or loss of bodily autonomy,
or being trapped waiting to get killed
-
in an unfamiliar and ancient place.
-
Or like, maybe subverting these tropes
through a modern lens.
-
The way The VVitch is a modern feminist
Folk Horror film,
-
or like how modern audiences
don't hate hippies.
-
Or maybe you could do something like
in Apostle where a lot of the villagers
-
are hesitant and sympathetic and suffer
along with the outsider main character,
-
or like Hot Fuzz which kind of parodies
the secular cop character.
-
Everything there is so rich,
and has so much potential,
-
and he's like, Aster's like:
-
"Oh, it's incidentally a Folk Horror film.
I wanted to talk about my break-up,
-
and for some reason, I took this genre
that's arguably about the collective
-
vs. the individual, and fear of loss
of individuality, and the merits
-
of a repressed secular society vs.
a creepy sex cult where people
-
seem very happy but do weird scary stuff
all the time,
-
and I made it about a very specific,
very personal event between two people.
-
Because, to me, these genre elements
as a chose to apply them,
-
are incidental, and predictable,
and boring."
-
Hereditary is amazing,
and is deeply disturbing,
-
and is imbued with Aster's own fears
of his loved ones dying, or changing,
-
or betraying him,
or him accidentally harming them
-
and the devastation and guilt
that would cause.
-
[Ari] I mean, there's a saying that
"life is suffering", and I don't disagree,
-
uh, and I guess with both of these films
I wanted to make something
-
that takes suffering seriously.
-
[Shannon] I related to it a lot,
having dealt with a lot of death,
-
and it terrified me.
-
[Ari] And, y'know, and then-otherwise,
y'know, I've..uh, my family and I have,
-
like, y'know, suffered uh...misfortune,
y'know and, uh, to be cryptic, um, and uh,
-
and so, y'know, I-I...you draw
from...from experience.
-
[Shannon] You watch this family
who was very sympathetic slowly degrade
-
and die because of forces
beyond their control.
-
Midsommar is about a break-up,
Aster was not very interested
-
in the ritualistic killing elements,
so...they're just sort of there.
-
As far as I could tell,
there was no supernatural force
-
keeping people on the island,
or killing them.
-
[Erik Davis] Like, Scandinavian folklore
has got all kinds of creatures
-
and monsters in it,
and was that sort of-stuff that helped,
-
kind of played into it at all, or?
-
[Ari] No, there-there's nothing overtly,
y'know, um, fantastical here.
-
[Shannon] And at the beginning,
nobody is forced to be there,
-
no one's taken there against their will,
and there a lot of opportunities
-
to sneak away as huge red flags pop up
one after the other, but nobody does.
-
Especially not the American characters,
this is for-something for a separate
-
analysis, a separate video,
but specifically all of the Americans
-
in this film are just very stupid
compared to the European characters,
-
including the other outsiders, not just
the scary Swedish people.
-
Most of the American characters are kind
of stupid or one-note,
-
one is a crass gag character who has weird
comedy lines obviously ADR'd in
-
that are a little bit distracting,
or they're unlikable.
-
Some of the ritualistic kills,
in typical Aster fashion,
-
are kind of sickening and upsetting
and haunting, especially towards the end,
-
even if the film's narrative doesn't seem
to really care that they're happening,
-
and some look kind of stupid
and are direct rip-offs of NBC's Hannibal,
-
which did the killings better.
-
Also there's a r*** scene that some
interviews
-
and reviews describe as 'darkly funny'?
-
[Jack Reynor] And I think that
it's a great device,
-
and it challenges an audience and, y'know,
even seeing people's reactions to the film
-
and seeing some people laughing through
this, y'know, crazy sex scene,
-
and then other people going
"What are these people laughing at"?
-
I think that's really interesting
and it's good film-making.
-
[Shannon] I guess because a man
is the one who's r****,
-
and that r*** is what pushes
the main character
-
to get the character who is r**** killed?
-
[Interviewer]
And I don't have their handle,
-
but they called this the
"Anti-f*ckboy movie"?
-
[Shannon] It feels like the film implies,
or could be very easily misread
-
as implying, if it wasn't intentional,
that because the character is a man,
-
and an asshole, that being heavily
drugged, and pursued for your seed,
-
is somehow having consensual sex
and also cheating and makes him-
-
it's like another thing in the list
of things that makes him a bad person
-
and a bad boyfriend.
-
There's lots of stuff he does in the movie
that is very realistic,
-
classic bad boyfriend behavior,
and you understand why the main character
-
is upset with him, and unhappy
with the relationship,
-
but, yeah I don't-I really don't like
the way the rhetoric around this film
-
has engaged with that scene,
I don't think the scene in the film
-
is necessarily terrible, I don't know
if you're supposed to, like,
-
relate to her when she decides to
get the villagers to kill him after that.
-
It's pretty terrible, but I think a lot
of the response saw to it found that scene
-
just sort of funny and weird
and it was like:
-
"Oh he deserves it, oh watch out don't
go see this movie with your girlfriend
-
or she'll kill you, so like...ooooo"
-
[Jack] Additionally, y'know, for me,
something that was kind of like
-
a big, um, enticing factor in it
was-was this long drawn out,
-
very humiliating and exposing sort of
sequence towards the end of the film,
-
you know with the-with the fate that
Christian suffers.
-
And that's something that, uh, I think
historically has been reserved for females
-
in horror films,
but this was an opportunity to be a male
-
and to put myself into that, um,
perspective, which was really interesting
-
and difficult and made me feel vulnerable
in a way that I'm sure many actresses
-
have felt over the years.
-
[Piers] If I look at the r*** scene now,
um, I think it's probably too strong,
-
and it's interesting that I wasn't
bothered at the time.
-
I think you, um, will find most directors,
uh, if they get their teeth
-
into a sequence,
which is going to be really powerful,
-
they become completely seduced,
and I was seduced
-
by the sheer dramatic power.
-
[Shannon] Also during the r*** scene,
there were a bunch of weird naked women
-
from the village?
-
Some of them are old, the naked old people
in Hereditary are really scary
-
and genuinely unnerving because
of the context,
-
but out of context I don't find
naked old people scary,
-
and it feels like something Aster
is leaning too heavily on.
-
And the oracle character
is just straight-up offensive
-
and also not scary.
-
Look at this Fangoria cover.
-
"Monsters - Aliens - Bizarre Creatures",
-
over the face of a character
who is an in-bred disabled person.
-
Deliberately performing incest
to make an oracle is disturbing, yes,
-
but focusing on a deformed or disabled
face, as if it's inherently horrific
-
and weird and upsetting
and the face of a monster, is just sh*tty.
-
And some of the portrayals
of mental illness in this film,
-
especially PTSD and anxiety, are accurate
and relatable,
-
and others are just...baffling,
like the family death scene
-
at the beginning at the hands
of the main character's bi-polar sister,
-
that I honestly had trouble connecting
to the rest of the film tonally
-
and aesthetically, apart from giving
the main character a reason to be upset
-
and vulnerable the whole time.
-
Midsommar does shine in scenes
where Aster leans more
-
into the surreal horror elements.
-
A nightmare sequence in the film
feels like a nightmare.
-
The way one character's face
is highlighted, like, it's under-lit,
-
even though there would be no realistic
light source where he is in a car,
-
because it's a nightmare, like,
that was really creepy and it reminded
-
me of nightmares that I've had.
-
And the hallucinatory effects of drugs
characters take added a lot
-
to the film's aesthetic and atmosphere,
without being unrealistic
-
or clichéd or corny, and the film
is well shot and often creepy,
-
and it does have a palpable sense
of dread with Aster is very good at,
-
but it still feels long and meandering
and tiresome, and I found the way
-
Aster talked about it in interviews
just kind of disheartening.
-
David Edelstein's Midsommar review
in Vulture ends:
-
[Ari] I...I wanted to-when I was writing
the film I-I wanted to write
-
a break-up movie because I...needed
to write a break-up movie
-
because I had just gone through
a break-up, um, and uh-and I saw a way
-
of sort of passing it through
this sub-genre, the Folk Horror genre,
-
and kind of, y'know, marrying
those two things and-and, y'know, uh,
-
finding a way to make this big operatic,
just, break-up movie, like dark comedy...
-
I don't know, um, I don't know what it is,
um...
-
[Shannon, reading on-screen text]
-
[Shannon] I feel like this review maybe
projects emotions and intentions
-
onto Aster a little too much.
-
[Ari] I can tell ya, I put a lot of myself
into both of the characters,
-
and I've been in both positions.
-
I do call the film a horror movie,
that co-dependency and I-
-
and that's sort of what I was thinking
about while I was writing it.
-
But um, but I hoped that-that people
will be able to relate to-to both sides.
-
[Shannon] But it's certainly telling
that he rejected the idea
-
of a Swedish Folk Horror slasher until he
could thinly project his break-up onto it.
-
Midsommar does explore some
of those Folk Horror elements,
-
but it does in a disjointed way.
-
Like Edelstein says, the main character
does find a kind of comfort in the cult,
-
and a kind of place in the cult,
and scenes of group sobbing and screaming
-
are-are very affecting, but the film
could've been improved a lot,
-
I feel, if Aster had leaned more into
the Folk Horror elements
-
outside of an aesthetic, and outside
of a skeleton on which to build
-
his really weird, personal break-up movie.
-
Gareth Evans, who directed Apostle,
sounded so excited and happy
-
about the Folk Horror films
that he had seen, and incorporating those
-
into his vision for Apostle.
-
[Drew Taylor] Well what were some of your
inspirations, like, obviously Wicker Man,
-
[Drew] I think.
[Gareth] Yeah, Wicker Man is definitely...
-
[Drew] Um, what else
was in that stew?
-
[Gareth] Um, I mean a lot of those British
Folk Horror films,
-
so The Wicker Man, and Witchfinder General
as well, and then, um,
-
more importantly probably
Ken Russel's The Devils,
-
which I had not seen 'till 2016 when we
were just about to start working on this,
-
and was a massive sort of inspiration,
because I was just blown away by that film
-
I had never seen it before,
didn't know what to expect,
-
and then it just came out of nowhere.
-
[Shannon] And Aster seems almost, like,
embarrassed, or hesitant to embrace them,
-
and not that he has to embrace them,
but why make a Folk Horror film
-
if you don't want it to be
a Folk Horror film?
-
As an aside, uh, shout-out
to Folk Horror Revival
-
for being explicitly against fascism
on their website.
-
That's cool.
-
If you have any interest in Folk Horror,
you should check out that piece
-
by Paciorek, and the BFI piece
I mentioned, links in the description.
-
Also, I'm now the film correspondent
for the podcast Struggle Session,
-
and we did an episode on Midsommar,
if you want to hear
-
more of my general opinion on the film,
link also in the description.
-
If you enjoyed this video,
please consider supporting me
-
on Patreon for on-going donations,
and Ko-Fi for one time donations,
-
and if you have any Folk Horror film
recommendations,
-
please leave them in the comments,
because I'd like to branch out
-
and maybe do a full video essay
on the genre at some point,
-
especially, maybe like modern applications
vs. older ones.
-
If you want to hear why I liked Hereditary
so much, check out my review on it,
-
which is still my favorite review
I've ever written.
-
Also, of course linked in the description.
-
And thank you for watching.