Catharsis or Cult? The Feminine Horror of Midsommar

Welcome, spookies, to another Graveyard Shift! Today we’re picking up where we left off last week and this time we’re focusing on Midsommar. At the end, we’ll tie it all together but let’s jump right in!

While it can be argued that the whole cult aside from the elders such as Siv are the Archaic Children, I’m going to focus in on Pelle as Archaic Child. He is the one who brings back the most people, including Dani, the future May Queen. It seems that out of everyone who went on pilgrimage, only Pelle and Ingemar brought back outsiders. I think that Pelle knew that – if anyone he brought was going to be indoctrinated into the cult – it was going to be Dani. She was the most vulnerable out of the group, after her family’s death and the lasting impact of her relationship with Christian.

Dani clearly has an anxiety disorder. We see her taking her prescription for lorazepam under the brand name Ativan, and this shot holds, we are meant to see this and understand that it means she has an anxiety disorder. When we meet Dani she’s clearly having a panic attack, caused by the email she gets from her sister Terri. She calls Christian for support but pretends that she’s fine. We get an idea of what Christian thinks of mental illness when he says that Terri’s email is “an obvious ploy for attention”. He’s dismissive, and is subconsciously telling Dani that her panic attack is just a ploy for attention. When Dani is later on the phone to her friend, she tells her that she’s never seen Christian cry and she’s worried she’s pushing him away by relying on him. He is emotionally repressed and manipulative, as we see later when he tries to convince Dani she shouldn’t be upset about him going to Sweden, and again when he doesn’t seem to comprehend why Josh is upset about him effectively copying Josh’s dissertation idea. Personally, I know I’d be upset if I spent all that time and travelled to a whole other continent for my friend to nab my dissertation idea. In short, Christian is representative of toxic masculinity. He is the epitome of the child who was told ‘boys don’t cry’ and to ‘man up’ and this is the effect. He seems to struggle so much with forming healthy relationships and knows he should break up with Dani, he recognises that their relationship isn’t healthy but is scared of being by himself, is scared of not being able to cope on his own.

Meanwhile, Dani’s panic is completely justified, as we see Terri has committed muder-suicide and killed herself and their parents. After this trauma, Dani falls into darkness and despair until she convinces herself to go to that party where she finally learns about Sweden. Fast forward an argument, flight, and a panic attack, and Dani is welcomed to the Hårga cult. Important to note here that while Christian, Josh, and Mark are welcomed to the commune, Dani is welcomed home. I think the Hårgas knew all along that they would be able to bring Dani into their fold. It isn’t clear if the Hårgas had a way to contact people while they were away, maybe scheduled calls at the train station that was mentioned, but either way, they knew Dani would be vulnerable enough to be brought in.

Consider; cult indoctrination usually involves a process of breakdown of the self. This makes someone more susceptible to the control. However, Dani has already been through the trauma of losing her family and likely feeling that if she’d gotten in touch with her parents or with Terri she could have saved them, she likely feels responsible for their deaths and this kind of trauma can have a massively negative impact on the sense of self and self worth. She’s in pain. She’s likely sorely needing support and comfort. It’s no wonder she turns to the first people to show her this, the Hårgas. They don’t have to break her down to make her compliant. She’s already there. All they have to do is show her love and understanding and – as we see, she is theirs.

The ending of Midsommar left people confused about how they were meant to feel. Is this a happy ending of Dani finding a support system and a place to belong? Or is this a tragic ending of Dani losing her individuality? The thing is, it’s both. Dani has found the strength to leave Christian after gaining the support of the cult. She no longer has to feel alone or scared to lose toxic relationships for fear of being alone. Throughout the film, Pelle stands as her mirror. He, too, lost his parents but his main difference is he had the support system of the cult to ensure he never felt alone. Aster is telling us how important it is to have an emotional support system when recovering from trauma. Aside from the cult, Pelle is reasonably well adjusted; he’s smart, artistic, and good at being kind to others. Contrasted to that, Dani is taking a year out of university, from what we see, she seems to struggle to find joy in her old hobbies; she seems to stay in bed most of the time, the party seemed such a mammoth effort for her to go to and she seemed to be at least partly disassociating throughout it until the mention of the Sweden trip brings her back to the moment. For lack of a better analogy, she was in the darkness of her trauma until Pelle brought her to Sweden and into the light of the Hårgas. If that sounds familiar, it should because it’s exactly the same imagery as religion, focusing on Chrsitanity as this film is a product of western society. Religious extremism isn’t something that is new, unfortunately. It just takes a quick internet search to find the ever flowing stream of news on the topic. However, it all shares something in common of justifying horrible deeds by saying it’s for their god.

They believe life is sacred, seemingly aligning them with the pro-life movement, yet again, this calls into question the validity of the term pro-life as they are killing in the name of their beliefs. The Hårgas kill in the name of their beliefs, for the sake of keeping their privacy and their activities hidden from the outside world. They know that they will not be accepted by external society, western ideals of individualism directly conflict with the society of the Hårgas. The entire commune is the family unit, the individual happiness is not truly possible, the life cycle of one within the cult is mapped by the year. This is where Dani’s tragic ending comes in. Yes, she gained her support system but she lost her individuality. She lost her chance to chase after her own personal happiness. This also taps into the fear of the long lasting effects of trauma. Trauma can change a person so much that they may not be quite the same afterwards. It can be incredibly isolating, affecting physical responses to situations and how you handle interpersonal relationships.

We see some symptoms of PTSD in Dani; she experiences repeated flashbacks and hallucinations, she becomes isolated and withdraws into herself, with no real support system to help her through this. The best she has are Christian and his friends but, as we’ve discussed, Christian can’t allow himself to be vulnerable, and his friends don’t like Dani much anyway. This need for a support system is why vulnerable people are often drawn into cults, and this is what Aster is telling us about emotional dependency. It’s the same with toxic relationships; when Dani finds out about her sister and parents’ deaths it’s Christian she calls. We know by this point he wants out of the relationship, but despite being scared of pushing him away by relying on him too much, she calls him over and he comes to support her. It’s important to note that even though the relationship isn’t healthy, they are both toxic for each other. Christian and his toxic masculinity can’t support Dani in any meaningful way that would help her, and Dani and her struggles can’t support him in working through his issues and so they are both stuck, both suffering.

In the end, Dani is indoctrinated and Christian is burned to death stuck inside a bear surrounded by his dead friends. While Dani seems to get it better off than Annie, having gained a support system and, crucially, lived to the end of her movie, neither woman has it better. Both lost their individuality, Annie to possession and the Archaic Mother, Dani to The Archaic Mother and her children.

For both films, this individuality fear is the core message. The outbranching fears come into this; the fears of forced motherhood and abortion is at its core an individuality discussion and an argument over if individuality or potential life is more important. The reason why possession films can be so effective is because of the fear of losing individuality. Individuality is why cults are so scary. Trauma is scary for this reason, toxic relationships, it all stems back to that loss of individuality. Aster is playing on this, he’s playing on Western ideals of individuality and the societal importance put on it. There is so much depth within Aster’s films, I personally am incredibly excited to see what he does next. Let me know what you think below, and I’ll see you next time!