Florence Pugh on the madness of Ari Aster film ‘Midsommar’
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Credit: A24
The film that Ari Aster screened on the set of ‘Hereditary’
The modern landscape of horror cinema may have not looked so fruitful without the influence of Ari Aster, a director whose contemporary legacy is only really matched by the likes of Robert Eggers, Jennifer Kent and Jordan Peele. Despite having only made two films over the course of his relatively short career, Aster has managed to capture the attention of a very specific corner of horror cinema, becoming a basion of smart, elegant terror.
The most recent of his proficient double bill was Midsommar in 2019, a modern folktale that dealt in the eerie Scandinavian occult. Telling the story of a group of young American teens who visit a midsummer festival to get a bit of headspace, the gruesome tale won the hearts of critics and audiences, with the likes of Florence Pugh, Will Poulter, Jack Reynor and William Jackson Harper each providing compelling performances.
Before this, however, came an even more beloved sensation, with Hereditary in 2018 becoming the latest genre flick to be compared to The Exorcist. Perfectly riding the line between being a haunting house romp and a compelling drama, Aster’s movie is considered a modern classic, with filmmakers and movie sudios having tried to replicate the sheer terror that the film conjures, ever since.
With elements of folk horror swirling around the torment of mental illness, Aster’s film retreads old ground of the genre whilst feeling brand new in the process, feeling both familiar but also oddly refreshing at the very same time.
One of the many filmmakers that inspired Aster’s style for the 2018 in particular was the Swedish icon Ingmar Bergman, with the the former telling Criterion in 2018, “I love all of Bergman’s films, but his later period has had the biggest impact on me, starting with Persona”. Discussing how Berham would write in the hospital when he thought he might die, Aster adds, “It adopts a dream logic in a really forward-thinking way, and like Altman’s Three Women, is an example of a proto-Lynchian dream movie. I was thinking about that when we were making Hereditary, how it gradually adopts a nightmare logic”.
Of the many Bergman films that he appreciates, it’s clear that he holds a lot of time for the 1972 classic Cries and Whispers, with the film making such a considerable impact on him that he felt compelled to share it with his creative team. Speaking about the occasion, he stated, “Cries and Whispers strikes me as the most painful and beautiful film about death . . . and sisterhood. I screened it for the crew when we were making Hereditary, which is also a movie about suffering”.
In fact, by the sounds of it, Ingmar Bergman is one of Aster’s favourite filmmakers of all time, calling his films “fun” and “beautiful” as he adds, “Bergman was always wrestling with the big things—family dynamics, one’s relationship to God—but he did it in such an accessible way…I find him to be as inviting as a filmmaker like that could possibly be”.
