Midsommar – The Truth Behind the Twisted Fairy Tale
In many European countries, the Summer Solstice has traditionally been linked to pagan fertility rites and the anticipation of a fruitful harvest. In Sweden, one of the many beliefs linked to this time was that if a girl picks seven different flowers on the midsummer night and puts them underneath her pillow, she will dream of her future husband.
These traditions steeped in myth and folklore provide the backdrop for Ari Aster’s ‘folk horror’ film Midsommar. We follow a group of students on their trip to a Swedish midsummer festival held by the Hårga, an isolated pagan community. There are obvious parallels with The Wicker Man, but beyond that Aster has recycled aspects of history, art and culture to create something new. In this case I would argue the constituent parts are more interesting than the end product, but it did stay with me for a while and inspired me to investigate the inspiration behind it.
Spoiler Alert: Stop reading now if you intend to watch Midsommar and don’t want to know any details..
John Bauer & The Golden Age of Illustration
Art and illustration are an important influence throughout the film. It is visually stunning, and Aster plays on the ever-present sunshine contrasting with very dark and unsettling themes. In an early scene we see that Dani already seems to have an interest in Swedish culture, with the Ikea-style furniture in her room and a print of Swedish illustrator John Bauer’s Stackars lille Basse! or ‘poor little bear’ on her wall, showing a young princess comforting a large bear. (This foreshadows her boyfriend’s entombment in the dead bear’s body later in the film – poor little Christian!) Kay Nielsen’s illustration is also an influence, particularly in Dani’s overblown May Queen dress and the faces that can be seen in the forest. Many old folk and fairy tales feature lonely princesses, absent parents and the search for a prince/husband in a far-away land. The use of these fairy tale illustrations reflects Aster’s desire to create a twisted fairy tale of his own.
Traditional Swedish murals and the decorated farmhouses of Hälsingland (a UNESCO World Heritage Centre), are also an influence. These houses feature naïve paintings on their walls, showing stories, cautionary tales and biblical motifs. At the start of the film we see a mural in this naïve style by artist Mu Pan, which foreshadows the events of the film. This art style has also been recreated in the communal house of the Harga, with the pictures on the walls giving clues to the events that will enfold.
Adam of Bremen’s Medieval Account of Norse Paganism
While human sacrifice has been believed to be a feature of Norse paganism, there are very few sources available to corroborate this. One of the most detailed accounts comes from Adam of Bremen, an eleventh century medieval chronicler. His historical treatise, Gesta Hammaburgensis ecclesiae Pontificum, is an important source for the history of Northern Europe and Norse paganism. It includes an account of human sacrifice at the Temple of Uppsala, a religious centre in what is now Gamla Uppsala.
Adam details sacrificial practices held at the temple, describing that every nine years, nine males of “every living creature” are offered up for sacrifice, and tradition dictates that their blood placates the gods. The corpses of the nine males are hung within the grove beside the temple. Adam says that the grove is considered extremely sacred to the heathens, so much so that each singular tree is considered to be divine, due to the death of those sacrificed or their rotting corpses hanging there, and that dogs and horses hang within the grove among the corpses of men. Adam reveals that “one Christian” informed him that he had seen seventy-two cadavers of differing species hanging within the grove.
Adam describes that near the temple stands a massive tree with far-spreading branches, which is evergreen both in summer and winter. There is a spring at the tree where sacrifices are also held. According to Adam, a custom exists where a man is thrown into the spring, and if he fails to return to the surface, “the wish of the people will be fulfilled.”
Historians have acknowledged that Adam’s account contains useful information, but there remains scepticism over how much of it (if any) is actually true. This was the time of Christian missions into Scandinavia, which proved to be an uphill battle as they held on to their native belief systems. It is more likely that Adam had an agenda to represent the people in these regions as much more morally debased than they actually were.
The Grotesquery of Joel-Peter Witkin
Joel-Peter Witkin is a photographer whose work features dark and macabre themes including death, corpses and deformed bodies. He has been known to use real dismembered body parts in his work, which have been arranged in formal still life compositions with fruit, food, flowers and other objects. You can see elements of Witkin’s work throughout the film (particularly towards the end), for example when Josh’s foot is seen sticking out of the earth or the grim tableaux the residents create before they burn the temple.
One of the most striking examples of this influence comes at the very beginning. The mural in the opening frame foreshadows the events of the film, showing Dani’s family connected by a red tube. Later, her sister appears to have committed suicide by taping a tube connected to a car exhaust over her mouth. The image is reminiscent of Witkin’s most well-known work – Sanitarium, a macabre image showing an obese woman breathing through a tube. This image also inspired fashion designer Alexander McQueen’s Spring/Summer 2001 show, which culminates in a glass box shattering to reveal the reclining, naked figure of fetish writer Michelle Olley.
The Völkisch Movement & Nazi Germany
One of the real horrors of this film is the reminder of Nazi Germany and the Völkisch movement. The first indication of this is the sign we see as the group drives towards the festival. We see a banner upside down, which reads ‘Stop mass immigration to HÄLSINGLAND – vote FREE NORTH this fall!’ It might be a bit of a stretch, but in a way this sign reminded me of the sign at the entrance to Auschwitz – Arbeit Macht Frei. Some Holocaust survivors have reported that at first they felt they were going on an ‘adventure’ while being transported to the camp, just as Dani and the group simply think they’re going to a summer festival. In Harga, they only allow outsiders in to help them get what they need (Dani – the May Queen), and once you’re there you can never leave.
The Völkisch movement was a set of beliefs that existed in Germany prior to the Nazis. Undoubtedly racist, proponents of the movement advocated for a ‘national rebirth’ that rejected modernity and would preserve the so-called ‘Nordic race.’ They also had a sentimental, patriotic interest in German folklore, local history and a ‘back-to-the-land’ anti-urban populism, as well as the revival of native pagan traditions. These ideas were influential in the formation of the Nazi party, particularly through the influence of eugenics professor Eugen Fischer. Adolf Hitler read Fischer’s work while he was imprisoned in 1923 and he used Fischer’s ideas to support his ideal of a pure Aryan society in his manifesto Mein Kampf.
These ideas were also expressed in the Nazi slogan ‘Blood and soil’ – the concept of German land being bound to German blood. (Race theorist and Nazi party member Richard Walther Darré popularised the phrase with his book A New Nobility Based On Blood And Soil, which proposed a systematic eugenics programme). These Völkisch, Blood and Soil ideas were used to manipulate the working classes through a sophisticated programme of propaganda. Art, films and fiction were all used to enforce the idea that German peasant farmers were heroic, healthy, fertile and racially pure. Wolfgang Willrich’s painting The Aryan Family is an example of such propaganda. Jewish people were portrayed as a threat to this way of life and even children’s books touted these anti-Semitic ideas – Der Giftpilz for example includes an account of a Jewish financier forcing a German to sell his farm.
You can see echoes of this aesthetic and ideology in Midsommar – everyone in the Harga is the fair haired, blue eyed Aryan type and in-breeding is tolerated. Everyone that comes in from outside is eventually killed and even Dani’s future there is uncertain. All of this is of course prescient today given the rise of far-right, racist groups and populist politicians who pander to the uneducated. On a smaller scale, there are also neo-pagan cults in existence today, with some of them peddling some pretty far-right, racist ideas. Midsommar might just be a scary summer film, but the ideas behind it remind us of the horrors we should never forget.
