The Culture That “Can’t Anymore”: Ari Aster’s Midsommar (2019) as Pilgrimage of a Traumatized Society

Walter Burkert (1987) connects sacrifice in ancient traditions to the motif of “a maiden’s tragedy” and this “inconsolably hideous tragedy” (Edelstein 2019), this chapter suggests, is Midsommar’s (Aster, 2019) original horrific place or horror locus, while everything else is symbolically organized around it. Noting the allegorical potential of Aster’s film, Midsommar’s horror locus is conceived in relation to the notion of locus amoenus or “pleasance,” an established literary topos for an ideal landscape or a charming place (Curtius, 2013), suggesting that the Hårga settlement can be perceived as a fictional setting originating from Midsommar’s previous setting and that it serves as an alternative, Artaudian articulation of Midsommar’s original horror locus pertaining to detachment and loss of emotional connection. This articulation is theatrical and ritualistic, based on an “emotional” (human) body which “gives life as gesture” (Midsommar 2019). The chapter considers the phenomenon of justified female sacrifice in the form of physical and emotional disposability, as both Western and, more specifically, white man’s cultural phenomena, resulting in its normalization in a culture of isolation and (emotional) detachment within a globalized community as its main source of contemporary social horror. Focusing on the impact of the feminine perspective, of the “emotional” body, its awareness, and its values in contrast to what is considered a masculine perspective, Midsommar visually explores the possibilities of embracing the culture of expressive “emotional” bodies despite the traditional propensity to dismiss what is deemed an “emotional” standpoint, contemplating the need for a mindful balance and fluidity of perspectives to transcend the horror of an emotionally detached society.