Always Good Movies

Direction: Ari Aster
Country: USA

Beau is Afraid is a quirky Freudian odyssey with an unhinged mother/son relationship at the center and some elliptical Kafkaesque situations. Starting off well, it takes a descending curve over the course of a disjointed structure. This exhausting three-hour trip to the edge of madness stars Joaquin Phoenix as the title character. However, even shifting extraordinarily in attitude from child fragility to adulthood deliriums, he’s powerless in the face of an overstuffed script that serves as a lopsided vehicle for his outstanding acting skills.

For a film by Ari Aster, who gave us horror gems like Hereditary (2018) and Midsommar (2019), it is unspeakably disappointing. It would have been a better horror comedy if it didn’t suffocate in its own ideas. Everything appears to follow a sort of code that needs deciphering, and the systematic metaphors become tiresome as we delve into the real/surreal aspects of a neurotic man whose severe childhood trauma prevents him from finding happiness. Beau tries to reach his mother’s place in time, both before and after her death, but with no success.

Playing with twisted dimensions and labyrinthine layers, Aster squanders the chance to lead a few good ideas to fruition. The result, much less fascinating than expected, is congested and appalling.

Direction: Ari Aster
Country: Sweden / USA

After the large-scale success of Hereditary, 33-year-old American cineaste Ari Aster holds on to the horror genre and writes Midsommar, a foreboding story set in rural Sweden that comes impregnated with folklore, symbology, trauma, suicide, and slaughter. Leaving the supernatural behind in favor of the cult thematic, the filmmaker manages to get a satisfying outcome.

The film stars Florence Pugh and Jack Reynor as Dani and Christian, respectively, an American couple on the verge of breaking up, which, nevertheless, decides to go on a trip - previously planned without Dani’s knowledge - to Sweden, where they expect to attend a supposedly innocuous midsummer festival that only occurs every 90 years. The nine-day event, organized by the Harga ‘family’, hosts four more guests: Christian’s college mates Josh (William Jackson Harper) and Mark (Will Poulter), who were also invited by Pelle (Vilhelm Blomgren), a common friend and long-time member of the commune, and an English couple that arrived with the encouragement of Pelle's brother, Ingemar (Hampus Hallberg).

What should have been a relaxed time of cultural enjoyment becomes a creepy nightmare as the pagan cult uses the foreigners for their diabolical ritualistic practices and exceptional competitions.

Although the revelations are envisaged beforehand, the film still manages to counterpoint slightly disturbing conducts with familiar paranoia-induced passages. Everything is captured by Pawel Pogorzelski’s appealing lensmanship, which balances the scenic and the repulsive, while Aster maintains an unsettling atmosphere for the entire147 minutes through a deliberate pace and the help of a competent cast.

What Midsommar lacks in originality, it more than makes up for with offbeat moments adorned with gut-wrenching eccentricities. Nonetheless, it was merely entertaining, even occasionally funny, but never truly scary.