Midsommar Director’s Cut is two hours fifty-one minutes long, which is twenty-four minutes longer than the theatrical release, but the time flies. Since I already did an insanely long review of the theatrical release, I’m going to have a spoiler review of whether or not the added footage actually changed my original conclusions. Because I saw it in a different theater and could see the entire screen during this fourth viewing, it is possible that I’m only recently noticing something that was in the theatrical cut, but because of my seat, I didn’t see it, or repeat viewings helped me to notice more.
Midsommar Director’s Cut shows that Dani isn’t dumb and actually explicitly questioned what she was signing up for, but stayed for Christian. It also shows that she doesn’t just passively stand by and get traumatized by rituals, but unlike Simon and Connie, when she does speak up, she is following the river ritual perfectly. This ritual scene and a scene when Christian first starts doing research on the Harga involve a horizontal Christmas tree like decoration ceremony both shed light on what actually happened to Connie. All the visitors hear screams, but don’t connect it with Connie. After this ritual, Dani explicitly voices her suspicions that they are in danger to Christian, which makes the ending sadder to me, because she knew the worst case scenario. He encourages her to acclimate. Ha! Best note taken ever.
I’m inclined to think that Dani’s Maypole ritual is a suicidal moment though she did not consciously make that decision. During the ritual, in both versions of the film, the sun burns the image of her face away. At that moment, I think that while she is still there, she is also possibly taken by the influence. When she is carried away in the procession, in both versions, an enormous, disembodied head that looks like her sister oversees the procession, and Dani sees her mother after the ceremony. The spirit and the real world have their thinnest boundaries during a solstice. Dani isn’t hallucinating. Her prophetic dream, which is the same in both versions, came true. The guys that she came with did leave her, but they died, and when she screams, instead of sound, her mouth emits the black smoke that her sister ingested, obliterates the ability to see anything else (and her friends later to go up into smoke) and is left behind in the community, which implies that staying in that community may be the mirror image of what happened to her sister, but has the same effect. Also when she is in the enormous sleeping quarters and sees the drawing of the Maypole ritual, there are drawings at the border of that painting, which I didn’t get a good look at, but looked like Christian’s mating ceremony. I will pause during the home viewing.
In Midsommar Director’s Cut, Siv explicitly reassures Christian that Dani won’t know, but the visitors’ luggage is taken at the beginning of the movie, and I assume that it is placed on or near the bed that they want you to sleep so they knew that at least subconsciously, Dani would know what was going on at the borders of her crowning and procession, which explains why Siv wouldn’t give Dani permission for Christian to ride with her in the carriage. The key part of her possession or obliteration is the manipulation into rage so she would kill her last link to the outside world. You should have listened to Amy, Dani!
The other rituals make more sense in Midsommar Director’s Cut. The theatrical version indicates that bringing visitors means that you’re volunteering to be sacrificed so Pelle is potentially on the chopping block along with his “brother,” Ingemar, and Ulf, though we never see his visitors. It seems as if the key is to bring heterosexual couples and hope that they split up so the woman can become the May Queen, and you can survive. When Christian gets drugged after discovering Simon, you can see Pelle smirking just outside the door. Pelle is determined not to end up like his parents, and I bet he gets the May Queen because he has a crown too. It is more explicit in this version that Ingemar envies Connie and Simon’s relationship, and he is at peace with using the ritual like a murder suicide. Also Ulf’s fury at Mark and screaming during his sacrifice isn’t necessarily because the elders lied that he wouldn’t feel any pain. He was no longer content to make his sacrifice because he knew that his resting place was defiled and never got over that. It also makes sense that you sacrifice the members of the community that brought visitors because then when the outside world wonders what happened, they are missing too.
Christian manages to be worse in Midsommar Director’s Cut than the theatrical release. He manipulates his friends and Dani in such a shitty way to set them up against each other so he could come off in the best light, but if they just talked honestly to each other, his plans would fold like a house of cards. He doesn’t ask for permission before doing anything, but he puts the burden on others to cover for him. While on some level, I think that Christian gets raped because he is drugged, I also think that he is somewhat culpable because Maja is sixteen, barely legal, and if he did make a conscious decision, which he didn’t-he explicitly refuses and says that he is with Dani, he is going to rationalize that it is for research. Also what are the ethics of an anthropologist actively participating in mating ceremonies in tribes that they are studying? I am genuinely asking a question. He explicitly acts like the wounded party in his conflict with Josh and genuinely believes that Josh is trying to compete with him. He chooses to start a two front battle with Josh and Dani then loses spectacularly. He is the worst. Is it implied that they cut his legs so he could fit in the bear?
Midsommar Director’s Cut makes more explicit references to Josh jokingly understanding the sinister shared origins of Pelle’s community with the Nazis. If he gets his black card revoked, it is for dismissing danger and not trusting his first impressions. I don’t think that Pelle was amused. Dani jokes about Pelle brainwashing the group, but he denies influencing Josh. It makes Josh’s end sadder that he thought his erudition could protect him. During this viewing, I noticed that when the camera swings around to show a shirtcocking man wearing Mark’s skin, someone dressed in white was actually the person holding the enormous mallet and kills Josh. Do we see who it was? How did I not see that person when Josh entered the room!?! Was it supernatural? My bet is on Pelle. I did see that Reuben was lying in a bed in the corner so it wasn’t him, right? Why did Josh not at least think that Reuben would wake up and alert others that he was there? When I watch this movie again at home, I’m going to pay special attention to this sequence. Josh was on to something. I need to freeze frame the moment when he looks at his notes at their last shared meal. I’m also curious what the surface of the tables looked like at the other meals.
If you enjoyed Midsommar, it is definitely worth it to return to theaters and see Midsommar Director’s Cut. I’m hoping that the latter will also be available for home viewing. It was a kind of madness, a very Hargan move, to only show this version during the evening for a week when people would start to get too tired to really absorb the movie. I just couldn’t do it, but I was rewarded because it was showing for more than a week at a better time at one theater.
