Dani joins her emotionally distant boyfriend and his anthropology friends on a trip to a remote Swedish commune for a midsummer festival. Over 9 days of constant daylight, the commune turns out to be something ancient and murderous. Ari Aster's folk horror is also a breakup film. The commune gives Dani the help with her grief that her boyfriend never could.
Midsommar is a 2019 horror and drama film directed by Ari Aster. This breakdown covers 5 techniques (1 psychology, 1 cinematography and 3 narrative), each with the scene where you can see it. If you like how it is made, The Shawshank Redemption uses several of the same techniques.
Using a cult or closed community, with its ranks, rituals and pressure to obey, as the source of horror. The threat is belonging to the group, with no single monster.
How this film uses it
The Hårga have no hidden evil. They are a community whose beliefs are completely consistent, and their rituals make sense inside their own system. The horror is how total that system is. I feel like the commune's perfect social unity is more disturbing than any single act, because you can't argue with it.
Where to see it
The ättestupa sequence. The ritual jump from the cliff is carried out with solemn respect by the whole community. The horror comes from how fully they accept something the outsiders experience as an atrocity.
Limiting the film to a tightly chosen set of colors, or giving each place or state its own set. The colors tell you about the world and its mood without dialogue.
How this film uses it
Pawel Pogorzelski films the Swedish commune in constant, saturated daylight. The yellows, whites and greens turn away from the darkness you expect in horror. The color choice makes the film's case. Horror doesn't need shadows when a community's logic is fully on show in the light.
Where to see it
The arrival at Hårga. The film moves into permanent daylight. The colors tell you that the usual rules of horror won't apply here.
Returning to the same physical object again and again until it means more than what it is. It moves the plot and also stands for the film's main ideas.
How this film uses it
Tapestries showing the ritual calendar hang around the commune as decoration. They record what is going to happen to the visitors, in the same visual style as the rest of the community's art. These objects present the visitors' fate as a text already written. The horror is a story the commune had finished before the outsiders arrived.
Where to see it
The tapestry showing the sacrifice ritual. The film's plot is shown ahead of time as decoration. The horror is already complete in the art before the events happen.
Starting the film by showing or telling you how it ends, such as the main character's death or defeat. The rest of the story then explains how things got there.
How this film uses it
The film opens with Dani's family tragedy, before the commune is introduced. This opening is the film's emotional logic in a compressed form. Dani's grief needs a community that can hold it. The commune will give her one, at a price she can't name yet. The horror is already there in that first loss.
Where to see it
The winterscape opening. Dani's grief is fully established before Sweden appears. The emotional logic of everything that follows is set early.
Building up to a big emotional release slowly, by investing in the characters and giving small bits of hope. When the release comes, it feels deserved after all the suffering.
How this film uses it
In the final sequence, Dani smiles as the temple burns with Christian inside. It is the most complicated emotional release in horror cinema. Aster has spent more than 2 hours making the case that her grief and her failed relationship deserve this release. It is real, and it is terrible at the same time.
Where to see it
Dani's final smile. You see the May Queen's expression as the temple burns. The release arrives in a form that you have to decide how to take.
Questions
Midsommar: quick answers
What filmmaking techniques does Midsommar use?
CineCode breaks down 5 techniques in Midsommar (2019): Cult Structure as Social Horror, Color Palette as Worldbuilding, Symbolic Object, Proleptic Opening and Earned Catharsis.
Who directed Midsommar?
Ari Aster directed Midsommar, released in 2019. CineCode also covers Hereditary (2018), Beau Is Afraid (2023), Eddington (2025).
What films are similar to Midsommar?
Films that share techniques with Midsommar include The Shawshank Redemption (1994), Ikiru (1952), Stalker (1979), Pan's Labyrinth (2006).
