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I haven't had an #AnaWatches live-watch in a while. I was getting married to Kissmate (which was very distracting), but today we're sick from some delivered food that maybe wasn't reheated enough, and the point is we have time AND stomach pains. Let's do this.
I've been wanting to do MIDSOMMAR for, like, forever now and also before it stops being on Amazon Prime. "An American couple, their relationship foundering, travel to a fabled Swedish midsummer festival where they become trapped in a sinister nightmare."
This is obviously the best choice for something to watch while dealing with food poisoning, as we are right now! #AnaWatches
Side-note: I cannot enough recommend having some of these stashed in your medicine cabinet, especially if you have children or GERD. https://www.amazon.com/milliliter-Disposable-Emesis-Morning-Sickness/dp/B004PS7OVG/
I do want to say that covid has entirely fucked up how I watch movies now. A fictional governor ranted about "200 Americans dead" in a movie the other day and I was like "pffft, like you'd care" because I mean. *frantic gestures at covid count* #AnaWatches
#AnaWatches We start with a pretty mural which is actually kind of terrifying because I think that nice woman has tentacles and is killing people while more people offer her skulls. RUSTIC.
#AnaWatches The scenery turns mountainous and wintery and there is sad-lady vocalization and Kissmate is accompanying her by wailing "RI-CO-LA".
#AnaWatches We have turned the music up all the way trying to hear so when the movie rings THE LOUDEST PHONE IN EXISTENCE in our ears, we both literally jumped in our seats and screamed.
#AnaWatches Annoyingly, we have to pause here because the subtitles just aren't showing up. Like, at all.
#AnaWatches One reboot of the Roku later and we're in business. OKAY. Phone rings. Answering machine picks up. A daughter, Dani, frets that her parents might not be okay because a "Terri" sent her a scary email. Mom and Dad sleep through the message and seem fine?
[TW: Self-harm] #AnaWatches Oh, shit, the sister situation looks like maybe a self-harm situation. Dani frets over the phone to boyfriend, Christian, who is basically a shit about Terri having bipolar disorder. We hate Christian.
#AnaWatches Dani worries that she's leaning too much on her emotionally-distant boyfriend and ouch this is a little too relatable. I like Dani.
#AnaWatches Ooh! It's time for twenty minutes with jerks trope: Christian and his friends trash-talk Dani and are leery and gross at the local waitstaff. We will savor these boys' impending messy deaths that the trailer hinted at.
#AnaWatches A cute little filming detail (Kissmate is great at noticing these) is that there's an enormous picture of cleavage just behind and above the boys: it's "on their minds" by being positioned above their heads like a thought bubble.
[TW: Self-harm] #AnaWatches Oh shit. Uh. The sister, Terri, apparently gassed the entire house with car exhaust and now Dani's entire family has died. I wasn't expecting that and we have to pause here because that's a lot. I'm so sorry.
#AnaWatches We don't really understand what is going on, but Kissmate points out that the gas hoses look like the woman with tentacles at the beginning. I thought this was going to be, like, WICKER MAN or something.
#AnaWatches [Midsommar] I'm just going to add a few more mute-able terms to this live-watch so that, like. *frantic gestures of apology* https://help.twitter.com/en/using-twitter/advanced-twitter-mute-options
#AnaWatches [Midsommar] Well, this is a raw beginning and terrifyingly detailed, so if you have triggers around self-harm, uhhh, be aware that's an immediate thing in this movie. We didn't know that in advance.
#AnaWatches [Midsommar] Oh! That's Chidi! And that's Eustace from Narnia!
#AnaWatches [Midsommar] The boys are planning to go to Europe for midsummer in a couple weeks and this is news to Dani despite apparently living with Christian now. Kissmate is lividly cursing Christian out and it's great.
#AnaWatches [Midsommar] I'm being warned that there's more self-harm later, so heads-up on that, friends. We're going to cautiously continue over here in the Mardoll house.
#AnaWatches [Midsommar] Christian swears he wasn't lying to Dani and that he "only decided today" that he was going to Sweden, but Dani points out that he already has a plane ticket.
#AnaWatches [Midsommar] Dani uses her words well to point out Christian's bullshit in non-aggressive terms, but he angrily gaslights her and escalates the conflict.
#AnaWatches [Midsommar] Christian tells his friends that he's invited Dani to come to Sweden with them on their summer sex fling, and that she's accepted, but he's really hopeful she won't *actually* come. The boys look shocked.
#AnaWatches [Midsommar] Like, we've actually had to pause to breathe and cackle at the... the... the audacity of "guys by the way I invited Dani and she accepted but don't worry she definitely won't actually COME don't worry".
#AnaWatches [Midsommar] "And just so we're clear, you guys all TOLD me to invite her and you all know she's coming. Okay?" as Dani *knocks on the door*. He waited until the LAST POSSIBLE MOMENT to drop this on them.
#AnaWatches [Midsommar] Kissmate: "Well, at least Christian is as much a shitty friend as he is a shitty boyfriend. He is CONSISTENT and I admire that."
#AnaWatches [Midsommar] From left to right, we have Josh's "I'm too tired for this" grimace, Pelle's "lol, what" smirk, and Mark's "NO. NO. NO." eyebrows happening. It's a lot of eyebrow on Mark's face.
Pelle is actually nice to Dani. Pelle may survive the winter.
Pelle is actually nice to Dani. Pelle may survive the winter.
#AnaWatches [Midsommar] Kissmate keeps pointing out neat little cinematography touches, like how the wall above Josh's head is crammed full of cards, making him seem filled with thoughts/words but keeping them to himself in his silence.
#AnaWatches [Midsommar] Pelle is either a genuinely nice and awkward good bean OR grooming Dani to be, like, a human sacrifice for the Euro-volcano. I'm not sure which. And there's a great transition in which Dani goes from apartment bathroom to plane bathroom. Very artsy.
#AnaWatches [Midsommar] If there aren't euro-volcanoes, don't tell me. Let me dream.
#AnaWatches [Midsommar] In Stockholm, the boys are super creepy about women, asking why "the women here" are so much sexier than the (American?) ones back home.
#AnaWatches [Midsommar] There's definitely a WICKER MAN feel going on with Pelle's hometown being (apparently) a pagan commune, but all the other kids have Biblicalish names: Christian, Mark, Josh(ua), Dani(el).
#AnaWatches [Midsommar] The visuals are arty and great but Kissmate wants to kick the sound guy. The reverb is making our windows tremble.
#AnaWatches [Midsommar] The van stops in the middle of a field where the Swedish commune kids are bringing their various American and London exchange students to meet and possibly do drugs.
#AnaWatches [Midsommar] It sorta already feels like each Swedish boy was told to bring foreign students back with them. Dani hesitates on the drug use, saying she wants to find her footing first.
#AnaWatches [Midsommar] The boys pressure Dani into getting high with them. They sit around and ponder the bright sky and "midnight sun" which indicates they're in the arctic circle...but isn't there still a sunset? Maybe it's supernatural?
#AnaWatches [Midsommar] After a bad trip, Dani and the rest of the boys are backpacked into the woods to a commune full of white robes and cheery sun imagery. "RUN," Kissmate helpfully informs everyone.
#AnaWatches [Midsommar] Also, the houses look like something a child drew and then they built at wrong angles to everything else, so that's alarming in a more mundane way.
#AnaWatches [Midsommar] Children run up to the visitors to give them strawberries and take their luggage, and I have an idea for how to rob Americans.
#AnaWatches [Midsommar] They get the tour around the village. Over there is the mysterious yellow temple no one is allowed in. Over here is where you'll be staying. Ah, yes, here is the sleepy bear in a cage. For reasons?
#AnaWatches [Midsommar] Over here is the tapestry that includes a close-up of a vaginal bush trim, and I swear I am not making this up.
#AnaWatches [Midsommar] We here pause because Coconut (the cat) has somehow managed to perch on a little shelf just below the ceiling and the other cats are pacing and upset because they don't know how to do that.
#AnaWatches [Midsommar] She's fine; Kissmate says she knows how to get down and if she doesn't we can get the ladder. We continue.
#AnaWatches [Midsommar] We didn't explain the tapestry but it was pretty clearly a "love spell" involving the feeding of one's pubic hair and menstrual blood to an outsider (based on his clothes?) so that's terrifying considering the situation.
#AnaWatches [Midsommar] "Love spell" there in huge quotation marks because that's rape. So... trigger warning for that, probably.
#AnaWatches [Midsommar] Pelle takes them to the communal living quarters and off-handedly mentions that elders are killed when they reach 72. The Americans treat this like a joke, whereas I would ask more questions about that.
#AnaWatches [Midsommar] The Americans get to sleep in the communal "kids" quarters which means screaming babies and... someone put scissors under the crib pillow? What.
#AnaWatches [Midsommar] I hate communal sleeping and Kissmate doesn't love babies so this is basically our own personal hell.
#AnaWatches [Midsommar] Google is telling Kissmate that scissors under the pillow keeps away nightmares, which makes sense, but on the other hand: BABY.
#AnaWatches [Midsommar] Girls walk backwards while gathering the list of flowers from the tapestry love spell instructions, which is alarming. 4 girls and 4 outsider boys.
#AnaWatches [Midsommar] Everyone sits for a very quiet meal, followed by a tearful toast for two elders. I'm wondering if they've reached the deadly 72 years of age.
#AnaWatches [Midsommar] [Self-harm] HOLY SHIT. The two elders are carried to the top of a cliff and ceremonially throw themselves to their death. I'm- I get why Dani is in shock, but the rest of you need to be LEAVING?
#AnaWatches [Midsommar] Oh my god, the crowd only loses their shit when the second elder doesn't die cleanly and needs to be finished off with a hammer, and also this is very gory.
#AnaWatches [Midsommar] Our London secondary protagonists, bless them, are the ones to freak out and storm off, telling everyone to go fuck themselves for the generous helping of trauma.
#AnaWatches [Midsommar] Dani runs off to weep while the American boys fight about their thesis projects. They will not survive the winter.
#AnaWatches [Midsommar] Christian wants to do his thesis on these folks and is basically trying to steal Josh's thesis out from under him. We're on Josh's side and Christian is a hack, but also...maybe...LEAVE NOW.
#AnaWatches [Midsommar] Dani wants to leave and Pelle starts trying to recruit her as an "orphan" to his "new family". It's really manipulative and terrifying.
