Welcome back to Behind The Scenes Saturday!! Today is dedicated to my favorite Ari Aster film, Midsommar! Midsommar is such a trippy film that deals with grief, loneliness, manipulation, and isolation. So, watch out for bears, always check your food and drinks, and enjoy these fun pictures and bits of trivia!!

(Trivia provided by IMDb.com)

(Pictures provided by google.com, instagram.com, facebook.com, and IMDb.com)

(WARNING!!! GRAPHIC SPECIAL EFFECTS BELOW!!!)

(SPOILER ALERT!!!)

• When the film was released in Sweden, it received a response that no one expected. Instead of the audiences being afraid, many people laughed. Many Swedish critics actually praised the film as an excellent black comedy.
• You might have noticed that some of the Swedish dialogue spoken by the natives in Hårga aren’t subtitled. This was done deliberately to keep the audience in the dark, as well as the main characters, from what the natives were saying. It was done to make us feel the sense of isolation that the characters felt.
• After the MPAA gave the film an NC-17 rating, about 30 minutes had to be cut from the final film. A director’s cut of the film with all of the restored footage was released shortly after the theatrical run.

• In Dani’s (Florence Pugh) apartment, there is a painting of a bear and a woman wearing a crown hanging over her bed. Not only is the painting a foreshadow of the film’s ending, it was painted by Swedish artist, John Bauer, titled Stackars Basse. Bauer is famous for his art based on Swedish folklore and mythological creatures.
• Although the film was set in Sweden, it was mostly shot in Hungary.
• Mark’s (Will Poulter) extreme phobia of ticks is based off of the film’s director, Ari Aster’s real-life fear of bugs and illness. Just like Mark, Aster wore two pairs of socks over his jeans to protect himself from bug bites while filming.

• Many details in the film were based on real Swedish folk customs and old beliefs. In older Swedish culture, the midsummer night was considered one of the most magical nights of the year. It was a night when magic and supernatural beings could more easily affect humans. This night is connected to many different customs and traditions, with the original intent was to protect yourself, your family, livestock, etc from dark magic or to make use of the good magic. Picking flowers while walking backwards is a local variation on a very common midsummer tradition: you pick 7 or 9 different kinds of flowers while following specific rules. The rules, of course, can vary in different parts of the country. A common rule is you have to walk backwards, also you have to cross 7 fences and stay quiet during the whole procedure. You then place the flowers under your pillow and during the night, you supposedly dream about your future husband. Eating a salted herring, starting with the tail, fills the same purpose as picking the flowers. A really big part of midsummer celebration is dancing around a decorated pole.
• A few years after the film’s release, Florence Pugh discussed the ending in an interview, saying, “I created such a sad person, and then felt guilty that I’d created that person and then left her. I’ve never had that before. I’ve always thought all my characters, once I left like, ‘they’ll be fine’. She can’t fend for herself, almost like I’d created this person, and then I just left her when I had to go do another movie.”
• Ari Aster’s visual references for this film are Black Narcissus, Hard To Be A God, Macbeth, and Tess.

• William Jackson Harper (Josh) is the only American actor in the film. Although Jack Reynor (Christian) was born in Colorado, he’s Irish. Florence Pugh, Will Poulter, Ellora Torchia (Connie), and Archie Madekwe (Simon) are all English. All of the other supporting actors are either Swedish, British, or Hungarian.
• Dani’s last name was Ardor, which is Latin for “flame”.
• Although in the film, they use the words May Queen and May pole, midsummer is actually celebrated by the end of June.

• Florence Pugh admitted that she felt depressed for about 6 months after shooting this film.
• In the script, Dani’s parents lived in Minnesota. However, the scenes with them were filmed in Utah.
• For Dani’s birthday, Pelle (Vilhelm Blomgren) gives her a picture that he drew of her. The picture is later seen on the frock Dani is wearing to compete for May Queen.

• This was one of Björn Andrésen’s final films before he passed away in 2025.
• Haley Lu Richardson was considered for the role of Dani Ardor.
• When we see Connie’s corpse being wheeled into the shrine, it appears to be wet and bloated. This insinuates that the natives drowned her in a nearby lake. As Dani is taking the meat tarts out of the oven, both she and Mark hear faint screams. It’s implied that this is the point where they grabbed her and drowned her. This is further confirmed in the director’s cut, where a little boy is almost sacrificed by drowning in the lake by the natives while wearing a sacrificial robe, the same robe that Connie’s corpse is wearing.

• Ari Aster confirmed that Pelle was the one who bludgeoned Josh to death with the hammer. When Josh is talking to who he believed was Mark, you can even catch a glimpse of Pelle hiding to the side.
• The script revealed that the man wearing Mark’s skin was Ulf (Henrik Norlén), the man who previously yelled at Mark for urinating on the ancestral tree.
• Early in the film, Simon asked Ingemar (Hampus Hallberg) what playing children nearby were doing, and Ingemar explained that they were playing a game called “Skin The Fool”. Later, Mark is killed and skinned, and his corpse is taken into the shrine with a jester’s hat on top of his head.

• After Dani won May Queen, she was lifted onto the pedestal to be carried to the dinner table. While they walk there, you can clearly see Dani’s sister’s face in the trees with the exhaust tube in her mouth.
• After his rape scene, Christian was supposed to run away in the robe he had entered in. Jack Reynor was the one who suggested that his character should run out completely nude to appear more vulnerable. He had recently watched 1972’s The Last House On The Left, and he felt that, like in many horror films, female characters were disrobed, humiliated, and assaulted before their demise. He felt that it was time that male characters be made to suffer similar indignity.
• Throughout the film, Dani hallucinates the plant life interacting with her and growing into her. This foreshadows her becoming the flowery May Queen at the end of the film.

• Simon suffered from an alleged Viking ritualized execution method known as the Blood Eagle. Supposedly, the victims of this method were placed in a prone position, their ribs severed from the spine with the sharp tool, and their lungs pulled through opening to create a pair of “wings”. The victim would be alive and conscious through the process and not die until sometime after (either by blood loss or suffocation). When Christian found Simon, he’s seemed to still be breathing, but it could be due to Christian’s drugged state.
• While Christian was waiting to speak with Siv (Gunnel Fred) in her house, looks at the wallpaper with the image of a burning bear on it. This foreshadows his fate as he’s later incapacitated, placed inside a hollowed-out bear, and burned alive in the shrine.
• When Father Odd (Mats Blomgren) first greeted the guests, he says “welcome” to Josh, Christian, and Mark, but he directed “welcome home” to Dani.

• Pelle mentioned that Maja (Isabelle Grill) had just become “byxmyndig,” which is Swedish slang for the age of consent, which is 15 in Sweden. Isabelle Grill was actually 20 during filming.
• During the bar scene, Pelle teased Christian with “all the Swedish women he can impregnate in June”. This foreshadows one of the Hårga natives, Maja setting her sights on Christian and planning to get him to impregnate her.
• Both of Ari Aster’s first two feature films included gruesome shots of bashed-in faces, cults, nude old people, explorations of grief and relationships, intense depictions of sorrow, and shots where the camera films straight down.

• Many people have noticed that Ylva (Katarina Weidhagen) looked very similar to Dani. They’ve theorized that Ylva sacrificed herself for the purpose of making room for Dani to join the Hårga community, and that Dani will take her name.
• Before the dancing around the May pole began, all of the dancers bowed except for Dani. This not only signifies her lack of awareness, but it also foreshadows her victory and new standing as the May Queen.
• When everyone is tripping by the tree after consuming mushrooms, a stranger walks by, and Pelle tells Mark that new people are good, foreshadowing everyone’s importance as newcomers to the cult.