I Found Love at a Screening of ‘Midsommar’
When I was a kid, I loved seeing scary movies with my friends. Despite the fact that I was easily scared as a child, I couldn’t wait to sneak into a movie theatre, or pile onto a friend’s couch when their parents were out of town and turn on something like The Strangers or Paranormal Activity (both of which scared the pants off me, by the way).
The reason I loved seeing scary movies with my friends was that I felt a bond between us all, kind of like “Yeah, this is gonna scare us to death, but at least we’ll be scared together.” I craved that comradery and found it readily available in the presence of horror movies.
A few years ago I was living as an art student in Paris. Movies had become a massive part of my life and trips to the cinema were as regular for me as trips to the grocery store.
The first time I saw the poster for Midsommar was in the metro station. As I stood there waiting for my train, I was taken by the image of Florence Pugh with her face contorted and a crown of flowers upon her head. I knew immediately that this was a film I had to see.
So I started pestering my friends to accompany me, but that isn’t exactly the easiest film to get people to see. Most of them probably looked up trailers or the synopsis and decided it definitely wasn’t what they wanted to spend 10 euros on in the middle of the workweek.
As I’m sure any fan of horror movies can attest to, it is incredibly hard to recruit people to sit in a dark theatre and watch nightmares in motion; most people just don’t like to be scared.
So I decided I would see the film by myself and made my way to an arthouse theatre for a rather late 9 pm showing of Midsommar.
It was no surprise to me at all when I walked into that tiny theatre and found only two other audience members: a man sitting in the front row, and a young woman sitting center-right. I chose my seat in the same row as the woman, just a bit to the left (I tend to prefer sitting off-center in a theatre). The lights went down, and we were off.
If you’ve ever seen Midsommar you know how quickly things get out of hand. It’s not long before you are truly disturbed by the events of the story. I couldn’t believe what my eyes were seeing and each plot point brought about a scene more alarming than the last.
Somewhere in the middle of the movie my jaw literally dropped open and there it stayed until the end of the movie. I would guess most people had a similar experience.
So as the movie came to an even more shocking end (which, by the way, I thought was very well done) my mouth had gone into full fly-catcher mode. I was starting to get lockjaw at that point as my mind was in a state of buffering not unlike a computer mouse pinwheel.
In some of these arthouse theatres, they don’t show the whole credits. I can’t remember if this place did or not, but my memory was that after that final image, in which Pugh smiles at the destruction, the screen went black and the lights in the theatre came up rather abruptly.
The man in the front of the theatre stood up instantly and walked out — I don’t dare speculate on his state of mind at that point.
I, on the other hand, was almost paralyzed and was unable to take my eyes off the screen nor close my mouth. Then, completely out of the blue, I turn to my right and look at the woman in my row, mouth still open. She turned to me with an equally disturbed look, and at that moment we were linked.
For several seconds we just stared at each other with this ghastly look. Then the tension snapped when she started to laugh. So I laughed too.
The initial part of the conversation consisted of babbling and word vomit, trying desperately to put into words the feeling we were experiencing.
“It was just so…”
“I can’t believe she…”
In the midst of our stumbling through this bizarre analysis of the film a lovely employee came down and told us to get out of the theatre so he could go home.
Next thing I knew we were standing out in the cold, unable, or unwilling to go home due to the lingering certainty that neither of us would be able to sleep after the spectacle that was Midsommar.
Yet I felt this unspoken bond between myself and this beautiful stranger with whom I had just effectively made it through an adventure, so, uncharacteristically, I asked if she wanted to get a glass of wine and maybe talk about what had just happened.
“I was thinking the same thing,” she replied, and, once again, we were off.
We walked slowly through the empty streets, mostly in silence which would normally be awkward but this time just made sense.
When we arrived at a bar that was still open we sat inside and took off our coats. The waiter brought us a bottle of wine which we rapidly consumed while going through the entire movie, scene by scene, horror by horror.
She told me that she might have walked out were it not for me sitting in the row with her. I said that I too felt much more comfortable watching what we did knowing that I wasn’t alone in my fright.
“It was like, yeah, I was scared…” She said.
“…but at least we were scared together.” I finished
“Exactement!”
We sipped our wine.
After a bottle and a half of the cheapest vino on the menu, the waiter told us it was time to go home, so we gathered our coats and once again found ourselves standing on the sidewalk facing the prospect of going to sleep and thus leaving our dreams vulnerable to the creepy tentacles of Midsommar.
Yet the bond that had been formed in this shared experience was undeniable. I felt as though I had known this woman for years, so it was only natural that I asked if I could see her again.
“I can’t,” she told me, although her eyes said otherwise. We held each other’s gaze for a few moments, then she gently kissed me on each cheek before walking off into the darkness.
Now, whenever I hear mention of Midsommar, I think back to that night in which I found some sort of love in the cinema. I suppose it’s not the kind of grand love that one witnesses on the silver screen between the likes of Rick Blaine and Ilsa Lund or even Harry and Sally. It is, however, something more familiar, something more subtle, and something that speaks to the power of movies, whether they scare you out of your boots or otherwise.
I have no idea what my mystery Midsommar-lover is doing nowadays, where her life has taken her, or really anything about her. All I know is that at that moment in time, we were bound together by a horror movie and that is something I will remember for the rest of my life.
I think she will too.
