Last night, I finally got around to watching Ari Aster's horror film, Midsommar (it just got picked up by Amazon Prime).  I'm okay, I'm not permanently traumatized by the experience, and I think Aster's previous film, Hereditary, was better (certainly scarier), although Midsommar does proceed at its own nightmarish pace to ever more horrific events up until the shocking conclusion.

No spoilers here, but the plot of Midsommar involves a group of American tourists who visit a remote Swedish community to observe a mid-summer solstice celebration.  What seems idyllic at first - young men and women in white caftans dancing in fields of flowers at an outdoor community smorgasbord, etc. - slowly turns more sinister, and the tourists soon realize they've become involved in something far darker than they ever could have anticipated.

One thing Midsommar lacked that Hereditary had was Colin Stetson's great score, which almost became a character in and of itself.  

The dark, creepy rumblings of Stetson's baritone sax may not have fit the sunlight-dappled mise-en-scène of Midsommar, but I thought Aster missed an opportunity not finding a way to squeeze XTC's 1999 song Harvest Festival somewhere into the soundtrack.

The lyrics "See the flowers round the altar, see the peaches in tins 'neath the headmaster's chair," take on whole new, sinister implications after seeing Midsommar. Not to mention the line, "See the two who've been chosen, see them walk hand in hand to the front of the hall," after the character Dani is selected to be the festival's May Queen

Personally, I don't think the XTC song is ever going to sound the same to me after seeing Midsommar, while at the same time I think the experience of the song enhanced my appreciation of the film.  Art embellishing art.  Nice.  

Of course, the real missed opportunity here was not using the music of the Ukranian art-folk band DakhaBrakha to score the film.  It could have been a perfect fit - DakhaBrakha's take on Balkan harmonies and instruments would have fit the setting of Midsommar perfectly, and their music has lots of dark spaces and moody passages that would have matched the horror sequences of Midsommar as well as Stetson's music did for Hereditary.  

The Ukrainian director Maryna Peshko shot a video scored to two songs by DakhaBrakha  - Zainka (Little Hare) and Rusalochky (Mermaids).  The costumes, setting, and themes of infidelity, betrayal and revenge in the video so closely parallel those of Midsommar that the video could almost serve as a teaser for the film, if not as an audition tape for DakhaBrakha to score the film, even though the video was shot some eight years before the movie.  The campfire in the video, and especially the shot of the blood-like berry juice running from the hands of the young woman, are remarkably similar to some of the visual elements  of Midsommar.  See for yourself: