Ari Aster Is Not Afraid of Alienating You

Some filmmakers provoke extreme responses in their audience. Ari Aster has made an entire aesthetic out of brutally dividing people against themselves. Think of a possessed Toni Collette methodically garrotting herself in Hereditary, eyes fixed accusatorily on her son. Or the wizened old Swedish cultist in Midsommar who achieves self-actualization by swan diving off a cliff and smashing headfirst into a rock, like a Wile E. Coyote cartoon directed by Michael Haneke.