Director Ari Aster has done his homework. There are so many authentic rituals, or aspects of it, in this film that it makes you dizzy to process. But if you read about them in occult books, you would recognize them.
They are horrifying to the modern, individualized consciousness, which now knows good and evil. But they make perfect sense to the ancient consciousness that does not yet have individualized morality, identity and property. That consciousness follows the laws of nature, commanded by the spiritual leaders of the herd. Death and sex do not yet fall within the spectrum of guilt and shame and serve the moralless nature and the survival of the herd.
The strength of the film lies in the relationship between score and images. The pompous, lyrical and compassionate music accompanying the gruesome images reflects the peacefulness of the old consciousness and not the new one that detests these images. That's why it seems out of place and almost absurdist. But Aster points out how authentic these rituals should be considered in the context of their time.
Finally, by showing these gruesome rituals in this authentic setting to a modern cinema audience, Aster shows what happens when group-conscience takes over from individualized conscience in these modern times of totalitarism. In our time there are no medicine men, but religious leaders, scientists, media, politicians and large technological companies. When the gullible majority appropriates the truth and forbids its individual impulse, in effect the individual in a group falls into a horrible barbarism of exclusion and destruction of others. Because he, like our distant ancestor, has surrendered his soul to the collective.
Aster shows the danger of returning to an old form of consciousness, in the form of the modern, technological totalitarianism that is currently emerging on the globe.
They are horrifying to the modern, individualized consciousness, which now knows good and evil. But they make perfect sense to the ancient consciousness that does not yet have individualized morality, identity and property. That consciousness follows the laws of nature, commanded by the spiritual leaders of the herd. Death and sex do not yet fall within the spectrum of guilt and shame and serve the moralless nature and the survival of the herd.
The strength of the film lies in the relationship between score and images. The pompous, lyrical and compassionate music accompanying the gruesome images reflects the peacefulness of the old consciousness and not the new one that detests these images. That's why it seems out of place and almost absurdist. But Aster points out how authentic these rituals should be considered in the context of their time.
Finally, by showing these gruesome rituals in this authentic setting to a modern cinema audience, Aster shows what happens when group-conscience takes over from individualized conscience in these modern times of totalitarism. In our time there are no medicine men, but religious leaders, scientists, media, politicians and large technological companies. When the gullible majority appropriates the truth and forbids its individual impulse, in effect the individual in a group falls into a horrible barbarism of exclusion and destruction of others. Because he, like our distant ancestor, has surrendered his soul to the collective.
Aster shows the danger of returning to an old form of consciousness, in the form of the modern, technological totalitarianism that is currently emerging on the globe.