There may be no modern filmmaker who’s more esteemed…yet less understood than Ari Aster. The man himself—completely unpretentious and humble in interviews, full of enthusiasm and ideas, and backed by a sincere love for movies—is not as enigmatic as directors like David Lynch or Lars von Trier, yet his movies become confounding labyrinths that perplex audiences, leaving them impressed yet full of questions. The director has only three feature-length films under his belt—Hereditary, Midsommar, and Beau is Afraid—yet there’s already a mystique surrounding his body of work as people try to connect and comprehend what exactly is going on in all three.
There are obviously links that can be found across Aster’s works. He’s an artist who isn’t afraid to navigate the murky waters of horror and psychological drama, and thus has effectively carved out a niche that transcends what we typically expect from genre films these days. His keen eye for the macabre and his penchant for exploring the darkest corners of the human psyche has allowed him to explore everything from familial trauma to societal horror to the deeply entrenched fears that lie within us all. When you stand back and look at Aster’s short filmography so far, you can find little connections that not only help us understand his films individually, but understand the artist behind the works. This better equips us to decipher his movies in the future as Aster’s catalog grows and grows.
This article aims to peel back the layers of Aster’s artistry, providing a blueprint of the thematic continuity that links these seemingly disparate stories all together. To get there, we’ll delve into the director’s background and influences that provided the foundation for such a bizarre body of work. We’ll offer concise explanations of each film and highlight themes that bind them together. Join us as we take a trip through what is destined to become a legendary filmography that’ll be discussed and dissected for decades to come.
Ari Aster’s upbringing and influences
Born to a family in New York that was steeped in the arts, with a poet mother and a jazz musician father, Ari Aster was introduced early to a series of cultural shifts. At the age of six, his family moved to Chester, UK, with dreams of opening a jazz nightclub, before retreating from England to the U.S. where Aster’s love of cinema would crystallize. During these early developmental years in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Aster discovered Tim Burton’s Batman Returns and Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange, which each would go on to have a profound impact on Aster’s beloved aesthetic. It was not the “blockbuster” that drew him in, but the power of film to provoke, to challenge, to completely unsettle.
Aster became a student at the prestigious AFI (American Film Institute) Conservatory, which produced alumni such as David Lynch, Andrea Arnold, Terrence Malick, and Darren Aronofsky. This stint solidified his penchant for exploring taboo and often disturbing subjects, with his thesis film The Strange Thing About the Johnsons (just one of several short films he made before his feature debut) touching on themes of incest and abuse in a raw and provocative manner that almost immediately caster Aster into the spotlight. People also took notice of his 2014 silent short horror film, Munchausen, which is about an overprotective mother who attempts to keep her son from going off to college. If you’re a fan of Aster’s work, then you can already see how these ideas would play out later in his work—the darkness that lurks within familial bonds and the unspoken horror that shapes our lives.
Aster’s first two features, Hereditary and Midsommar—which featured standout performances from Toni Collette and Florence Pugh—promptly continued his insight into these themes. Hereditary (a standout debut script) explored the nature of grief and the shadows of inheritance, while Midsommar juxtaposed the disintegration of a relationship and one’s meandering sense of self against the backdrop of a cult’s monstrous traditions. Both films went on to not only garner critical acclaim but have sparked electric debate and division amongst moviegoers, a testament to Aster’s ability to push boundaries and explore taboo subjects that plague all our lives.
But neither of those features compared to the division sparked by Beau is Afraid, which is without a doubt Aster’s most ambitious project to date. With a narrative that constantly oscillates between nightmarish surreal fantasy and undeniable terrifying reality, Aster’s relentless assault on the senses from behind the camera is both captivating and repulsive. With this passion project, Aster challenged viewers to endure, as Alex Flood put it for his interview with the director, the cinematic equivalent of a migraine. More than either of Aster’s debut films, Beau is Afraid signaled the filmmaker’s relentless pursuit of artistic truth—no matter how uncomfortable it becomes.
Now with three films under his belt, Aster has shown that his range isn’t strictly limited to horror films. The director and screenwriter clearly has a desperate desire to explore everything that encompasses the human condition—the insurmountable fears, the overwhelming grief, the inherited traumas that bind us all. As a result, Aster’s films challenge us to confront our deepest anxieties, to reflect on our complex relationships with both family and society, to acknowledge the unsettling reality that sometimes the true horror lies within ourselves. Now let’s look specifically at those themes that populate across Aster’s body of work that allows his films to gain such power.
Common themes across Aster’s films
While diverse with their settings, characters, and subject matter, there are common thematic threads that bind Aster’s various films together. By analyzing each of these connections, we can find a throughline that runs through the director’s work and properly position ourselves to better understand the ideas Aster means to convey. Let’s look at four major themes that seem to run between all three films.
Unhealthy relationships with family
The most ubiquitous theme that permeates Aster’s career thus far is the trauma that results from one’s family dynamics. Hereditary highlights the destructive power of inherited trauma as the Graham family is torn apart by a tragic series of deaths. Midsommar shifts the focus a bit to the confines of an unhealthy relationship as Dani grapples with the loss of her family and finds solace with a bizarre cult. Beau is Afraid offers the most complicated examination of this theme through a surreal take on the Hero’s Journey that forces Beau to confront his fraught relationship with his mother against the backdrop of existential fear and social decay. Together, these films present individuals whose fears and insecurities are amplified by a troubled, deteriorating public realm, forcing each protagonist to confront their inner demons in order to wade the storm.
The illusion of control
In Aster’s films, characters are challenged to confront the realization that control is often nothing more than a comforting mirage in the face of predestined chaos. In Hereditary, the Graham family grapples with a legacy shrouded in secrecy and darkness. Annie and Peter become marionettes in a macabre play as their attempts to control their fates are thwarted by ancestral curses and demonic designs. It’s all part of the film’s commentary on destiny, mental illness, and the shadows of family heritage. Midsommar extends this theme beyond the familial realm, as Dani’s desperate attempts to salvage her relationship with Christian and find solace in the wake of tragedy are subverted by the otherworldly traditions of the Hårga. Her desire to escape from grief, to transform herself and feel a sense of belongingness, comes in an unexpected form that forces Dani to reckon with her darkness within. Beau is Afraid further amplifies this theme, with Beau’s surreal pilgrimage serving as a metaphor for the existential battle against life’s absurdities. This universe mocks the very notion of control, with every step forward reflecting the chaos of a society in decline and the futility of seeking order in a world governed by caprice.
Dealing with grief
Grief has emerged as a cornerstone of Aster’s filmography, and it is always portrayed with brutal honesty. In Hereditary, grief is practically a character in its own right, providing foundation for the narrative and guiding the characters every step of the way. The film examines the isolation and madness that can follow the loss of a loved one, portraying grief as an inexorable curse that haunts the Graham family. Midsommar shifts the focus of grief by expanding from the familial to the communal, presenting Dani’s loss as both a burden and a bizarre gateway to finding new, albeit twisted, connections. The communal grieving practices of the Hårga cult brusquely force Dani from isolated suffering into a world where she’s embraced and understood. Beau is Afraid offers a more surreal take on grief, stitching Beau’s journey together through his attempt to reconcile with his mother. This fantastical odyssey is underscored by bereavement for what their relationship could have been, showing how unresolved grief can shape our actions and worldview.
The quest for identity and belonging
Across all three of Aster’s films, the characters are embroiled in tumultuous journeys of self-discovery, often in the wake of their known world collapsing. In Hereditary, Annie struggles with her newfound role as matriarch and is forced into a self-destructive quest of understanding her family’s cryptic legacy. Midsommar finds Dani, who is physically and mentally debilitated after an unimaginable loss, searching for a perverse sense of belonging amongst a foreign cult. Beau is Afraid takes Beau on a perilous journey to not just reach his mother but find his place in a world that often feels alien and hostile. These connections reveal an artistic desire on Aster’s part to cinematically capture a deep-seated yearning for identity and acceptance.
Ari Aster’s movies explained
Finally, let’s broadly explain each individual Aster film. Below, we’ve provided a brief summation of each film’s deeper meaning and thematic structure. But if you’d like much more detailed breakdowns that offer ending explanations, important motifs, title explanations, and answers to your outstanding questions, then you’ll find links to our definitive explanations for each movie.
Hereditary explained
Hereditary, Aster’s first movie, depicts the suffocating grip of inherited trauma by juxtaposing the everyday, mundane horrors of the Graham family’s daily life with the (in this case, quite literal) demons of their past. Through their story, Aster explores themes of grief, mental illness, and the immutable stranglehold of familial bonds. The crumbling sanity of the Graham family, set against the backdrop of occult rituals and an ever-disintegrating family unity, highlights the power of unaddressed trauma, showcases the illusion of control people believe their possess over their lives, and shows how secrets and legacies shape our personal identities and narrate our destinies. All in all, Hereditary serves as a harrowing reminder that we are often prisoners of our own heritage, helpless against internal and external forces that are often beyond our mortal understanding.
Read the full definitive explanation for Hereditary.
Midsommar explained
Midsommar presents a visceral exploration of grief, isolation, and the human need for belonging to a faction larger than ourselves. Set against the seemingly cheerful but secretly monstrous daylight of a Swedish summer, Dani navigates a labyrinth of her own sorrow as she attempts to fix her deteriorating relationship. The juxtaposition of extraordinary personal loss with the ostensibly idyllic Hårga community shows just how much sway and control society and communities have over our individual healing processes. The brutal traditions of the cult’s unexpectedly cathartic rituals serve as a stark contrast to Dani’s search for acceptance, illustrating two potential paths for her journey and the film’s ultimate commentary: either we find emotional solace in the most unexpected of places, or we embrace toxic environments in our desperate need for connection. It’s up to the viewer how to read the film.
Read the full definitive explanation for Midsommar.
Beau is Afraid explained
Beau is Afraid is a surreal odyssey with a two-pronged approach in its exploration of the human psyche: the impact of maternal relationships on the individual, and the inescapable prison of social decay. As Beau attempts to reconcile with his estranged mother, his deep-seated anxieties and existential dilemmas are exposed and confronted by a dreamworld that oscillates between bizarre horror and absurdist comedy, that blurs the not-so-thin line between comforting reality and nightmarish truth. Several themes emerge from this approach, from parental influence to the quest for identity to the struggle against social chaos. Through’s Beau’s eyes, Beau is Afraid examines the crippling effects of unhealthy familial bonds and the futile search for control in a world that defies understanding.
