Ari Aster’s Midsommer is that rarest of things – a film that refuses to let you be. It is more than a film, a story, a collection of images and sounds, but a place in which you are immersed, to find something real.

Yes, Midsommer is a film with the trappings of horror – ominous music, jump scare tactics, the standard group of unwitting fools and more than enough gruesome imagery – none of which are my thing. No. I don’t like horror.

These elements are rarely implemented in predicable fashion. Rather than focusing on the gruesome images, although there are moments, the atmosphere is the thing.

It boils down to the simplest of questions: What exactly am I watching here ? What the hell is this? What does any of this mean?

It’s not just the captivating imagery, the brooding pace, the sharply rendered dialogue, but the moments dappled into something else, an essential to which there seems no answer.

Or is there?