EUPHORIA: A Muddled Philosophical Retreat

I haven’t seen Ari Aster’s Midsommar yet, but what I can glean from its bright colors, sunlit fields, (misleading) ethereal aura, and themes of pagan cultism and tangential spirituality, is a continued tradition of modern American and European cinema examining life, death, and human relationships through a distanced and ambiguous prism of religion, but absent of its historical and cultural foundations.

For many western filmmakers, who have long since tired of Christian gospels, cultism (Scientology, paganism), irony (Church of Satan), and half-baked co-opting of Eastern religious traditions (Eat Pray Love) are fertile soils for philosophizing about life and its secrets. Because of their lack of significant foundational ties to the state American and European culture and history, they are much easier to play with in art than the current transition of the Western world into post-religious agnosticism.

Sister Drama

In Euphoria, Emilie (Eva Green) and her sister Ines (Alicia Vikander, who also produced the film) battle over the idea of Emilie’s individual choice to die as an alternative to painful and expensive medical care. It’s not a coincidence that the movie’s title Euphoria and central theme (euthanasia) derive from the Greek root eu meaning “good”, “well”, and “genuine”. Much like how euthanasia is considered a better alternative to a painful death, euphoria is being considered here cheekily as yet a further alternative. This creates a rift between Emilie and Ines on the basis of their personal philosophies.

Following their mother’s suicide, Ines buried herself in her work and Emilie spiraled into a dark place. Now Emilie is sick with incurable cancer and is choosing a secluded, secretive community in a beautiful forest to live out her final days. She brings her Type-A workaholic artist sister Ines to spend time with her, not simply for companionship, but to confront her about the complete lack of personability and empathy she has shown towards her family in favor of herself and her work.

The dynamics between the two are similar to those played out in many sister-dramas like Johnathan Demme’s Rachel Getting Married (2008) and Alex Ross Perry’s Queen of Earth (2015) where one seemingly stable and “put together” sibling is emotionally confronted with the outward flaws, sickness, and inner battles of the other, and is in no small part, being held responsible for it.

Post-Religious Western Cinema

The movie doesn’t necessarily make any grand, preachy conclusions as to who is right or wrong, and this is a commendable decision. The drawback, however, is that this level of distanced examination is what the film has settled on in regards to all of the ideas it brings forth. Euphoria is a good example of how the ambiguous agnostic approach to philosophy, by virtue of traditional Christianity going (for moral reasons) out of vogue, is still something filmmakers are having a difficult time with.

The movie dances around different weighty themes of the meaning of life, the importance of personal relationships, individual choice, and mortality, but never confront any of them. The architect of the haven, Marina (Charlotte Rampling), never gives an adequate explanation for the passion, effort, and money that justifies such a place.

Mr. Daren (Charles Dance, who’s acting chops are just as wasted as Rampling’s on a half-baked character) introduces himself to Ines with a cavalier charm and tendency towards hedonism and complains briefly about the cost of healthcare and then throws himself a party before going through his assisted suicide. Emilie and Ines never really discuss the prospect of mortality beyond briefly mentioning sickness and mental health.

A Brief Engagement with Hotel Salvation

Euphoria’s lack of cultural and national ties to bind the important theme of euthanasia is glaring when compared to a very similar recent film in Subhashish Bhutiani’s phenomenal Hotel Salvation (2016). Both films deal with a family member dragging along a reluctant relative to a place where the former chooses to live the last days of their life. What separates the films, and what makes the latter’s discussions of human mortality and familial guilt dense and rich is that they are culturally backed by location, indigeneity, and history.

In Hotel Salvation, Daya, a septuagenarian, chooses to die, of all places, in an ashram in Varanasi right on the bank of the holy river Ganges and brings his son Rajiv in tow. The film’s moral conflict is, like in Yasujiro Ozu’s Tokyo Story (1953), catalyzed through the state of the nation and genuine disgruntlement of newer generations consistently forming and embracing new priorities after pushing aside the old ones. Daya believes his duty is to God. His son Rajiv believes his duty is work and being the man of the family. Rajiv’s daughter Sunita, believes her duty is to gain self-independence and agency as a woman.

Like Euphoria, Hotel Salvation does not postulate a right or wrong in this scenario, but unlike Euphoria it has a bedrock cultural foundation that it bases its reality off of. It is a film steeped deeply in the history of modern Hinduism and its effects and changes through the post-Independence generations. Euphoria can’t have this, because it is a film which dedicates itself to an agnostic world-view and doubles down on it by leaving its location and characters wholly ambiguous, other than their English accents. In lieu of any religious precedent, the movie must create its motive through economical issues like healthcare and the pharmaceutical industry but even here, there is no mention of specifics.

Euphoria: Conclusion

Where Euphoria fails is its inability to understand the philosophies of a post-religious Western society and to come to terms with how people navigate the metaphysical and the intangible when a Judeo-Christian doctrine is no longer present. Cultism, religion-as-irony, and fetishization of Hinduism/Buddhism can never really be discussed in any serious manner in cinema, especially in the vague and pseudo-intellectual way it is being done currently.

Euphoria would have done better to confront and embrace the challenge of an agnostic argument for euthanasia, and there is certainly one to make. Instead, the movie presents its talking points like a checklist, reminding us every so often that it wants to say something important and has good ideas in its grasp but can never look them in the eye.

Euphoria released in the U.S. on June 28th, 2019