Question: If the festival takes place around the Summer Solstice (June in the Northern Hemisphere), why do they crown a May Queen?
Question: When the group first arrives at the commune and are shown their quarters, Dani is looking at photos of previous May Queens on a wall. According to the script, the festival takes place every 90 years. Photography was invented in the mid-1800s. How could they possibly have so many photos?
Answer: The once every 90-year festival is a special festival that also includes a May Queen. But they still have other regular festivals. We're told that every mid-summer, they have a dance competition where the winner is crowned the May Queen.
Question: Maybe I missed something while watching the movie. In a couple of brief scenes, they showed the severely deformed face of a woman. What was that all about?
Answer: It's actually a boy named Ruben. It's alluded to him being disfigured due to being the product of incest. In the context of the movie, Ruben is supposed to be an "oracle" who comes up with sacred scriptures, runes, etc. From what I understand, due to his deformities and cognitive disabilities, he's considered to be less "constrained" by typical mental/emotional limitations, and thus more open-minded spiritually. (Basically, they believe that because he's so simple-minded and childlike, he's open-minded enough to able to communicate with higher powers).
Question: What is that moving "thing" on the dinner table, after crowning Dani as the new queen? It looks like a living, breathing blob.
Answer: Some of the food props were meant to have a grotesque nature to them and not a real dish. I believe what you're asking about was made using a Hårga cake in the crude shape of a person. But the moments of the flowers and food in the scene were meant to represent a drug-induced hallucination.
Question: Spoilers: When Simon's corpse is discovered flayed apart and hanging, it looked like some of the organs suspended above him (possibly his lungs?) were still moving a bit. Was he still alive at that moment?
Answer: Yes, that is the impression that is given. He is still alive.
Answer: My take was that at the Summer Solstice festival, the May Queen was chosen for the next year's May Day celebration.
raywest ★