Director : Thomas Vinterberg
With : Ulrich Thomsen, Henning Moritzen, Thomas Bo, Paprika Steen

According to the Danish filmmaking manifesto penned by Lars von Trier a few years ago, a film should have 1) no genre stories or superficial action. 2) no special lighting or extra sound 3) no dressing up the location with props 4) no optical tricks 5) no camera work that isn’t hand-held 6) no black-and-white or Flashbacks and 7) no actual credit or personal imprint for the director. “The Celebration” manages to follow these rules perfectly, a fact that might seem like a recipe for “boredom” for some people, however, like von Trier’s masterpiece “Breaking the Waves,” these rules actually force a director to be more creative and spontaneous than a more “produced” effort.

Thomas Vinterberg, a young von Trier prodigy, has managed to capture one of the most dysfunctional family reunions in quite a while. The film takes place over the course of one extremely volatile day, as a very large and affluent Danish family arrives at a beautiful family owned hotel to celebrate the 60th birthday of the family patriarch. Most of the story focuses on the two sons and one living daughter of the birthday boy. This good-looking family features Michael, an abusive, adulterating drunk and his wife and two young children. Helene an attractive thirtysomething and her black-American boyfriend. And lastly the film’s star, Christian, who has just arrived from Paris to unload a closet full of family skeletons. Over a black-tie dinner, the subject of the death of Christian’s twin sister only months before leads the family down the ferociously dark corridor to the roots of the crime.

Told with a shaky hand-held camera and only natural light and candles, “The Celebration” does a better job than almost any movie I have seen in making it seem like all of the action is happening simultaneously. The shaky hand held photography and the abrupt, transitions and fades help create the feeling of real familial chaos. Family secrets as shocking as the ones revealed in this movie would probably seem more contrived and unrealistic than if they were captured in a more traditional cinematic style. Vinterberg, although the Dogma manifesto would prohibit him from acknowledging the full magnitude of his role, has succeeded in making a film that feels like he has successfully eavesdropped on all the best morsels in the day in the life of a family. “The Celebration” really is a celebration when it comes to the art form of filmmaking and storytelling.

This entry was posted on Sunday, May 9th, 1999 at 1:15 pm and is filed under movies + dvds. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.