THE CELEBRATION
A film review by Mark R. Leeper
Capsule: It is Helge's 60th birthday and his
whole family has turned out to celebrate. But as
people get drunker things are things are going to
be said and things will be done. This will be the
pivotal day in the life of this family. THE
CELEBRATION has a slow start and takes a long time
to get going, but there are some powerful moments.
Like BREAKING THE WAVES this film uses the
conventions of Dogma 95. THE CELEBRATION is a very
mixed bag. Rating: 6 (0 to 10), 1 (-4 to +4)
New York Critics: 11 positive, 0 negative, 3 mixed
The audience tittered when before the film a certificate was shown saying the film followed Dogma 95. Indeed, even the filmmakers who subscribe to Dogma 95 do not know if it is serious. Dogma 95 is a Danish movement in filmmaking that is a reaction to over-polished, unrealistic Hollywood films. Films made with Dogma 95 conventions are shot generally with a hand-held camera with natural sound. Shooting is done on location rather than at a studio. The effect of the unsteadied hand-held camera give THE CELEBRATION the feel of a sound home movie, but the lack of music gives it also some of the immediacy of a stage play. My wife claimed that BREAKING THE WAVES made her seasick and this film did much the same. It clearly has a very positive effect by fighting burgeoning film budgets. The crudeness of the production adds a certain credibility to the story. Like monochrome it contributes to the mood. And oddly an unfinished photographic style gives a film more credibility in the same way that saturated Technicolor makes it less credible.
THE CELEBRATION is made with Dogma 95 conventions and like Dogma 95 it is a mixed bag of positive and negative touches. The film is 105 minutes, but seems longer because it takes almost an hour to get to the serious content. By the time one gets to the serious content, one has almost forgotten the blur of people in the first hour. Lost is characterization that would be interesting once one could place the characters in the main story line. In the spirit of Dogma 95 parsimony the film has a minimum of music--the first music in THE CELEBRATION is a music box heard over the end-titles.
It is Helge's 60th birthday and the entire extended family is gathering to attend a gala party at a hotel Helge (Henning Moritzen) manages. Arriving are older son Christian (Ulrich Thomsen), younger son Michael (Thomas Bo Larsen), and middle daughter Helene (Paprika Steen). The fourth child, Christian's twin sister had committed suicide some time earlier. We see some family tensions, but at first they do not amount to much. Finally the banquet begins and the children start toasting their father. Christian's toast starts fulsome and typical of what one would expect, but in the middle he throws in an accusation that Helge had sexually molested him and Linda. People do not know what to make of this little piece of unpleasantness. If Christian will only apologize the party can continue, but each time Christian makes a speech he broadens on the accusation. What is there to do so that the party can go on?
Once the story gets going the drama is powerful and has overtones of American scandal politics making it much more topical than director and co-writer Thomas Vinterberg could have expected. Though the story loses some of its potential impact by resolving whether the accusations are true, there is a very good play in the second half of this film. If Vinterberg had started with the banquet and elaborated on people's reactions this could have been a very powerful piece of social commentary. As it is it wastes too much of the viewer's time getting where it needed to go and then never sufficiently develops characters like Helge's wife.
This is an okay film that missed its opportunities to be a really powerful experience. While Dogma 95 will turn off some users, the film's taking too long to get to its real story is its biggest flaw. I rate it a 6 on the 0 to 10 scale and a +1 on the -4 to +4 scale.
Mark R. Leeper
mleeper@lucent.com
Copyright 1998 Mark R. Leeper
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