Festen

(The Celebration)

A film by Thomas Vinterberg (Denmark, 1998),

with Ulrich Thomsen, Henning Moritzen, Thomas Bo Larsen, Paprika Steen, Birthe Neumann, Trine Dyrholm.

Winner of the 1998 Cannes Film Festival Special Jury Prize.

It's summertime in Denmark, and at the Great House a celebration is about to begin: Helge Klingenfeldt, patriarch and lord of the manor, is turning 60. Invitations have been issued, the seating plan drawn up, and now the guests' cars are pulling into the drive up to the entrance: friends, relatives, and of course, the patriarch's next of kin: Elsa, his wonderful wife, and their three grown-up children, Christian, Michael and Helene. The head of the family is to be fêted in a way nobody will ever forget...

Festen is the first film produced under the banner of "Dogma 95", a quasi-radical aestheticist club that was formed by Vinterberg, Lars Von Trier (The Kingdom, Breaking the Waves, Idiotern), together with a group of Danish directors three years ago. The members had to swear "vows of chastity" in the interests of revolutionizing the contemporary mode of filmmaking. A Dogma 95 film must be visually spontaneous, hand-held, faithful to the location, actors, and natural light, and resist all anti-realist indulgences like artificial sets, soundtrack music, genre conventions, and optical effects. Beyond Dogma 95 rules, Vinterberg's film strikes through its bold and meticulous approach of a fairly hackneyed theme : the family gathering. The characters like the setting are particularly detailed and blatantly highlight the cast and the director's outstanding performances. The core of the plot is brilliantly laid down as Christian calls for the first toast. Tension peaks are actually all the more unexpected and efficient since Vinterberg paradoxically resorts to no specific artifices to introduce them and since the cast's interpretation remains sober all along the film. The conclusion of the film is a bit weak compared to the rest but Vinterberg is still to be praised for both his undeniable directing skills and his creative insolence. More than a blunt portrait of a certain Danish society, Festen is first and foremost an uncompromising dramatic family nightmare like you've never seen it. Fairly impressive.

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