The Celebration

Director: Thomas Vinterbergs

1998 / 105min / DCP

The opening salvo in Dogme 95’s all-out assault on cinematic artifice, revolutionary in its emancipated use of the Sony DCR-PC7 Handycam, Vinterberg’s scorched earth melodrama/farce takes place during a gathering of the extended Hansen clan at a family-run hotel to mark the 60th birthday of solid burgher patriarch Helge (Henning Moritzen)—an event that takes a turn for the chaotic when Helge’s eldest son, Christian (Ulrich Thomsen), accuses his father of molesting both himself and his recently deceased twin sister during a dinner table toast. Abrasive, volatile, savagely funny, and endlessly inventive, one can scarcely feel indifferent towards such a blood-on-the-walls affair as this.

Distributor: The Match Factory

Part of All Happy Families Are Alike