The Celebration
Composite Score: 83.8
Starring: Ulrich Thomsen, Henning Moritzen, Thomas Bo Larsen, Paprika Steen, Birthe Neumann, Trine Dyrholm, Helle Dolleris, Therese Glahn, Klaus Bondam, and Gbatokai Dakinah
Director: Thomas Vinterberg
Writers: Thomas Vinterberg and Mogens Rukov
Genres: Drama, Thriller
MPAA Rating: R for strong sexual content and language, including references to sexual abuse
Box Office: $1.66 million worldwide
Why should you Watch This Film?
The Celebration is Thomas Vinterberg’s film about a family celebrating their patriarch’s 60th birthday and the truths that are brought to the surface at this celebration. It stars Ulrich Thomsen, Thomas Bo Larsen, and Paprika Steen as the three surviving children of Helge and Else, played by Henning Moritzen and Birthe Neumann. The film was the first film to be made in the style of the Dogme 95 Manifesto, featuring only handheld camera work and natural lighting to bring its story to the screen. Vinterberg’s powerfully disturbing story of a family coming to grips with their past provides an excellent introduction to the style – crafting the heart-racing feel of a thriller against the backdrop of a family drama (walking so Succession could run, you might say).
Why shouldn’t you Watch This Film?
The Celebration is not a film that shies away from difficult subjects and dives into them quite willingly and openly. If you are someone with a history of familial abuse (physical, sexual, or otherwise), then this film could easily be triggering for you, as it deals primarily with that as its central theme and source of conflict. Issues of racism and interracial relationships also come up and are treated with near cruelty by some of the film’s central figures (not in a way that is meant to endear them to the audience I should add), and that could also lead to some lingering distaste for the film because of how it is handled. Using racism as a thematic spice for childhood abuse feels almost like too much in this film, particularly since that subplot is only introduced around the film’s halfway point.
So wait, why should you Watch This Film?
The Celebration provides an excellent example of the capabilities of simple filmmaking, stripping away much of the excesses of the production process thanks to its adherence to Vinterberg’s and Lars von Trier’s Dogme method. The simple videography and set design gives the film a feeling of being a found-footage piece, lending an increased sense of realism to the characters and drama at its core. As abhorrent and flawed as the characters and their actions might be, the grounded nature of the filmmaking keeps it all fairly believable, even as things escalate to more and more ridiculous levels.
The actors also do a great job of helping the film achieve its realist goals, particularly those playing the three siblings at the core of the film’s conflict. Paprika Steen plays the middle child, Helene, who seems to have always had a rebellious (and perhaps liberal) streak, pursuing a music career and joining the socialist worker’s party at some point in her past. Steen gives the character life as a more mature version of this past self, oscillating between determination, aloofness, and hysteria as the events of the weekend unfold. It’s an excellent performance made better by the fact that her costars go just as hard as she does. Ulrich Thomsen’s Christian serves as the film’s protagonist, coming to his father’s birthday weekend with a very legitimate axe to grind and plenty of stories to back it up. The actor’s delivery of the many toasts his character is asked to give serves as the catalyst for the rest of the film’s action, and if he hadn’t delivered his lines with the conviction that he does, the film could easily have fallen apart. The true scene-stealer of the film, though, is Thomas Bo Larsen as the youngest brother, and black sheep of the family, Michael. Michael might actually be the worst human being in this film (mainly because it’s difficult to think of Helge as an actual human once you know how he treated his children), making his wife and kids walk to the party after kicking them out of his car, berating a concierge when he is informed that he isn’t on the guest list, blindly and belligerently going along with his father’s wishes simply out of selfish desire for personal gain, starting a loud rendition of one of the most racist songs I’ve ever heard when Helene’s boyfriend Gbatokai (a black man) shows up, and also tying his brother to a tree when he keeps bringing accusations against their father. The man is a nearly irredeemable character, but for whatever reason (Larsen’s acting), he sticks in your mind as the culmination of all those problematic people you’ve ever known rolled into one person, deeply in need of a loving hand to show him the light.
Excellent characters played well by some talented actors help elevate the simple Dogme style of Vinterberg’s family drama to a place worthy of consideration among the Greatest Films of All Time. Its heavy content and potentially triggering subject matter keep this as a film you probably only want to watch on rare occasions, but it remains an excellent example of filmmaking and storytelling. It is currently available to stream via the Criterion Channel if you’d like to check it out.
