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The Celebration: Dogme #1

Festen (The Celebration)

1998

Thomas Vinterberg

Henning Moritzen, Ulrich Thomsen, Thomas Bo Larsen, Birthe Neumann ...

7.8

18,366

Drama At a countryside manor an annual feast is being prepared. It is to be an all out effort to celebrate the head of the family. Helge Klingenfelt, owner of the manor and family partriarch, is turning sixty. Everyone has been invited including his children, Christian, Michael, and Helene.

	Author	Review
United States	Roger Ebert rogerebert.com	"'The Celebration' mixes farce and tragedy so completely that it challenges us to respond at all (...) The style and the story don't stumble over each other (…) Rating: ★★★ (out of 4)"	POS
United States	Janet Maslin The New York Times	"A virtuoso feat (...) Vinterberg strips away the conventions of ordinary filmmaking (as per the group's manifesto) and furiously devises new, unfettered ways of telling a story."	POS
United States	Godfrey Cheshire Variety	"Propulsively inventive (...) The story’s disappointing destination underscores that Dogma 95’s stylistic prescriptions have little to do with human truth"	NEU
United States	Jonathan Rosenbaum Chicago Reader	"[Vinterberg] allows his story to follow its own logic and doesn't chase after transcendental meanings (...) Mesmerizing storytelling (…) Rating: ★★★ (out of 4)"	POS
United Kingdom	Geoff Andrew Time Out	"This is thoroughly entertaining but rather less outrageous, substantial and original than it thinks it is (...) It's an assured, admirably abrasive little movie which never outstays its welcome."	POS
United States	Paul Tatara CNN	"The most consistently devastating film of 1998 (...) Vinterberg never flinches while unraveling this family's ever-more grotesque web of lifelong deceptions."	POS
United Kingdom	Caroline Rees Empire	"[It] is a mildly intriguing, well-acted affair (...) but as with most Dogme films, the hard-to-handle packaging distracts from the content (…) Rating: ★★★ (out of 5)"	NEU
United Kingdom	Wendy Mitchell Screendaily	"'Festen' holds up best today and even those who dismissed the movement as a gimmick are still drawn to this powerful story. The way in which Vinterberg and DoP Anthony Dod Mantle shot the film lends it a compelling intimacy."	POS
United States	Lisa Schwarzbaum Entertainment Weekly	"A funny, volatile, visually dynamic story"	POS

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