In their Dogme 95 manifesto, Lars von Trier and Thomas Vinterberg decry “decadent filmmakers,” whose “barren” movies fool us by creating “an illusion of pathos and…of love.” One could swap out “filmmakers” with “family” and have an equally apt description of the Klingenfelds, the obscenely wealthy family at the center of Vinterberg’s The Celebration. And in sync with the Dogme filmmakers setting out to strip away the excesses of cinema and reveal deeper truths about their subjects, the eldest Klingenfeld son, Christian (Ulrich Thomsen), seeks to expose the rotting core of his family that’s disguised by the politesse and flimflam that marks their large social gatherings.
The Celebration opens at one such party: a reunion in honor of the Klingenfeld’s patriarch, Helge (Henning Moritzen), who’s celebrating his 60th birthday. Rather than introducing the Klingenfelds’ extravagant estate with elegant tracking and wide shots that celebrate its visual splendor, the film employs rough handheld camerawork that instantly sucks every ounce of glamor out of the environment.
As the Dogme rules dictate, The Celebration only uses natural light, further cementing its grungy aesthetic, and even helping to render skin tones in sickly hues that hint at the social and moral decay that’s soon to be revealed. The filmmakers even went so far as to avoid standard preparation for each day’s shoot, like staging and blocking, leading to the camera often swinging around wildly as it tries to keep up with the actors. The effect is often jarring, but it lends the film a relentless vitality, as if the camcorder were being wielded like a machete.
The film’s freewheeling style may give the impression that its dialogue was improvised, but as events unfurl, the meticulous construction of Vinterberg and Mogens Rukov’s script becomes clear. From the game that Helene (Paprika Steen) plays that helps her discover her sister’s suicide note, to Christian’s dinner speeches, during which accusations of sexual assault are delivered as casually as generic salutations, Vinterberg laces the increasingly tense atmosphere with black humor and the essence of Greek tragedy. The film is especially shrewd at balancing the two modes as the stern, hypocritical Helge is cut down to size.
Yes, The Celebration is “about trauma” and the way it surreptitiously weaves its way into the lives of every member of the Klingenfeld clan, even Helene and Michael (Thomas Bo Larsen), who are erratic and emotionally volatile despite being in the dark about the abuse that happened under their noses. But while they take Christian’s trauma seriously—a wonderfully surreal interlude where he has visions of his recently deceased sister in a candlelit doorway is as achingly tender as it is haunting—Vinterberg and Rukov couch the film’s tragic elements in little games that are as self-consciously playful as Dogme 95’s “Vow of Chastity.”
Helene’s approach to finding her sister’s suicide note, like Christian having Helge choose between green and yellow envelopes to determine which speech the son delivers as the big night’s toast, is a game that serves as a stark contrast to the gravitas of the family’s various rituals, while also actively undermining those in positions of power or influence. The stiff receptionist (Lars Brygmann) who greets all the guests is repeatedly dressed down by the Klingenfeld children, while the officious toastmaster (Klaus Bondam) is left to maintain decorum after Christian repeatedly drops horrifying bombshells on the unexpecting guests.
The film’s impish humor slices through the air of respectability and power that Helge has constructed around himself, just as its brash style undercuts the beauty and refinement of the Klingenfeld’s estate. Over two decades later, The Celebration remains an exhilarating exercise in dramatic tension that’s as empathetic as it is vicious. In the process, it manages to transcend its self-imposed aesthetic limitations, often in self-referential ways. Case in point, while Christian is initially dismissed and forcibly silenced upon making his proclamations, Vinterberg slyly positions his film as behind him from the very start.
Image/Sound
Sourcing a 2K digital restoration, Criterion’s Blu-ray transfer successfully walks the thin line between giving Vinterberg’s film a discernible spit-shine and improving it to the point that it’s unrecognizable from the original. Given the limitations of the production, from the absence of artificial lighting to the small handheld camera it was shot on, The Celebration can, and really should, only look so good. And Criterion’s transfer honors the film’s intended raw, home video aesthetic, while minimizing motion blur caused by the very mobile camera and giving the image a bit more sharpness, depth, and clarity, without affecting the film’s purposely muddy color tones. The mono soundtrack is a more considerable improvement as the mix nicely separates the cacophony of sounds echoing throughout the Klingenfeld’s giant house.
Extras
Criterion’s two-disc Blu-ray is packed to gills with great extras, old and new alike. On the first disc, Thomas Vinterberg appears in a new interview discussing his attempts to capture what the characters are hiding from the world and the various challenges of shooting with the restrictions of the Dogme 95 manifesto. The director also appears solo on the commentary track, recorded in 2005, and goes deep on his impressions of the film’s major performers, each of whom he wrote their characters for. He also talks about the difficulty of figuring out where to take the story after the Christian’s first speech, as well as shooting with minimal preparation, painting a vivid picture of what a challenging production this was to mount.
The most substantial feature on the second disc is The Purified, an hour-long documentary about the impetus of the Dogme 95 movement, which includes tons of great footage from the mid-’90s of Lars von Trier, Vinterberg, and other directors debating the tenets of the manifesto. Two shorter documentaries are also included: one focusing on the cast’s commitment to following Vinterberg and the Dogme rules, and the other a flashy, and rather empty, profile of cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantle.
One of the more entertaining extras is a short featurette where Vinterberg talks about the Danish radio program that sparked his interest in writing the script for The Celebration, and how it led to the myth that he set all of it up as a form of self-promotion. The disc also includes a handful of deleted scenes, behind-the-scenes footage, and Vinterberg’s first two short films. The package is rounded out with a booklet that has a printing of the Dogme 95 Manifesto as well as a wonderful essay by critic Michael Koresky, who makes a compelling argument for the film to be considered as of a piece with the classical melodrama.
Overall
The abundance of great extras on Criterion’s release may violate the Dogme 95 “Vow of Chastity,” but it’s a fitting tribute to the crown gem of the movement.
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