The Celebration (Danish: Festen) is a 1998 Danish black comedy-drama film directed by Thomas Vinterberg and produced by Nimbus Film. It tells the story of a family gathering to celebrate their patriarch's 60th birthday, during which a family secret is revealed. Vinterberg's inspiration for the film, which he wrote with Mogens Rukov, was an interview broadcast by a Danish radio station, though the interview was later discovered to be a hoax.[1]
Festen was the first film of the Dogme 95 movement, which was created by Vinterberg and his fellow Danish director Lars von Trier. The movement preferred simple and analog production values to allow for the highlighting of plot and performance. The film won the Jury Prize at the 1998 Cannes Film Festival and was selected as the Danish entry for Best Foreign Language Film at the 71st Academy Awards, but it was not chosen as one of the final five nominees for the award.[2]
Plot
Helge, a respected businessman and family patriarch, is celebrating his 60th birthday at the hotel he runs. Gathered together amongst a large party of family and friends are Elise, his wife; Christian, his sullen eldest son who lives in Paris; Michael, his boorish younger son; and Helene, his well-traveled surviving daughter—another daughter, Linda, recently took her life at the hotel. In the room in which Linda drowned herself, Helene finds her suicide note, but hides it in a medicine bottle after becoming upset by the contents. Michael fights with his wife, whom he had earlier abandoned by the roadside with their three children so he could give Christian a ride to the hotel, and then has sex with her. He later beats Michelle, a waitress of the hotel, after she tells him that she had become pregnant as a result of their affair the year before and denigrates him and his father.
At Helge's birthday dinner, Christian makes a toast, during which he publicly accuses his father of sexually abusing both him and Linda, his twin sister, as children. After an initial shocked silence, the party goes on as usual, as guests decide to move past the moment in denial. Helge pulls Christian aside, acting baffled by the accusations and questioning Christian's motivations for slandering him. Christian appears to recant his accusation, but he is spurred to further action by Kim, the hotel chef and a childhood friend, who knows about the abuse. Kim orders Pia and Michelle, two servers, to hide the guests' car keys, and Christian continues his toast by accusing Helge of being responsible for Linda's death because of the trauma the abuse caused. Helge again speaks with Christian alone, this time rubbing Christian's troubled personal history in his face, including his having been institutionalized, being impotent with women, and not having been contacted by Linda before she killed herself, saying she felt abandoned by him.
Further exacerbating the tensions of the day, Helene's black American boyfriend Gbatokai shows up, causing the racist Michael to lead most of the partygoers in singing the racist Danish song "Jeg har set en rigtig negermand" to offend him. Else later makes a toast in which, with an affectionate smile on her face, she speaks critically of her children and, in particular, accuses Christian of having an overactive imagination. When she asks Christian to apologize to his father in front of everyone for his earlier statements, he, instead, accuses Else of knowing about the abuse, but not doing anything to stop it. Michael and two other guests eject Christian from the hotel, but he walks back in, so they beat him and tie him to a tree in the nearby woods.
Christian manages to untie himself, and returns to the party. Pia, who has found Linda's suicide note, gives it to Christian, and he gives it to Helene and arranges for the party's toastmaster to ask her to read it aloud in front of the guests. In the note, Linda states that she is overwhelmed by trauma from Helge's abuse and bids a fond farewell to her siblings—especially Christian. Helge curtly acknowledges his misdeeds and leaves the dining room. Christian, who has been drinking heavily, faints and has a hallucination of Linda. When he awakens, he learns from Helene that Michael is missing. Michael, who is also drunk, calls Helge outside and beats him severely, only stopping when Christian, called by Else, arrives and holds him back.
In the morning, the family and guests are eating breakfast when Helge enters the dining room. He admits to his wrongdoing and declares his love for his children before sitting down. Michael gets up and quietly tells his father to go, which he does, alone, as Else declines to accompany him. Everyone else quickly resumes their conversations, but Christian, pensively watches Helge leave.
Some years after making the film, Vinterberg talked about its inspiration: a story told by a young man on a radio show hosted by Kjeld Koplev[da]. Vinterberg was told about the interview by the friend of a psychiatric nurse, who claimed to have treated the young man. He listened to the radio programme and asked the scriptwriter Mogens Rukov to write a screenplay on the events,[1] as if it were the young man's own story. It was later revealed that the story was completely made up by the patient receiving mental care.[1]
The film is best known for being the first Dogme 95 film (its full title in Denmark is Dogme 1 – Festen). Dogme films are governed by a manifesto that insists on specific production and narrative limitations (such as banning any post-production sound editing), in part as a protest against expensive Hollywood-style film-making. The movie is a low budget film and was shot on a Sony DCR-PC3 Handycam on standard Mini-DV cassettes.[3]
Reception
Critical response
Festen received positive reviews from critics. On the film review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 91% of 47 critics' reviews of the film are positive, with an average rating of 8.1/10; the site's "critics consensus" reads: "As sharp and ruthless as the family dynamic that powers its plot, The Celebration blends tragedy and comedy to brilliant effect."[4] On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 82 out of 100 based on reviews from 7 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".[5]
Roger Ebert gave the film three out of four stars, writing that it "mixes farce and tragedy so completely that it challenges us to respond at all. ... Vinterberg handles his material so cannily that we must always look for clues to the intended tone."[6]
Psychologist Richard Gartner, who specializes in counseling men who were sexually abused as children, called Festen a praiseworthy film that accurately depicts the consequences of sexual abuse, writing:
The extent of the father's transgressions is revealed bit by bit in successive revelations. We see that the son has been severely damaged by his boyhood abuse, and has been incapable of intimate relatedness throughout his life. His sister, who has committed suicide, was also deeply damaged. The father denies the incest through most of the movie, and this denial is conveyed and reinforced in the reactions of those who hear the accusations. The partygoers are momentarily shocked by each disclosure, but then continue to celebrate the birthday in a nearly surrealistic manner that serves as a dramatic enactment of the chronic denial often seen in incestuous families.[7]
The film has frequently been adapted for the stage.
An English-language stage adaptation of Festen written by David Eldridge premiered at the Almeida Theatre in 2004 in a production directed by Rufus Norris, before transferring to a successful West End run at the Lyric Theatre, London until April 2005. It commenced a UK tour in February 2006, before transferring to Broadway. Despite its great success in London, the play closed after only 49 performances on Broadway, ending its run on 20 May 2006. An Australian production starring Jason Donovan opened in Melbourne in July 2006, and an Irish production ran in the Gate Theatre, Dublin, from September to November 2006.[18]
In 2006, a Mexican adaptation opened starring Mexican actor Diego Luna.[19] In September 2007, a Peruvian production opened starring Paul Vega and Hernan Romero under the direction of Chela de Ferrari.
The Shadwell Dramatic Society's production of Festen opened at the ADC Theatre, Cambridge on 6 March 2012.[21]
In July 2018, Play Dead Theatre's production of Festen opened at the Rippon Lea Estate in Melbourne. It was directed by Jennifer Sarah Dean and starred Adrian Mulvany.[22]
Thomas Vinterberg is a Danish film director who, along with Lars von Trier, co-founded the Dogme 95 movement in filmmaking, which established rules for simplifying movie production. He is best known for the films The Celebration (1998), Submarino (2010), The Hunt (2012), Far from the Madding Crowd (2015), and Another Round (2020). For Another Round, he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Director.
The Idiots is a 1998 Danish black comedy-drama film written and directed by Lars von Trier. It is his first film made in compliance with the Dogme 95 Manifesto, and is also known as Dogme #2. It is the second film in von Trier's Golden Heart Trilogy, preceded by Breaking the Waves (1996) and succeeded by Dancer in the Dark (2000). It is among the first films to be shot entirely with digital cameras.
Mifune is a 1999 romantic comedy film, starring Iben Hjejle and Anders W. Berthelsen. Directed by Søren Kragh-Jacobsen, it was the third film made according to the Dogme 95 group rules. The film was a great success in Denmark and an international blockbuster, ranked among the ten best-selling Danish films worldwide. It was produced by Nimbus Film.
Denmark has been producing films since 1897 and since the 1980s has maintained a steady stream of product due largely to funding by the state-supported Danish Film Institute. Historically, Danish films have been noted for their realism, religious and moral themes, sexual frankness and technical innovation.
Festen is a British stage adaptation of the 1998 Danish film of the same name. The adaptation is by English playwright David Eldridge. It was first staged in 2004 by producer Marla Rubin at the Almeida Theatre in London, and has since been staged in many countries around the world.
Ulrich Thomsen is a Danish actor and filmmaker, known for his role of Christian in the 1998 film The Celebration and for the role of Kai Proctor in the Cinemax original series Banshee (2013–2016).
Kirstine "Paprika" Steen is a Danish actress and director best known for her performances in Dogme 95 films Festen, The Idiots, Mifune, and Open Hearts. Steen was the first Danish actress since Karin Nellemose to win both Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress in the same year at the Robert Festival, the Danish equivalent of the Oscars.
Nimbus Film is Denmark's third largest film production company.
Trine Dyrholm is a Danish actress, singer and songwriter. Dyrholm received national recognition when she placed third in the Dansk Melodi Grand Prix as a 14-year-old singer. Four years later, she again achieved national recognition when she won the Bodil Award for Best Actress in her debut film: the teenage romance Springflod. Dyrholm has won the Bodil Award for Best Actress five times and a Bodil award for Best Supporting Actress twice as well as six Robert Awards in her acting career.
Zentropa, or Zentropa Entertainments, is a Danish film company started in 1992 by director Lars von Trier and producer Peter Aalbæk Jensen. Zentropa is named after the train company Zentropa in the film Europa (1991), which started the collaboration between von Trier and Jensen.
Thomas Bo Larsen is a Danish film actor, born in Gladsaxe, Denmark.
Dogma 95 is a 1995 avant-garde filmmaking movement founded by the Danish directors Lars von Trier and Thomas Vinterberg, who created the "Dogme 95 Manifesto" and the "Vows of Chastity". These were rules to create films based on the traditional values of story, acting, and theme, and excluding the use of elaborate special effects or technology. It was supposedly created as an attempt to "take back power for the directors as artists", as opposed to the studio. They were later joined by fellow Danish directors Kristian Levring and Søren Kragh-Jacobsen, forming the Dogme 95 Collective or the Dogme Brethren. Dogme is the Danish word for dogma.
Events from the year 1999 in Denmark.
Submarino is a 2010 Danish drama film directed by Thomas Vinterberg, starring Jakob Cedergren and Peter Plaugborg. It is based on the 2007 novel Submarino by Jonas T. Bengtsson, and focuses on two brothers on the bottom of Danish society, with lives marked by violence and drug addiction. The film was produced by Nimbus Film. As a condition from the financier TV 2, half of the cast and crew were novices, which the director enjoyed as it gave an experience similar to his earliest films.
The Robert Award for Best Danish Film is presented at an annual Robert Award ceremony by the Danish Film Academy
The Hunt is a 2012 Danish psychological drama film directed by Thomas Vinterberg and starring Mads Mikkelsen. Set in a small Danish village around Christmas, the film follows a man named Lucas, a divorced kindergarten teacher who becomes the target of mass hysteria after being wrongly accused of sexually abusing a child in his class.
The Robert Award for Best Screenplay is one of the merit awards presented by the Danish Film Academy at the annual Robert Awards ceremony. The award has been handed out since 1984, but except in 1991 and 1993. On two occasions, in 2005 and in 2015, the Academy handed out two awards in the category, one for best original screenplay, and one for best adapted screenplay.
The 16th Robert Awards ceremony was held in 1999 in Copenhagen, Denmark. Organized by the Danish Film Academy, the awards honoured the best in Danish and foreign film of 1998.
Another Round is a 2020 black comedy-drama film directed by Thomas Vinterberg, from a screenplay by Vinterberg and Tobias Lindholm. An international co-production between Denmark, Sweden, and the Netherlands, the film stars Mads Mikkelsen, Thomas Bo Larsen, Magnus Millang, and Lars Ranthe. It follows four high school teachers who embark on an experiment to maintain a constant level of intoxication throughout the workday.
Morten Kaufmann is a Danish film and TV producer. He is known for his early involvement with the Dogme 95 film movement, specifically collaborations with Thomas Vinterberg. He is based out of Copenhagen.
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