The Celebration dir. Thomas Vinterberg

By Cooper Gould

—SPOILERS AHEAD—

Can I just start out by saying how dare Thomas Vinterberg make a movie that makes me truly believe in my heart of hearts that my friends and I could rent out a country inn for a weekend and make a masterpiece on a couple of handycams. How dare you, sir.

I think there’s a lot to say about this movie and why it works and why it’s good outside of any context that it fits into within film history, and we’ll get there. But I also think that it’s interesting to think about this movie in the context of the other movies that were being made at the time and the movements that it was a part of (both intentionally and unintentionally). It seems impossible to talk about this movie without mentioning the Danish Dogme 95 movement that Vinterberg established with Lars Von Trier.

The Celebration was one of the first to be made as a part of this movement and remains one of the most acclaimed. The movement was based around strict rules for production that Vinterberg and Von Trier codified in a manifesto. The remarkable thing about The Celebration as a foundational work of the Dogme 95 movement is that if one were to go into the film unaware that it had been made under such strict regulation, you might not notice. Of course, the handheld, grainy picture is clearly recognizable as unusual, a distinct artistic choice, but the story is crafted so thoroughly and so thoughtfully within the constraints of the movement that other aspects of the movie, the lack of ‘superficial action’ — violence is quite subdued for how ubiquitously it is felt throughout the film — and despite several scenes depicting physical violence, there is no fake blood or costume damage to enhance the effect of what we see on screen. Most effectively, perhaps, is the lack of non-diegetic sound. The movie has no score — even the music over the final credits scene comes from a music box that we see turning in the frame of the camera. There is a musical presence throughout, with the various sing-along moments and the handful of shots that include somebody playing the piano, so I found it easy not to notice that there had not been a score behind what had been occurring on camera. The lack of score also punctuates the sickening nature of the rest of the movie. There is nowhere to hide from the words in the characters’ speeches or the looks in their eyes, and there shouldn’t be. Blow after blow is delivered by what the characters have to say to each other and what they do to each other and there is no call for that to be softened, augmented, or altered in any way by the presence of music.

Of course, that it feels natural that this movie should work so well within the constraints of Dogme 95 is intentional. It wasn’t like Vinterberg realized after the fact that his movie happened to adhere to ten random rules of filmmaking. From start to finish of the production process, Vinterberg had a vision for what the story would be and why he was adhering to the tenets of the movement he had created. This project was a carefully crafted work of brilliance that was determined to undermine the trends occurring in Hollywood and expose the fact that big money and big studios were not the ultimate arbiters of good movies. Vinterberg’s mastery of the Dogme 95 project and filmmaking in general is highlighted by the success of his later films, some of which depart drastically from the Dogme 95 movement. His period adaptation of Far From the Madding Crowd violates nearly all of the markers of the movement and his acclaimed films The Hunt and Another Round, while remaining much closer to The Celebration in content and style, skew much closer to Hollywood than his earlier work. Vinterberg has shown in the decades since The Celebration that he is not just some amateur who got lucky with a cheap video camera but a craftsman who clearly defined the parameters of the Dogme 95 project and then proceeded to work masterfully within them.

It’s also interesting to consider the timeline of the Dogme 95 movement, and The Celebration in particular, in comparison with what was going on in Hollywood at the same time. Perhaps ironically, this was the decade of filmmakers who started their careers with projects of remarkably similar budgets and indie values leaping firmly into Hollywood darling status. This was of course the decade that Steven Soderbergh had kicked off (in 1989, but bear with me) with sex, lies, and videotape, and had also seen the emergence of Quentin Tarantino and Paul Thomas Anderson with Reservoir Dogs (1992) and Boogie Nights (1997) respectively. As is often remarked upon on the Ringer’s Rewatchables podcast this was the generation of weirdos and pervs who worked in video stores and self-financed the film projects they wanted to make with their friends. They had weird tastes, not very much money, and a lot of time on their hands, and they made movies that were willing to go there. By the turn of the century, these three guys were making the biggest movies on the planet and already regarded as rightfully claiming spots in the filmmaking pantheon of legends.

Which makes it somewhat melancholy to reflect on the fate of the Dogme 95 movement. With a few notable exceptions — including The Celebration which won the Grand Jury Prize at Cannes — the films garnered mixed to poor reviews, and the movement itself dissolved in 2005 with only 35 films officially bearing its standard. Though the aesthetic and principles of the movement have remained influential, including on Vinterberg’s later work, it has faded as a predominating movement in cinema. And that might be for the best. Vinterberg has since won an Oscar for Best Foreign Film for Another Round (2020) which also got him a nomination for Best Director. It only came a couple of decades after his American contemporaries received their first nods from the Academy, but ultimately Vinterberg managed to follow a similar trajectory with American audiences, from indie darling to popular darling.

Being the filmmaker that he has become, it makes sense to also view The Celebration as a piece of art independent of the movement it was a part of — no matter how foundational the piece was to the movement. There are three aspects of the movie that I think are especially worth talking about, being the writing, the camera work, and the performances, and I’ll talk about them in the opposite of that order.

I think one of the most striking features of this movie is that none of the actors seem to be acting. The pseudo-documentary camera style and the fact that they all look like they could be related do play into the viewer’s perception that this is a real family gathering and that these are the genuine actions and reactions of these people. Cinema verité had of course existed long before 1998 and many people had given great performances within that style of filmmaking previously. I make no claims that this was the greatest of all time or that this was the first. (In fact, cinema verité was explicitly an influence on the Dogme 95 movement.) But there is an almost uncanny solidity to the realness of the performances. It’s an unwavering commitment to both deadpan and naturalism, without which the absurdity of the movie would descend into extreme, intolerable awkwardness at best, and nonsense worst. I don’t like to draw comparisons to American television that came after this, but to illustrate, think Succession overlaid onto the first season of The Office. And again, that’s best case scenario.

I’m not sure what it takes to deliver performances with such an integrity of reality. I can’t quite articulate how Kim, the drunk chef whose main goal seems to be to stir the pot (pun intended) doesn’t come off as cartoonish, or how the German Toastmaster determined to see the dinner party through despite the chaos that has arisen somehow manages not to be a total jester of a character. Or how the collective non-reaction to Christian’s very first speech plays as believable. Like that is actually what would happen if that were to happen at my family party, or yours. It’s somewhat intangible, the factor that keeps this movie on the razor edge between absurdity and reality — the result of which is a sick-to-their-stomach viewer — but I think it has something to do with the performances we’re treated to. At every turn, every single person in frame is on the same page. Everyone in the room knew — or had been told — exactly how to make sure that the gut punches kept on coming, no matter how ridiculous the facts of the actions on screen were. Whether it be the parade through the house, the racist sing-along, the graphic and violent make-up sex, or when Helene makes the hotel manager lie in an empty tub, no matter how profoundly the sensation of ‘what is going on?’ — or potentially ‘what in the hell is going on??’ — washes over the viewer, there is never a moment when that question turns into ‘why is this happening?’ I credit that to the fact that there is never a moment where any of the performances betray a lapse of consistency or internal logic. Never do we see a reaction or even an out of place line that is inappropriate, or does not match with what every other character on screen thinks is appropriate in that scenario.

Moreover, never do we as the viewer ask, “why are we seeing this?’ Often when watching documentaries, I find myself asking the question, ‘how did they get this footage?’ or sometimes ‘why was this being filmed at the time?’ The Celebration dismisses that as a possibility with the first scene. The only wide/long shot of the entire movie, we see Christian walking down the road and speaking on the phone on the way to the hotel where the main action will take place. It’s clear that the camera is not observing the scene actually from the hotel, but the shot establishes the action as fundamentally coming to us. Although we arrive at the hotel at the same time as many of the characters do, we are made to feel more comfortable in the hotel than they do, when Michael, Christian’s brother who picked him up on the road is not on the guest list and has not been assigned a room. Moreover, Michael kicked his wife and three children out of the car in order to pick up Christian, casting them as unwelcome as well. Within the first 4 minutes of the movie, the camera’s perspective is the perspective that has been cast as the one having the greatest entitlement to occupy space in the scenes that follow. As the movie progresses, we get some shots that are more voyeuristic or intrusive, but the establishment of place that occurs so early diminishes any effect that the camera is an imposition onto the content of the scene, which often results from documentary-style camera work.

I am also just partial to the handheld aesthetic that this movie has. Having seen only Vinterberg’s more recent work before this, I was surprised when the picture was not crystal-clear and stunning as it is in Far From the Madding Crowd, for instance. But I love this style. Whether it be Friday Night Lights, Run Lola, Run, or the Blair Witch Project, I just think it always works. Or maybe all the ones that work become so popular that they’re the projects shot like this that I’ve seen. Could be either. But anyway, this definitely got me excited to watch more Dogme 95 films, because I think completely separately from the intentionality of the camera placement and shot construction, it just looks really cool.

The last element of the movie that I want to discuss is the writing, and really I want to examine the writing through a very small keyhole, being the character of Michael. Perhaps a hot take, but I think Michael is one of the most fascinating characters I’ve ever seen in a movie. Less controversially — I hope — my guy suuuuucks. Terrible person. Just atrocious behavior. A quick and non-exhaustive list of awful things my man does: kicks his wife and children out of the car in order to drive his brother to their destination, making his family walk; some unspecified thing the previous year that was so bad that he was not invited to the event that we’re witnessing; abuses his wife for not packing his correct shoes for him; forces himself on her violently for make-up sex; verbally abuses her some more; is extremely racist towards Helene’s black boyfriend; physically assaults said boyfriend; begins a group sing-along of one of the more racist pieces of songwork I’ve ever encountered; physically assaults his own brother after the brother drops the biggest bombshell of trauma maybe ever; had previously impregnated one of the waitresses when he cheated on his wife with her and then offers to pay her off to stop bothering him; gets blackout drunk; tries to kill father. (He’s maybe justified for the last one.) But wow, wat a godawful demonspawn.

The reason I think he’s the most fascinating character maybe in any movie, is because of the arc that he takes in contrast to the arc that the rest of the movie takes. Michael is clearly set up as the primary antagonist of the first two acts. He acts so vilely and with such despicable vitriol towards every other character, there is very early on no chance for redemption for the character, and indeed, he is not redeemed throughout the movie. And yet. And yet.

I don’t mean to insinuate in any way that there is a way to read into the movie that redeems Michael in any way. But I do think that it is notable — and indicative of remarkable writing — that by the end of the movie, we’ve more or less forgotten about his evilness. It happens almost without anyone noticing. The discomfort of the first act is so entirely taken up with the way Michael treats his family members, and just handles himself more generally. He’s made out to be so low, literally tripping over the pants he has around his ankles as he runs across the lawn to a meeting with his father after having verbally abused and then assaulted his wife. I, personally, was so ready to move forward in the movie with the primary conflict revolving around him and his behavior. But by the time we are in the second act, his racism towards Gbatokai is solidly a secondary plot to the main drama unfolding between Christian and Helge. Don’t get me wrong, sitting through the racist sing-along is unbearable and overwhelms the entirety of the viewer’s attention the whole time it was happening, but it feels distinctly more like a detour than the main road.

Michael’s most abhorrent deeds are certainly front-loaded in the movie, so I don’t think that it would be accurate to completely characterize the phenomenon I’m describing as the main conflict of the story building and overwhelming the conflict that Michael brings as Michael’s behavior remains the same level of unbearable. That isn’t true. He does mellow out into the third act as he and the rest of his family come to terms with the truth of Christian’s accusations and the horrible guilt of Helge. But it is striking how he transforms from the character taking up the most space in the room in every shot he’s in, to taking a backseat as an almost secondary character by the end of the movie. I call him fascinating because I don’t know of another movie in which a character’s vileness has been so thoroughly overshadowed over the course of so little time. And again don’t get me wrong, I don’t mean redeemed when I say overshadowed. Michael isn’t at any point in the film a good person. But Vinterberg manages to upstage him with something even more monstrous, creating an absolute rollercoaster of a relationship that the viewer gets to experience with Michael.

There’s obviously more to the writing, camera work, and performances, and so many other aspects of this movie that make it great, but I hope this discussion has illustrated some of the most striking points that I took away from it.

My rating on Letterboxd: 5/5

My Letterboxd review: “Oof”