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BY KAREN E. STEEN |
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The Celebration Not rated, subtitled Now playing There's an old public-speaking trick to get people's attention: Rather than yell, speak quietly. It forces people to shut up and listen. Hollywood filmmakers could take the hint. Trying to provoke bored audiences, they pile on the shootings, car chases and explosions but achieve little emotional engagement. Could it be that the answer to striking a true chord in audiences is simply to reverse these trends? What if tossing out all props, sets, artificial lighting, soundtracks, camera rigs and gratuitous action resulted in some of the rawest, most emotionally striking and discomfiting films ever made? This was the claim Danish directors Lars von Trier (Breaking the Waves) and Thomas Vinterberg made in 1995 when they drew up 10 "vows of chastity" and formed Dogme 95, a school of filmmaking dedicated to wiping chicanery and phoniness out of the art form. Their supreme goal, they declared, was to force the truth out of their characters and settings. The hero of The Celebration, Vinterberg's first film made according to these strictures, sets a comparable goal for himself when he stands up against the time-honored bullshit of his dysfunctional family. Vinterberg cuts to the quick with hand-held cameras, natural sound and lighting, and actors wearing their own clothes. Meanwhile, Christian (Ulrich Thomsen) slices through the artifice of his wealthy, mannered family when he announces to a table of black-tie dinner guests that the honoree, his father Helge (Henning Moritzen), raped him as a child and is responsible for the suicide of his twin sister. The terrain Helge and his guests must subsequently cross is more shocking, harrowing and suspenseful than any effects-laden disaster flick or Bruce Willis-laden political thriller. The members of this family are not what they at first appear to be. Christian--stoic, polished and professional--hardly seems a wounded child or confession junkie. His surviving sister, Helene (Paprika Steen), also appears driven and successful, if slightly neurotic. When her black American boyfriend shows up, to the disgust of her relatives, we see Helene is not the dutiful daughter but the loner who has broken with tradition. Youngest brother Michael (Thomas Bo Larsen) evolves from a racist, braggart wife-beater into the family tastemaker. As this new generation rises to the challenges of the gauntlet Christian has thrown, Helge and his wife, Elsie (Birthe Neuman), a perfectly complacent--and complicit--society matron, see their carefully constructed world heaved into irreversible tumult. Perhaps it was inevitable that this would feel like a real family: The cast, including some of Denmark's finest stage actors, all worked on 29-year-old Vinterberg's first film, The Greatest Heroes. In their fullness, both internally and relationally, the characters remind one of an ensemble directed by Mike Leigh, whose performers must live wholly in character throughout the filmmaking process. Surprising revelations, reversals and shifts in loyalty are consistent and believable despite their abruptness. Michael alternately worships and degrades his older brother. Helene, an excuse-maker and myth-builder among her relatives, is honest and vulnerable with her boyfriend. It is this relationship that lifts another of the family's many veils: Most of its members are institutionally racist. But prejudice emerges as a secondary trait rather than an immediate flag of villainy. The film gestures toward the bigotry and emotional repression of well-off Scandinavians, an attitude of purity and privilege that oppresses its subjects while holding them aloft. It is here that Vinterberg's plot and his cinematic mission meld most seamlessly: in squeezing the truth out of a deeply deceitful institution, be it Danish society or the film industry. By shoving aside their upbringing, Christian and his siblings arrive at real conclusions and finally develop authentic bonds. Likewise, when Vinterberg dispenses with background music and dubious action sequences, it leaves him and his actors free to nail the finer points of pacing and tension. Shot on video and transferred to 35mm film, The Celebration
sometimes looks like a documentary and feels as immediate. With touches
of Cassavetes and Bergman, Vinterberg restores dramatic filmmaking to
a level of craft rarely seen in new movies. Each scene, each performance,
each directorial decision becomes a crucial ingredient in an outstanding
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