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List Price: $14.98Amazon.com's Price: $11.99 You Save: $2.99 (20%)Prices subject to change.
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Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Binding: DVD
Brand: VINTERBERG,THOMAS
EAN: 0025192548222
Format: Color, Dolby, DVD-Video, Full Screen, Subtitled, NTSC
Label: Universal Studios
Manufacturer: Universal Studios
Number Of Items: 1
Publisher: Universal Studios
Region Code: 1
Release Date: July 27, 2004
Running Time: 105 minutes
Sales Rank: 22057
Studio: Universal Studios
Theatrical Release Date: 1998
Editorial Review:
Product Description: No Description Available. Genre: Feature Film-Drama Rating: R Release Date: 8-FEB-2005 Media Type: DVD
Amazon.com: Rising to the challenge of Dogma 95's self-imposed restrictions on aesthetic freedom, Thomas Vinterberg's The Celebration is a remarkable example of the way limits can give rise to creative opportunity. (Dogma 95 is a Danish filmmakers collective that also includes Lars von Trier, director of Breaking the Waves. The group crafted a manifesto in which its members vow to eschew special lighting, optical effects, props, and the visible imprint of a director's personality in order to attain higher truths yielded by characters.) The Celebration, shot with a small video camera and transferred to 35mm film, concerns a black-tie birthday gathering for a family patriarch, Helge (Henning Moritzen), which erodes into a battle after long-suppressed secrets are revealed and the chance to settle old scores presents itself. Among the grievances are an accusation of incest and the responsibility for the death of a child--gruesome stuff, but Vinterberg doesn't characterize the partying crowd's reaction in quite the way one might have expected. In fact, the whole of The Celebration is about unexpected perspectives and vantage points emerging from out of nowhere, largely due to Vinterberg's free hand at editing the film in such a way as to yank truth from every corner. This is a strong work that belies skepticism over Dogma 95's bare-bones trendiness, and is perhaps a harbinger of great work to come from Vinterberg. --Tom Keogh
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating: - Family Implosion...
Danish film with English subtitles. Set in late 1990's. Family and friends return to the family run hotel for the wealthy patriarch's 60th birthday party. Over the birthday dinner, the eldest son, like a calm and cool assassin, shocks the audience with a toast to his Father with the darkest of possible revelations. His Father and Mother make attempts to discredit him. Rather than leaving it at that, he brings more, and then more - - taking his painful revenge and leaving everyone numb. Accusations ... Read More
Rating: - Regardless of Dogma, great film - period!
Has all the elements of a great film. Should be required viewing for family therapists and therapists-in-training; this is a great depiction of a family system in action. Every family member has been (or will be) irrevocably changed by the surfacing of this family "secret." The private and public ways individuals in a family collude to maintain system stasis become obvious. A great artistic achievement, The Celebration happens to serve as a great teaching tool as well.
Could be quite difficult ... Read More
Rating: - A great film, despite being a "Dogma" film....
This is a great film, but it's because of its great acting, writing, and subject matter, not because it was one of the first "Dogma '95" films. Lars von Trier started the Dogma movement in order to get back to "real cinema". As much as I admire Von Trier, this was a boneheaded move, as it forces undue restrictions on filmmakers. There were only a handful of films that were released under this moniker. Von Trier's The Idiots (the only film of his that was approved under Dogma rules), Harmony Korine's julien ... Read More
Rating: - Great
If you haven't ever seen a Dogma film, watch this one first, but I am told that you might not like the rest; This is arguably the best.
Rating: - Dogme #1: the first, and remains the best
One quickly forgets about the camera work or thoughts of video vs. film because the story is so compeling. It's back to the basics of good filmmaking with the twist of handheld DV photography done with great skill.
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