The Celebration is a 1998 Danish film whose plot was inspired by a hoax which was broadcast on a Danish radio station. Hearing it inspired director Thomas Vinterberg and Mogens Rukov to write the script. [1] Its original Danish title is Festen , and it was released under this title in the UK. The film tells the story of a family gathering to celebrate their father's 60th birthday. At the birthday dinner, his eldest son publicly accuses him of sexually abusing and raping both him and his twin sister (who had just recently committed suicide). Psychologist Richard Gartner reports that, as of 1999, The Celebration was one of only two feature films he has seen to feature male-male incest as a theme (the other film was the 1996 suspense-thriller Primal Fear ). Additionally, Gartner suggests that the guests' responses to the disclosure of sexual abuse in The Celebration are a vivid depiction of denial. [2]

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Plot

Respected family patriarch and businessman Helge (Henning Moritzen) is celebrating his 60th birthday at their family-run hotel. Gathered together are his loyal wife Elsa, his daughter Helene, his sons Michael (Thomas Bo Larsen) and Christian (Ulrich Thomsen), and other guests. Christian's twin sister, Linda, had recently killed herself at the hotel.

Before the celebration dinner, Helene finds Linda's suicide note, but hides it. Later, during dinner, Christian makes a speech to the family in which he accuses Helge of sexually abusing him and his late sister, Linda. Helge's family and friends initially dismiss the accusations as absurd, a joke, or a figment of Christian's imagination. During a toast, Elsa makes a series of back-handed compliments towards her children, accusing Christian of having an overactive imagination as a child, and asking him to apologize. Christian responds by accusing her of interrupting Helge during a rape. Michael ejects Christian from the hotel.

At the end of the film, Christian's accusations are confirmed when the younger sister, Helene, reads Linda's suicide note. Linda's note states that she had begun to have dreams in which her father was molesting her again, which led to her suicide. Helge admits to the abuse, saying that it was all Christian was good for.

Style

The Celebration 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 the expensive Hollywood-style film-making.

Based on a hoax from a radioshow

A young man, "Allan", from southern Jutland, made up a story about his twin sister, their father owning a hotel, and he himself having been subjected to sexual abuse by his father, and told it on air in a radioshow with the host Keld Koplev, who believed it, and thought it made good radio. Søren Vinterberg heard it, and approached the scriptwriter Mogens Rukov, and together they constructed the plot of the film.

Thomas Vinterberg has subsequently stated during an interview that some years after making the film he was approached by the friend of a female psychiatric nurse who had treated "Allan". She told the director that her friend had confronted her father about his sexual abuse at a family gathering and had told "Allan" about the incident at a later date. When Vinterberg asked to meet the nurse her friend said that she wished to remain anonymous. If this latest story is true it would mean that the film which, for legal reasons, never actually claimed to be based on a true story was in fact, in a roundabout way, based on a real incident.

Critical reception

The Celebration has earned mostly positive reviews. Based on 33 reviews collected by the film review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, 91% of critics gave the film a positive review. ^[3] Roger Ebert gave the film three out of four stars, writing that the film "mixes farce and tragedy so completely that it challenges us to respond at all. [...] Vinterberg handles his material so cannily that we are must always look for clues to the intended tone." ^[4]

Awards

The Celebration won the following awards:

• Amanda Awards, Norway (1998): Best Nordic Feature Film - Thomas Vinterberg
• Bodil Awards (1999):

::* Best Actor - Ulrich Thomsen

:* Best Film - Thomas Vinterberg

• Canberra International Film Festival (1999): Audience Award - Thomas Vinterberg
• Cannes Film Festival (1998): Jury Prize - Thomas Vinterberg (Tied with La Classe de Neige (1998))
• European Film Awards (1998): European Discovery of the Year - Thomas Vinterberg (Tied with Vie rêvée des anges, La (1998))
• Gijón International Film Festival (1998): Best Director - Thomas Vinterberg
• Guldbagge Awards (1999): Best Foreign Film - Thomas Vinterberg
• Independent Spirit Awards (1999): Best Foreign Film - Thomas Vinterberg
• Los Angeles Film Critics Association Awards (1998): Best Foreign Film - Thomas Vinterberg
• Lübeck Nordic Film Days (1998):

::* Audience Prize of the "Lübecker Nachrichten" - Thomas Vinterberg

:* Baltic Film Prize for a Nordic Feature Film - Thomas Vinterberg

:* Prize of the Ecumenical Jury - Thomas Vinterberg

• New York Film Critics Circle Awards (1998): Best Foreign Language Film - Thomas Vinterberg
• Norwegian International Film Festival (1999): Best Foreign Film of the Year - Thomas Vinterberg
• Robert Festival (1999):

::* Best Actor - Ulrich Thomsen

:* Best Cinematography - Anthony Dod Mantle

:* Best Editing - Valdís Óskarsdóttir

:* Best Film - Thomas Vinterberg

:* Best Screenplay - Thomas Vinterberg, Mogens Rukov

:* Best Supporting Actor - Thomas Bo Larsen

:* Best Supporting Actress - Birthe Neumann

• Rotterdam International Film Festival (1999): Audience Award - Thomas Vinterberg
• São Paulo International Film Festival (1998): Honorable Mention - Thomas Vinterberg

Stage adaptations

The Celebration has frequently been adapted for the stage; as of 2008 there have been English, Danish, Dutch, Estonian, German, Afrikaans, Greek, Finnish, French, Italian, Spanish, Swedish, Polish, Czech and Slovenian adaptations.

The English language adaptation, which retains the Danish title Festen , was written by David Eldridge, and 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, Shaftesbury Avenue until April 2005. It commenced a UK tour in February 2006, before transferring to Broadway. Despite its great success in London, it closed after only 49 performances on Broadway, ending on May 20, 2006. It opened in Melbourne, Australia in July 2006 starring Jason Donovan. An Irish production (under the title of 'Festen') ran in the Gate Theatre, Dublin, from September 2006 to November 2006.

In 2006, a Mexican adaptation opened, starring Mexican actor Diego Luna. In September 2007 a Peruvian production opened starring Paul Vega and Hernan Romero under the direction of Chela de Ferrari.

The Company Theatre mounted the Canadian premiere of FESTEN in November 2008 at the Berkeley Street Theatre in Toronto. This production was directed by Jason Byrne and starred Eric Peterson, Rosemary Dunsmore, Nicholas Campbell, Philip Riccio, Allan Hawco, Tara Rosling, Caroline Cave, Richard Clarkin, Earl Pastko, Milton Barnes, Gray Powell and Alex Paxton-Beesley.

See also

• Dogme 95
• Festen (play)
• Nimbus Film
• List of films portraying paedophilia or sexual abuse of minors

References

1. Der var engang en fest
2. Gartner, Richard. 1999. Cinematic Depictions of Boyhood Sexual Victimization (page four of five). ''Gender and Psychoanalysis'' (1999) Volume 4:253-28. Archived from the original on August 19, 2009.
3. The Celebration (1998)
4. The Celebration Review