Festen = the celebration / Nimbus Film praesenterer ; producer, Birgitte Hald ; manuskript Thomas Vinterberg, Mogens Rukov ; efter idé af Thomas Vinterberg ; Thomas Vinterberg.
Edition:
Director-approved two-Blu-ray edition.
Publisher:
The Criterion Collection,
Copyright Date:
2022
Description:
2 videodiscs (105 min.) : sound, color ; 4 3/4 in. + 1 booklet (20 unnumbered pages : color illustrations ; 16 cm)
Ulrich Thomsen, Henning Moritzen, Thomas Bo Larsen, Paprika Steen, Birthe Neumann, Trine Dyrholm, Helle Dolleris, Therese Glahn. Originally released as a motion picture in 1998. Full screen (1.33:1). Accompanying booklet (20 pages) includes: description of Dogme 95 movement ; the Dogme 95 vow of chastity ; cast and credits list ; How Long Can This Go On? / By Michael Koresky ; reproduction information. Special features: Audio commentary from 2005 featuring Vinterberg; new interview from Vinterberg; two early short films by Vinterberg: Last Round (1993) and The Boy Who Walked Backwards (1995); The Purified, a 2002 documentary about Dogme 95; program in which Vinterbert discusses the real-life inspiration for the film; documentaries featuring members of the cast and crew at the film's premiere in Copenhagen; ADM:DOP, a 2003 documentary of cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantle; deleted scenes; essay by Michael Koresky.
Contents:
disc 1. Feature film -- disc 2. Short films; special features.
Summary:
"The Danish Dogme 95 movement that struck world cinema like a thunderbolt began with The Celebration, Thomas Vinterberg's international breakthrough, a lacerating chamber drama that uses the economic and aesthetic freedom of digital video to achieve annihilating emotional intensity. On a wealthy man's sixtieth birthday, a sprawling group of family and friends convenes at his country estate for a celebration that soon spirals into bedlam, as bombshell revelations threaten to tear away the veneer of bourgeois respectability and expose the traumas roiling beneath. The dynamic handheld camera work, grainy natural lighting, cacophonous diegetic sound, and raw performance style that would become Dogme hallmarks enhance the shattering visceral impact of this caustic indictment of patriarchal failings, which swings between blackest comedy and bleakest tragedy as it turns the sick soul of a family inside out"--Container
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.