Analysis of 1st Dogme movie - The Celebration(Festen)

Plot
The first Dogme film by Thomas Vinterberg's, The Celebration (Festen), was produced in 1998 and is about a patriarch's 60th birthday celebration. The film basically focuses on the great celebration of the 60’s anniversary of Helge Klingenfeldt-Hansen, patriarch of a high class family, which is composed of him, his wife Else, and four grown-up children: Christian, Linda, Helene and Michael. From the beginning, we learn about the family tragedy: Linda, the twin sister of Christian, has recently committed a suicide. The terrible family secrets are revealed in the end.

Environmental Space: technical resources to introduce the audience to the story

Although some of the scenes intend to relate the past but basically this movie is developed in the present . The director try to not break the rule of 7 forbids Temporal and geographical alienationand in order to keep this feeling of something that happened in the past is reconstruct these past scenes with present scenes always being coherent with the present context.
For instance:
-The scene when Helge is playing with his grandchildren; it could be a record of Christian’s childhood or one of his brothers.
-The suicide of Linda: it is represented at the beginning of the film. Before the party starts, the following actions go on simultaneously in different rooms: Pia is taking a bath and she is lying inside the bath tube, all covered with water. At one moment it could even see that she is drown herself as she suddenly submerges from the water. At this moment Christian is holding a glass with water and is looking at it. While at the same time Michael is also taking shower and slips down on the soap. Finally, Helene and the receptionist are in her room, Helene is finding the signs that her sister left and she asks Lars (the receptionist) to lie inside the bath. By this way, the suicide of Linda, which occurred in the past, is presented with different images in the present. By this mixture of images happening, we are communicated how Linda's brothers and sister experience on subconscious level and from different angles the suicide of their sister.

Referential Space: time and space where the film is developed

The story is located in a hotel near a place named Copenhagen. The entire movie is developed in less than 24 hours: the day of the party, since the guests arrive to the house, the whole night until the next morning. The hotel is grand and big symbolizes the things that look so brilliant from outside can hide terrible things when you get inside them as the family is full of lies and secrets.

These enormous rooms with high ceilings made possible for the director to show the family and the guests from a high point of view and showing them little and insignificant stressing their lack of values and morality as hypocrites.




THEMES
Family relationship-For example the conflict between son and father.

Humiliation and revenge-this theme appears as a consequence of these bad family relationships.

Hypocrisy-We can see from the behaviour of the guest,and also fromElse (the mother), who shows a false faith towards her husband. She seems to be supporting him until the end of the days but, when she get distanced of him just like what the gues did.We perceive this behavior in the last scene, when everybody is having breakfast and the guilty father is asked to leave the table. He looks at her begging her to go with him in that difficult moment but she stays and smiles towards the guests.
Racism-racist behavior among the high class society. Everybody look down  boy friend of Helene because he is black and American, and they demonstrate it with a racist song they sing during the dinner.All of guests who attend to the dinner and the families themselves are always looking for their own benefit.

Suicide-as a consequence of a rich full of lies life.

The superiority feeling of the family towards the servants-The way of Michael treat receptionist and he scold one of his maid


ANALYSIS OF THE REPRESENTATION
Enumeration of the different types of shots

Introductory shots: This shot is used when Helge opens the door towards the dinning room,the camera starts from the back of Helge, and then the shot is opened to show a wider view.The door can represent like the secret of the families are going reveal.

Establishing shots:when the hotel where the birthday party takes place is presented. It is also show the gardens of the house.

Long shot: Inthe first scene of the movie, when Christian is walking towards his father’s celebration; he is coming back to the past, to the old records that he has in his mind.

Medium shot: Used to emphasize the actions of the actors, especially in tension moments where the characters are moving.

Close-up: showing Christian’s hands during the first conversation with his father in the movie. From the movements of his hands, we can see hw nervouse he is, let me know that something is going to happen.When Helen is reading the letter of her sister,camera close up to her mouth

 Extreme close-up: Used to show the face expression.For example when Helene and one of the servants are in Linda’s room, looking for any signal which can help to clarify the reason of her death. They find different signals and draws with the shape of a fish, arrows and, finally, a letter written by Linda.

Overall review of Film

The Celebration," is the first film to be released under Dogme 95,  which requires the director to make the film with a hand-held camera using natural light, and without any sort of special-effects or music score. The main purpose is to provide realism and spontaneity."The Celebration," is an interesting of the first try of Dogme Movie and its lack of technical presentation,filmed with a $2000 palm-sized video camera (that was later transferred to 35mm film) and utilizing no background music, tripods, lighting, nor post-production work, director Thomas Vinterberg has created a feeling of home movie, which was exactly that same as what Lars von Trier did with "Breaking the Waves".

Coming back to the film in question, it is impossible to talk about certain films without delving into their method of production.The
 modern film making which emphasize on technical audiovisual rather than on the performance and the drama itself bring up the Dogme 95 which trying to change, enforcing everything from no special lighting to exclusive use of hand-held cameras to allowing only sound recorded at the moment of filming, played the most significant role in the production of this film.

As a result, initially Festen lacks any charm: grainy DV, blown up to 35mm and shot in 4:3 ratio, gives a feeling somewhere between documentary and amateurish student videos. However, as the story unfolds, it is the drama and not the set that takes centre stage – the DOGME 95 objective in practice.


Check out more for "The Celebration"

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