Festen (1998)

Directed by: Thomas Vinterberg | 105 minutes | drama | Actors: Ulrich Thomsen, Henning Moritzen, Paprika Steen, Thomas Bo Larsen, Birthe Neumann, Trine Dyrholm, Helle Dolleris, Therese Glahn, Klaus Bondam, Bjarne Henriksen, Gbatokai Dakinah, Lasse Lunderskov, Lars Brygmann, Lene Laub Oksen, Linda Laursen

In 1998, the then 29-year-old Vinterberg won the Special Prize of the Jury at the Cannes International Film Festival with ‘Festen’. ‘Festen’ is built according to Dogma 95, a number of rules drawn up by Lars von Trier, Kristian Levring, Soren Kragh Jacobsen and Thomas Vinterberg. These Danish directors made it to the media by presenting Dogma 95 at the film festival just mentioned. Pure filming, without extra sets, without extra lamps and without music, is given the highest priority according to these rules.

This natural camera work can be seen in ‘Festen’. You soon notice the manual way of filming, creating jerky and, it seems, amateurish images. The cinematographer Dodd Mantle used a small digital video camera, which allowed him to slip between the characters and film them from different angles. The aim is to drag the viewer, as a direct spectator, into the situation in which the characters find themselves, which creates a great involvement. In the beginning of the film, many movie viewers will have had to get used to the jerky images, but precisely because of this a tension is generated that has the viewer in its grip from the beginning to the end.

It should be mentioned that ‘Festen’ is especially worth watching without any information about the denouement being known to the viewer in advance. It is precisely through ignorance that it becomes clear that the camera techniques, the course of the story and a handful of fantastic actors have ensured that ‘Festen’ is a penetrating, somewhat shocking, but certainly also moving film that you must see.

Even after a first acquaintance with ‘Festen’, it appears that we are dealing with such a film that continues to fascinate. With his Dogma 95 lines, Vinterberg has proven that a film with a fairly chewed-up subject can be rediscovered, without even having to use the clichéd Hollywood fact.